Feature Watch: Player Batting Gamelogs
Posted by Neil Paine on September 28, 2009
Today we're going to talk a little about the individual batting gamelogs, which are by no means new here at Baseball Reference, but at the same time are tools that I think we can continually stand to learn new things about. To access a batter's gamelogs, go to his main page, point to "Game Logs [+]" under the "Standard Batting" table, and select the logs you want to look at.
The first instinct is to skip down to the table containing the logs, but first you should notice the stats right above that section -- you can see the team's record in the batter's appearances, his longest hit and on-base streaks of the period covered by the logs, his most consecutive games without a HR or an RBI, his total # of grand slams (along with the number of times he came up with the bases loaded and his # of ABs with the sacks jacked), his go-ahead hits, and a very nifty RBI opportunity feature that gives you data like this:
RBI Opportunities Albert Pujols -- PA: 668 RBI: 129 Actual Runners on Base: 449 (233-133-83), ML Avg. Player with PA: 668 RBI: 76 Avg. Runners on Base: 420 (207-139-73)
You have to admit, that's cool. Now, let's move on to the real meat and potatoes of this exercise, the gamelogs themselves. As usual, you have the option to sort by each header with a click, you can share the data with our new share tool, convert to .csv or <pre> formats, or direct link to the logs. But you can also sum rows within the gamelog, which can come in extraordinarily handy when looking at streaks and in-season splits... For instance, you can use this function to isolate Prince Albert's stretch in June and early July when he OPS-ed 1.560, or the two-week span in April/May when he hit .438 with 7 HR.
How did I do that? I simply clicked on the row containing the first game of the period I wanted to isolate, saw that it turned blue, and clicked the row with the last game of the period. If done successfully, all of the rows in between will turn blue, and a box will pop up containing the stats over the highlighted stretch of games, including pro-rated stats per 162 games (had Pujols played the whole season like he did during that stretch, he'd have 88 home runs). The box also gives you the option of closing, or closing and clearing the selection; when the latter is chosen, no rows are blue and you're free to make another selection, while when the former is chosen, you can create a new endpoint by clicking on another row. And as always, you can share your finding with the permanent link option.
And there's more! Note the columns marked "Gcar" and "Gtm", and the red numbers beneath. These are running totals of the # of games played by the player in his career, and the # of games played by the team in the season. Clicking on each will yield a cumulative total through the game in the selected row. For instance, St. Louis' July 4 game vs. the Reds was the Cardinals' 83rd game of the 2009 season, and by clicking on the red "83" you get a pop-up box telling you that Pujols was hitting .336/.460/.744 for the season through that game. That game also represented the 1,321st of Pujols' storied career, and by clicking on the red "1321" under the "Gcar" column, you can see all of Pujols' cumulative career totals through that game (for instance, he drew his 761st career walk that day). Do this with any player to see how their season and career batting lines change over the course of a year.
Finally, click on the "more tricks" link to go to the bottom of the page and explore other cool highlighting functions. Putting different strings in the URL will even allow you to sum nonconsecutive games (like this), which provides for the possibility of summing multiple weeks, months, and more. And be sure to check out the Tutorial Video for Gamelog Features & Tools to learn even more about "hidden" gamelog functions. Have fun!