Simon & Garfunkel
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you
Wu wu wu
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson
Jolting Joe has left and gone away
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey
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Baseball Reference: suggestions for improvement. Thursday, July 4, 2019
Baseball Reference is my favorite website. I have subscribed to it for many years. However, it's presentation of data sometimes has a fundamental flaw: the data is not discrete, i.e., two pieces of data are combined into one
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Discrepancies in Times Facing Opponent in Game. Sunday, July 14, 2019
Further checking on DiMaggio shows that for his career his "Times Facing Opponent in Game" numbers are off:
AB 5.18%
HR 7.20%
1941 is the only one of DiMaggio's 13 seasons for which baseball-reference.com does not show any discrepancy in this data. Click this link to view details of all 13 seasons and career totals with enhancements...
DiMaggio's HR are off in 8 seasons and three of those by 5 HR:
1936 17.24%: 5/29
1946 20%: 5/25
1950 15.63%: 5/32
A future post may match DiMaggio's PA to his HR log, maybe for 1950. His first 1950 home run is in a game in which DiMaggio batted five times: twice against the starter and once against each of three relief pitchers. He homered in PA 4 against relief pitcher Mickey Harris. (vs. RP, 1st) That's obvious by casual observation.
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This is not that future post because the problem is more insidious than first thought.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/event_finder.cgi?request=1&year=1936&year_to=1951&id=dimagjo01&divisory=1&from=button&type=b&event=23
Batting Event Finder — Joe DiMaggio
Event data is complete back to 1974 and mostly complete back to 1950.
Many detailed statistics are based on play-by-play accounts accumulated by Retrosheet. These totals may be incomplete (3.6% of all plays from 1925 to 1973 are missing or have incomplete accounts, click link for year and team summary of data completeness) for some players prior to 1974 and even complete seasons may not match the official totals due to errors in both the official totals and the play-by-play accounts. Pre-1954 seasons have a substantial numbers of games missing play-by-play accounts and should be viewed as essentially incomplete.
Joe DiMaggio: 335 Home Runs in 1936-1951
| G | PA | R | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | IBB | SO | HBP | SH | SF | ROE | GDP | WPA | RE24 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 323 | 361 | 593 | 361 | 361 | 0 | 0 | 361 | 593 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 4.000 | 5.000 | 43.9 | 1.01 | 507 |
| Cr# | Yr# | Gm# | Date | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Pit(cnt) | RBI | WPA | RE24 | Play Description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1936-05-10 | NYY | PHA | George Turbeville | tied 0-0 | b1 | 1-- | 1 | 2 | 0.15 | 1.71 | 1.13 | Home Run; Rolfe Scores | |
| 2 | 2 | 1 | 1936-05-24 | NYY | @PHA | Herman Fink | ahead 2-16 | t6 | --- | 0 | 1 | 0.00 | 1.00 | .00 | Home Run |
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Home Run Log
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/event_hr.fcgi?id=dimagjo01&t=b
Many detailed statistics are based on play-by-play accounts accumulated by Retrosheet. These totals may be incomplete (3.6% of all plays from 1925 to 1973 are missing or have incomplete accounts, click link for year and team summary of data completeness) for some players prior to 1974 and even complete seasons may not match the official totals due to errors in both the official totals and the play-by-play accounts. Pre-1954 seasons have a substantial numbers of games missing play-by-play accounts and should be viewed as essentially incomplete.
Summary of 361 Home Runs
| 1936 | #car | #yr | #gm | Date | @Bat | Pitcher | Score | Inn | Out | RoB | RBI | BOP | Pos | WPA | bWE | Notes | Play Description | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1936-05-10 | NYY | PHA | George Turbeville | tied 0-0 | b 1 | 1 | 1-- | 2 | 3 | 7 | 0.147 | 70% | Home Run; Rolfe Scores | ||
| 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1936-05-20 | NYY | @ | DET | Schoolboy Rowe | t 6 | 1 | 3 | 7 | |||||||
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1936-05-24 | NYY | @ | PHA | Herman Fink | ahead 16-2 | t 6 | 0 | --- | 1 | 3 | 7 | 0.000 | 100% | Home Run |
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We can't say we weren't warned. We even get the warning when it's not needed: for Reggie Jackson 1973, his MVP season, which contains all his data. Maybe that's one reason that the warning doesn't sink in.
In case you didn't notice, one of Joe DiMaggio's missing home runs is the second one he ever hit in the big leagues. Cruise back up to the event finder and you will see that the homer off Schoolboy Rowe is missing. Down below that in the Home Run Log, the Schoolboy's gopher ball is documented, although not fully and that's the issue. That bit of baseball data is derived and baseball-reference.com doesn't like derived data.
You can descend into the minutia of Retrosheet derived data by clicking the links in the black backgrounds above.
baseball-reference.com has much more data than it displays. The Home Run data is the most prominent example but it applies to all types of plate appearances.
At the very least when presenting home run data baseball-reference.com could use the Home Run Log but it doesn't, consistency being a hobgoblin of minds, both little and great.
How can we users resolve? Not easily, not easily.
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