I’ve working with APBA baseball stats lately. First, our 30 game stats were due from our league weekend a week ago. As much as I like doing stats, compiling stats from 30 game score sheets is quite a chore.
Second, during our league weekend, Tedd M whispered to me that our Illowa APBA League player register hasn’t been updated for this year. That’s his way of saying, “Tom, get on it”. So I did. While I did, I compiled our all-time leaders. All that talk about stats being a chore? That doesn’t hold for doing all-time leaders. I love doing those. Sorting and filtering in Excel and finding out who in the history of our league is the BEST ever in every category. That’s a blast.
I wrote up a summary of the project over at IAL website complete with links to the all-time leaders and registry.
But both of those tasks did raise questions that I’m sure every APBA player probably asks themselves at one point.
1. Decide beforehand what stats to keep
Whether you’re starting a league or doing an individual replay or project, plan what which statistics you plan to keep (and retain). In its beginning, the IAL went several years (back in the 70s) without keeping strikeout and walk totals for hitters. Those numbers are gone forever since even if we cared enough to go back to scoresheets and recount, they are gone.
Take a poll. Decide what’s important. Do you want to keep track of fielding errors? Decree it from the beginning and be done with it. HBP not important? Fine, don’t worry about it.
Computer players, of course don’t have to worry because stat programs will aggregate everything for you but for the rest of us, we have to make those decisions. The IAL for instance, does not keep CS statistics. The primary reason in my mind, is because we play the basic game and the basic game doesn’t provide a accurate reflection of that stat. If we played the Master Game, it might be a different story.
2. Make sure everyone is on the same page
On a similar vein, make sure every manager in your league (or person involved in the project) is standardized to every statistic. If you’re in a league, make it part of the constitution. A former manager in our league didn’t keep hitters’ strikeouts back in the day reportedly because it was a “negative statistic”. He eventually came on board but again, you can’t get those stat numbers back and if a historically accurate archive is important, that kind of thing can bug you.
3. What is considered a “qualifying” player?
Ok, this probably ranks low on the importance factor but I agonize over it. Let’s take an example from the IAL:
Who are the all-time ERA champions of the Illowa APBA League?
Is it…
| Player | ERA |
| Catfish Hunter | 3.11 |
| Bert Blyleven | 3.44 |
| Jim Palmer | 3.50 |
| Ken Forsch | 3.50 |
| Steve Carlton | 3.50 |
| Jeff Reardon | 3.51 |
| Mario Soto | 3.56 |
| Orel Hershiser | 3.56 |
| Ron Guidry | 3.56 |
| Vida Blue | 3.57 |
or is it?
| Player | ERA |
| Bert Blyleven | 3.44 |
| Jim Palmer | 3.50 |
| Ken Forsch | 3.50 |
| Steve Carlton | 3.50 |
| Orel Hershiser | 3.56 |
| Ron Guidry | 3.56 |
| Vida Blue | 3.57 |
| Greg Maddux | 3.59 |
| Dave Stieb | 3.60 |
| Brandon Webb | 3.60 |
The difference? Just 200 innings. I made the innings requirement 1000 innings for the first set and 1200 innings for the second. With a history going back to 1975, the IAL has plenty of big numbers to work with (Carlton and Hershiser are both 3000 inning pitchers) but I didn’t want to leave out a “Sandy Koufax”-type pitcher who did well in perhaps a shorter term… like Hunter. The drawback is that we get relief pitchers like Reardon thrown into the mix which isn’t traditional for lack of a better description.
I had similar issues with hitting stats when relative IAL newcomer Joe Mauer was showing up in the all-time batting average and on-base percentage lists.
Granted, this is not the make-all break-all worst problem that a league can face but it’s food for thought.
Finally, while we’re on the topic of stats, I just leave this here. It’s a score sheet I use for my league and replay games. Some of you might find it handy. It’s in MS Word format. It even has a spot in the upper right hand corner to put your team name or logo if you want.
There are most certainly other stat related issues that leagues and replayers can run up against (one I have successfully avoided was what method to use to store and display them). I’m looking forward to hearing what other have to say about pressing issues with stats especially with leagues and replays.
What does MLB use as its benchmarks? We’ve got enough history in the IAL that we could just pick the same numbers.
There appear to be no standards on minimums for career rate statistics specified in the official rules of MLB.
Baseball Reference uses “minimum of 1000 IP, 3000 PA, 500 games (fielding), 200 stolen base attempts (catchers) or 100 decisions for career and active leaderboards for rate statistics.”
I actually did check out B-R’s requirements when I did this. That’s a good starting point.
However, that might be a bit strict for leagues even like IAL that have been around for while because of player usage. Even Hall of Fame players have down years in real life when they may not have been played for their league team. I know that goes for Tom Glavine for me.
Wait, did I just call Tom Glavine a HOF player? (I’m just trolling DonS now)