Recently, I got into an email discussion with Brian C of the Bridesburg Boys and Girls Baseball Baseball League about replays and such. The topic of canonical standards for replays came up. What is considered a REAL replay?
My answer simply was that any replay that the player does that fulfills their particular ideals and standards is fine given time restraints and access to data. As with many things with APBA, it is what you make it. The main thing is that you have fun with it.
Now, I can hear some of you replay and simulation purists groaning out there. “But it’s not a real replay unless you use the full roster”. “And what about actual pitching rotations?”
Stop it. Plenty of fun can be had replaying a season while not paying strict attention to these details.
That said, it is true APBA fans do get a sense of “realism” when they pull this data up and use it when they replay a baseball season. The issue is obtaining information such as schedules, stats, game logs especially when it comes to past seasons. I’m hoping to part with some of the information and research web sites out there that might come in handy when doing a replay. Some of you will be all too familiar with these sites and may have your own favorites (please share!).
But let’s get the ball rolling.
Past Seasons
There’s no doubt in my mind that the best baseball stat site out there is Baseball Reference. I use it on a daily basis. For those doing replays, it has multiple uses. For seasons going back to the beginning of baseball, you can look up stats for every player cross-referenced by team. Also useful for replayers are box scores which you can look up (I believe this goes back to the 1920s).
B-R also has postseason and All-Star stats and box scores for those looking for that kind of data.
Retrosheet is another site worth looking at. This organization has a very worthy cause (if you’re a baseball history nut). If you see a baseball web site with loads of historical data, there’s a good chance they are getting their data from Retrosheet. Like Baseball Reference, you can browse historical box scores not to mention lots of other very interesting data (totally off topic but they list every time a batter has batted out of turn… fascinating!)
Most importantly, Retrosheet allows you to download data files including schedules (yay!), game logs and “Play-by-play” files.
Note: as I understand it, the schedules that Retrosheet has are the original planned schedules. Baseball Reference can give you the game log (the actual games played). Here is an example from the 1999 Cubs.
For those who want all the baseball stats so they can sort or filter them, Sean Lahman at baseball1.com has a free download of a data file which “includes individual and team stats for Major League Baseball seasons from 1871-2010”. He also has a good writeup on the History of MLB Schedules.
For those who are into the advanced baseball statistics, check out Fangraphs. In addition to current day MLB, they have access to stats going back to the 19th century.
Modern Day Baseball
For modern day baseball (the last few years), the more mainstream sites do a pretty good job (though quite honestly, Baseball Reference is still my first stop since I like their interface so much).
MLB.com has really responded to the needs of fantasy baseball (and APBA baseball fans) and souped up their stats area in the last 5-6 years. They now have a sortable player stats section which also goes back a few years.
ESPN’s baseball stats area is there but I honestly don’t use it much. It goes back at least 10 years.
I still have a soft spot for USA Today’s baseball stats section for current baseball stats. The reason?? Okay, it’s not fancy and it doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles but it’s one of the few places you can go where you can get a listing of one league’s stats (every player) on one page. No clicking back and forth. The same goes for the listing of box scores for the day (if you expand them).
I’d love to hear if there are others I’ve missed. I’m sure there are plenty. If you do a season replay, what resources (online or otherwise) do you use??
