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[ Baseball Digest Daily ]Frequently Asked Questions
Where do you get this data? The Minor League Baseball official site publishes game logs of every Minor League game. I wrote a program to parse those logs into something that closely resembles Retrosheet game logs. I wrote another program to generate these stat tables from those game logs.
Why aren't the stats more up-to-date? The MiLB official site occasionally updates game logs a day or two after the fact to reflect offical scorer changes and the like. For the reason, I never process game logs less than three days old. I've devised a work-around for that, but I haven't written the code yet. I hope that at some point (certainly by opening day, 2007), I'll be able to update stats each morning for the previous night's games.
Can I help? I really appreciate the offers of help I've received, but the answer is probably no. I've automated most every step of the process, so while I have to sit around and make sure my computer doesn't explode while processing each day's worth of data, there isn't much else to maintaining the thing.
Can you send me a spreadsheet of your data? I'm sorry, no. For one thing, I don't even have it organized as a single spreadsheet--or in any one singly accessible way other than what you see here. After all, we're talking about several thousand tables. At some point in the future--probably after the season ends--I may make the game logs available for other researchers.
Why don't you include ERA? With split stats, ERA is somewhat nonsensical. Earned runs are usually the result of a series of plays, while split stats break down to the at-bat level. Also, earned runs are determined partially by the decision of the official scorer--something not included in the game logs. It would add a great deal of work for me to track those.
What about RBI? I could approximate RBI very easily, but expanding my program to recognize those situations in which runs scored are not RBIs would be well-nigh impossible, as that is sometimes a subjective scorer's decision. I suppose I could get RBI data from the boxscore and make an educated guess, but that's all it would be.
Do you track defensive data? For the most part, yes. Occasionally the game logs do not include defensive data for a few plays, and there are also a few types of plays that my program doesn't yet fully parse. (Mostly pickoff moves and errors on pickoff moves, and rundowns where at least four fielders handle the ball.) Eventually I'll extract some sort of defensive stats from that, but it's not a high priority at this time.
How do you adjust for park? For an explanation of my method, click here. For current park factors, click here.
How do you calculate Minor League Equivalencies? For an explanation of my method, click here.
What's next for the MLSD?
I'm not putting a deadline on any of these things, since every aspect of this project that I've completed so far has taken longer than I anticipated. But you can look forward to at least some of the following:
- Defensive data, perhaps including some approximation of Zone Rating
- Further separation of base- and out-situations
- Player stats adjusted for park Done!
- Major League Equivalency stats for all players Done!
- Stats separated by lineup position and defensive position Done!
- The ability to view a player's cumulative statistics across various Minor League levels Done!
- Batted-ball data extended to include where each batted ball went. Done!
- And much more....