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Caribbean Series year articles question

So I was looking at some articles on various years of the Caribbean Series, and two things about the numbering in the lead jumped out at me. Firstly, they're inconsistent in numbering the editions, with the 2013 edition being labeled as the 55th, but the 2018 edition claiming to be the 56th. Obviously, someone miscounted somewhere. Secondly, they use Roman numerals for editions, which is plainly against MOS:NUM. I think that's probably because they were written/translated by Spanish-speaking editors as Roman numerals for ordinal numbers is common in Latin languages, but is not used in English. As I don't know which set of number is correct (as per the first part of my comment) I don't feel confident in changing the articles, but I felt the need to mention it somewhere. oknazevad (talk) 17:37, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

@Oknazevad: I did fix the number in the first sentence of the 2018 article which was wrong. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:48, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Ray Van Cleef

Ray Van Cleef won the College World Series Most Outstanding Player Award in 1950. I intend to expand the article with more info about his role in strength training, but I don't know much about baseball. You may or may not want to expand it. Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 20:42, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Shortcut to baseball style advice page

@Bagumba:: You created a new shortcut to Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball/Style advice, WP:BASESTYLE, and it was substituted for the long-standing WP:BASEBALLSTYLE shortcut (that you had originally created) at the top of the style advice page. I don't understand the accompanying edit comment; can you clarify why you made the change? Personally I think the original shortcut is more straightforward, less ambiguous, and easier to remember.

Upon re-reading the edit comment, I understand now you are saying the shortcut was unused. Given that most shortcuts go unused, I don't see this as a big reason to try a different one. (I'd venture to say that WP:BASEBALLSA was probably only used by me.) My personal preference is to not use the shortcuts anyway, but I realize that lots of people like having them. isaacl (talk) 16:25, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) WP:BASEBALLSTYLE had no incoming links, so nobody has referenced it. I figured WP:BASESTYLE is shorter and could therefore be potentially better. At any rate, the redirect was not deleted, just no longer displayed, so can still be used if someone still wanted. My real motivation was to start a shortcut WP:BASESTYLEPL for the player-specific page, as WP:BASEBALLSTYLEPL would be still longer. WP:2SHORTCUTS used to be thing to limit showing just 2 ahortcuts; it's been laxed now, though I still think it's a nice rouugh goal; we could just cave in and list 3.—Bagumba (talk)
I think two shortcuts is more than enough (even just one is sufficient for me), so I wouldn't favour listing three. Personally I weigh memorability over shortness, so still prefer WP:BASEBALLSTYLE and probably WP:BASEBALLPLAYERSTYLE. (If not for this conversation, I'd probably never remember a PL-suffix.) But since my usual mode of operation is to visit the page to double-check it and then copy the title, I rarely use shortcuts. isaacl (talk) 16:45, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
FWIW, WP:BASESTYLE is also in line with the first-listed baseball notability shortcut, WP:NBASE. And I would just use BBSTYLE if not for similiarity to WP:BB.—Bagumba (talk) 16:59, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Baseball hall of fame infobox

I'm kind of embarrassed by how we're presenting HOF results through the infobox. We don't have one. Check out 2019 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting. Editors have put pictures in a table. Among many issues, they ignore the Frick and Spink winners.

There is no existing infobox that I'm aware of that can handle this for us. So, I've begun drafting one at Draft:Infobox baseball hall of fame. Please let me know what you think and feel free to make your own edits. My thoughts from here are to (a) make separate entries for each method of entry (BBWAA1, BBWAA2, etc.) ordered by percentages, (b) add parameter for vote percentages, and (c) differentiate the Veterans Committee based on the four subcategories: Early Baseball (1871–1949), Golden Days (1950–1969), Modern Baseball (1970–1987), and Today's Game (1988 and later). – Muboshgu (talk) 20:16, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your initiative. Would you like the infobox to be discussed here or on the talk page for the draft? isaacl (talk) 01:20, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Maybe here is best? Thanks for your edits. Those definitely helped. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:04, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
No problem; I copied what I did for {{Infobox MLB yearly}} to implement automatically generating the link target for the next and previous years. However it's probably too generalized; it allows for a different target to be specified, which for the team season infobox is used when a team changes name or moves. I left it in case I'm missing something, but I think the balloting pages should all be consistently named? If so then I can simplify the template code.
I'm not sure I see a need for the announcement dates. My rule of thumb for infoboxes is that they should contain information that is essential for a concise summary of the subject. I don't feel that the dates are essential. What does everyone else think? isaacl (talk) 03:06, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
Inthink announcement dates are actually more significant than the date of the formal induction. At the very least, the announcements get more news coverage than the induction ceremonies. That is the point when we know who has been elected, after all. Just as Election Day is at least as notable as Inauguration Day, same with the Hall of Fame. oknazevad (talk) 03:18, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
isaacl and Oknazevad are both right to a certain extent. Leading up to the election, people are interested in when the announcements will take place. After the induction, the most imporatant thing is who was elected, possibly the induction date. I don't know if there is an elegant way to make the infobox dynamic over time. Otherwise, I'd err towards its long-term encyclopedic state of not having the announcement dates in the infobox. For the body, be wary of WP:PROSELINE.—Bagumba (talk) 05:25, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Inductees section Until the induction ceremony, these are technically "Electees". Also, does it still hold that Frick and Spink winners were not technically "inducted" or "Hall of Famers", and just "honorees"? The Hall of Fame website used to say as much: A Hall of Famer is a former player, manager, executive, pioneer or umpire who has been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. An honoree is a J.G. Taylor Spink Award winner (writers) or a Ford C. Frick Award winner (broadcasters).[1] Regarding Muboshgu's comment about Frick and Spink winner being ignored by editors, it could also be an indication that including them in the infobox would be WP:UNDUE, as they dont get as much fanfare in the press either.—Bagumba (talk) 05:51, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

When mentioning who actually participates as an honoree or inductee (I don't think all secondary sources, even by professional baseball writers are as care as the HOF in this distinction) in the ceremony they do tend to get mentioned and so do belong in the infobox. The weight of coverage is probably better reflected in text rather than infobox. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:49, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Help with Veracruz Winter League Wikidata

Hi WikiProject Baseball,

I need some help with something because I have no idea how to correct a mistake on Wikidata.

I have noticed that Veracruz Winter League is linked to Liga Veracruzana Estatal de Béisbol on Spanish Wikipedia, which is incorrect. Liga Veracruzana Estatal de Béisbol is the youth league: the actual Winter League is Liga Invernal Veracruzana. I am set to make a full scale edit of the Veracruz Winter League page (it's completely wrong and massively undercited) but before that, I would like to have the Wikidata correct.

I hope you can help,

RallyXEditor (talk) 17:20, 2 February 2019 (UTC

@RallyXEditor:  Done Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:27, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Height and weight

1) Should we list height and weight in the infobox (or elsewhere)?

We do this already for some ballplayers now in the lead (Mike Trout, Robinson Canó, Nolan Arenado, Buster Posey, Xander Bogaerts, George Springer, Brandon Crawford, Max Scherzer, Corey Kluber, and so on).

2) If it is ok to do it with some but not all ballplayers, what are the criteria that call for it?

3) If this is relevant, shouldn't it be part of the baseball player infobox? Just like the infoboxes for a hockey player, and cricketer, and climber infobox, and bowler (height), and cyclist infobox, and field hockey player, and lacrosse player, and rugby player? Etc. --2604:2000:E010:1100:3E:8F43:CF3E:BE3F (talk) 18:27, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't think we should list this as weight fluctuates during a players career so it becomes an arbitrary choice.. do we list the weight at the start of his career? at the end? an average? It's also not really a notable factor for baseball players as much as it is for basketball and football. Spanneraol (talk) 18:42, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
I would suggest that perhaps we only include it for active players thus avoiding the issue Spanneraol alludes to. For some other players this information would be in the article text since it might be important in how they were described at the time - for instance Randy Johnson but the active players only is probably a clean rule for infobox purposes. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:56, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
As background, I believe this is the last discussion on listing height and weight. There was no consensus last time that size was sufficiently significant to include. I recall commenting on this topic but it must have been in an earlier discussion. I thought at the time that the two are notoriously reported inaccurately by teams, but can provide a general indication to readers regarding the appearance of a player. isaacl (talk) 19:46, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
I would be in favor of including this information for all players. As was indicated in the prior discussion, most other baseball encyclopedias include a player's listed height and weight, even after they are retired. I would recommend having a "listed height" and "listed weight" and the optional fields to include a footnote for either measure if there is a discrepancy, similar to what is used on Template:Infobox basketball biography. Cubbie15fan (talk) 22:01, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
I generally remove it from article leads when I come across it. It's often inaccurate, a listing on MLB.com from earlier in the player's career that hasn't been updated. And, with exceptions like Randy Johnson, Jon Rauch, José Altuve, and Eddie Gaedel, it's generally not at all important. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:51, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

MLB infobox stats question

During the past couple of days, I've been working on the backlog in Category:Pages using baseballstats with non-numeric value in cube parameter. I also just came across the Mike Moustakas article and noticed that the infobox stats had not been updated through the end of the previous season. Here is my question: if it is technically possible to have a category of articles that have a non-numeric value in a template parameter, would it also be possible to harvest information from the stat_year field in Template:Infobox baseball biography in order to populate a list of articles that have not been updated recently? Lepricavark (talk) 16:47, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

I had suggested that Cube (and a few others) be removed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Baseball/Archive_43#Baseballstats_template per WP:NOTLINKFARM.—Bagumba (talk) 11:07, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
That's kind of a separate issue from my question, and I don't see a compelling reason to remove any of them anyway. I'd even argue that we should start adding Retrosheet links to player articles. We're not going to cause any harm by providing our readers with 6-8 links. They aren't taking up much space in the articles anyway. Lepricavark (talk) 21:18, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
It's related in that if there was agreement to delete Cube, it wouldn't need to be cleaned up. But I guess there is no consensus on whether NOLINKFARM applies.—Bagumba (talk) 04:51, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Negro league teams in MLB player infobox

@Yankees10 and Cubbie15fan:For quite a few months now, I have been watching a slow-mo edit war removing/adding Negro league teams from the infobox of MLB players. The removal always cites Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball/Player style advice. Can we settle this here? The quoted page states "teams – for all post-integration era players who played in one of the following leagues, list only teams in these leagues: Major League Baseball, Nippon Professional Baseball, KBO League". Note the phrase "post-integration". Case in point is the most recent revert, Larry Doby. The Newark Eagles were pre-integration. I would appreciate other opinions on this, and hopefully the style advice can be clarified. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 05:48, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

@Bison X:Thank you for making a point to start a discussion on this issue. So that others can join in a discussion, I'll to summarize what has happened up to this point as best as I can. Back in November 2018 I added Negro League team information to the infobox of the following MLB players: Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, Minnie Miñoso, Larry Doby, Don Newcombe, Elston Howard, Ernie Banks, and Willie Mays. Since that time, the Negro League team information has been removed from each player except for Jackie Robinson. When I added the information, I was unaware of Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball/Player style advice as it specifically related to the inclusion or exclusion based on the phrase "post-integration".
With that being said, I don't see any reason to exclude this information from the infobox. Because each of these players were unable to immediately sign with a MLB club given race-relations at this time in history, I find it disingenuous to exclude these and other MLB players' time spent on a Negro League team even after Robinson's debut with the Dodgers. While his debut is obviously significant, excluding Negro League team information for these other players discounts their experiences in getting to the major leagues. Some teams such as the Phillies, Tigers, and Red Sox didn't have a black player on their major league roster until more than 10 years after Robinson's debut with the Dodgers. The slow integration of baseball resulted in many black players making their professional debut with a Negro League team. Cubbie15fan (talk) 20:33, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
Cubbie15fan, I think you lay out the reasoning well and I would agree that players who played in both the Negro Leagues and MLB should have their Negro League playing recognized in the infobox. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:31, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Pre-1950 only. And it's Negro league. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 01:37, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
@Bison X: Could you elaborate why only Pre-1950? Seems like an arbitrary cut-off. Cubbie15fan (talk) 02:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Sure. After Jackie Robinson integrated baseball in 1948, fans, media and player talent abandoned the Negro leagues for the Majors. By 1950, the very purpose of the Negro leagues had evaporated and they could be considered nothing more than double- or triple-A ball, or possibly an antiquated novelty. Therefore, only the "major league" variation belong in the MLB info box. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 04:21, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Bison X: So to name one prominent example under this standard we would not include Hank Aaron's negro league career. Not saying yeah or nay just pointing out an example of someone who would be affected by that standard. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:41, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
No on Aaron. In '52 the Clowns, and all of the NAL, were nothing more than just another minor league circuit with a few hanger-ons. By then, most experienced and/or quality players were pirated by integrated teams. And it's Negro league. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 05:33, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
I think the logic here is flawed because the level of play shouldn’t be considered. I see the issue as black players not having the same opportunity to be signed by a major league team even after Robinson’s debut as reason enough to include any and all Negro league experience in the infobox. By using the same logic that the level of play for Negro league teams was below that of Major League teams, why include NPB, KBO, and time spent on the 2018 Baltimore Orioles (/s) in the infobox? During this time in history, structures existed that forced players through to the Negro leagues and that should be recognized. The structures didn’t come down all at once and for that reason I see no reason to exclude this information. Cubbie15fan (talk) 18:34, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
NPB and KBO are top flight leagues in their region.. while the Negro leagues after integration were not. And the sourcing as mentioned below is a bit questionable. However, if we limit it to just players that later played in MLB then the field of players at issue here is not that big and can be decided on a case by case basis. Spanneraol (talk) 03:18, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
I would oppose minor league-caliber teams in the list of Major League teams played for. Where is this arbitrary date? --Bison X (talk) 11:39, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Here is a list of Negro leaguers who also played in the Majors. There are only 70 or so, so it is easy to determine who is pre- and who is post-integration. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 17:51, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
  • My concern with adding Negro league info to the infobox is the inconsistency among websites about the info. The only thing I would support would be to add the teams, even though I've noticed slight differences with the years among sites. The stats are just way too inconsistent to add. -- Yankees10 23:49, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
^^Agree. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 07:05, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Just an fyi, as the one who wrote the phrase in question from the player style advice, I worded it that way because I was unaware of any previous discussion or consensus about how to handle Negro leaguers. As far as I know, we can consider the issue now from scratch, without reference to any pre-existing consensus. isaacl (talk) 01:49, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Isaacl, that's helpful to know. Even with this guidance I think the baseline you came-up with is correct. If we want to be more specific and go to Bison's 1950 line, I haven't seen anything that would convince me that is bad. I do also agree with Yankees10 that we should be talking about teams only - that stats are not reliable enough for inclusion on the whole. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:53, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Updating the style advice

Is it preferred to list the Negro league teams in the same list as the MLB teams, or should there be separate sections for NgL teams & MLB teams (see Satchel Paige)? I understand there may be one or two exceptions, but in general which would be preferred? Also, just to state the obvious, minor league NgL teams should not be listed. Would someone like to update the page? Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 05:26, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Once a consensus is reached, I can update the player style advice page. At this point I think more discussion still needs to take place. isaacl (talk) 05:30, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
I'd agree with you that it should be like the Paige example. Spanneraol (talk) 13:26, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Let me suggest that if Negro league teams are to be listed separately, the same should be done with NPB and KBO teams across all players. NatureBoyMD (talk) 14:08, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
^^Agree. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 18:28, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
One thing with the Paige page is that he was notorious for changing teams on a whim (i.e., $$) several times each season, so I would think he may be outside the norm. (Actually, he might benefit from a "See text" note in his infobox.)
Otherwise, I would suggest limiting teams in the infobox to those in the NNL1, ECL, ANL, EWL, NSL (1932 only), NNL2, NAL (up to 1950ish). (See Negro_league_baseball#Negro_major_leagues for full league names). I don't believe anyone who played in both the NgL & MLB played prior to 1920 (which is before formal leagues were formed), so that period need not be addressed. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 18:28, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps someone can make a concrete proposal with specific wording (with full names, please)? The style advice already specifies that NPB and KBO teams should be listed, so I'm not sure what is meant by "same should be done with NPB and KBO teams". Some people have advocated extended the advice only for those who have played in MLB; others have suggested a cutoff date. isaacl (talk) 19:07, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

As in, where a player has appeared in MLB and NPB and/or KBO, their MLB teams would be under a heading, KBO teams under a separate header, etc. Similar to the three sections in Satchel Paige's infobox. NatureBoyMD (talk) 20:53, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Proposed change (draft):

teams – for all pre-integration era players who played on both a Negro league (NgL) team and MLB team, list only teams in these leagues: Negro National League (I) (1920–31), Eastern Colored League (1923–28), American Negro League (1929), East-West League (1932), Negro Southern League (I) (1932 only, otherwise was a minor league), Negro National League (II) (1933–48), Negro American League (1937–50, after 1950 considered a minor league)
  • Exceptions for individual players may be reached by consensus on the article's talk page.
for all post-integration era players who played in one of the following leagues, list only teams in these leagues: Major League Baseball, Nippon Professional Baseball, KBO League
  • teams from different leagues should be separated under different headings (don't know how to word this, but the Paige page is the example and what NatureBoyMD above is stating)


Additionally, I would suggest using the abbr. "NgL" instead of "NLB" for Negro league baseball (B-R uses NgL). Please update as is seen fit. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 18:31, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't think the separation between eras is needed any longer. The text can be simplified:
I don't think it is necessary to discuss exceptions specifically for this point, as it is generally true for all of the style advice. Regarding team groupings in the infobox, one way would be to build the capability into the template. In the interim, creating a sample infobox or pointing to the Paige article would be useful. Let's see what others have to say on the proposal. isaacl (talk) 18:44, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Eras is handy because NgL is defunct and finite while others are current and becoming more frequent. YMMV. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 18:51, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Before the style advice is updated, I'd like to reach a clear consensus on what will and will not be included in the infobox. Since there hasn't been any activity in the discussion in several days, I am pinging everyone who has contributed their thoughts up to this point (@Bison X, Barkeep49, Spanneraol, Namiba, Isaacl, Yankees10, and NatureBoyMD:).
Excluding Negro League team information for these other players discounts their experiences in getting to the major leagues. I disagree with having 1950 as a cut off as only 4 of the 16 teams had a black player on their roster prior to the 1950 season (See: List of first black Major League Baseball players by team). Some teams didn't have a black player on their major league roster until more than 10 years after Robinson's debut with the Dodgers, and baseball wasn't fully integrated until Pumpsie Green's debut with the Red Sox in 1959. While not all of the players on this list had experience on a NgL team, those that did should have their experience recognized.
With that being said, below is what I suggest to be included and not included in the infobox:
Include: Team information without a date cut off, the division of leagues (NgL, MLB, NPB, KBO) as has been discussed above, and full inclusion of highlights and awards from NgL (i.e. East–West All Star Game, Negro World Series win, etc.)
Exclude: Statistics from NgL
Thanks everyone, this has been a very worthwhile discussion. Cubbie15fan (talk) 14:56, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Cubbie15fan for doing that summary. I think that seems a good reading of the consensus. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:22, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure about those highlights.. is the Negro World Series win really something that should be included? Spanneraol (talk) 16:39, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
There were only 11 Negro World Series, all of which were played during the height of talent in the Negro leagues, the 20s and 40s. This is being held for a later conversation, but there you go. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 18:33, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
Because discussing the highlights is a much longer conversation, judging by the long discussions in the past, personally I'd rather settle on the team information in the infobox first. isaacl (talk) 16:58, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
Fair enough, once consensus is reached for team information then I’ll start a separate discussion about awards/highlights to hash that out. Thanks for everyone’s input so far. Cubbie15fan (talk) 17:24, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure you fully grasp the post-1950 mark, but it is really moot in this conversation. Most players after this time, including Pumpsie Green, went straight into the integrated minors and never played a lick of Negro league ball (as you have pointed out). Those who did were either too young or too inexperienced for the minors and latched onto some of the remaining NgL teams as a 16/17-year-old -- Aaron, McCovey. So I will not protest including minor-league-caliber teams in the major league list, because the overlap will be but a dozen (and most of those are cup-of-coffee Major Leaguers). Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 18:33, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
@Bison X:It is possible for someone to disagree and also understand the other side of an argument. There is no reason to suggest that someone doesn’t understand something because they disagree with you. I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Either way, thank you for being willing to compromise. Cubbie15fan (talk) 19:31, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
I would like to know your view better, because the level of racism and persecution was lessened considerably post-1950, in the context of baseball, and it insults what Robinson, Paige, Josh Gibson, Rube Foster, et al, had to go thru prior to 1946/7. The 1952 Monarchs were nowhere near as oppressed as the 1945 Monarchs. Night and day. But you need to recognize that.
The point here is, it won't matter. Players whose Negro league play and MLB play overlap, did not play post-1950 except in a handful of situations. And, yes, most of those times it is appropriate to list them if they also played pre-1950, and some of the time the player is so trivial no one will consider it an issue. That is why this will play out fine in this discussion with no hard feelings. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 21:24, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I feel as though I’ve been pretty clear throughout the whole thread with my rationale and thoughts on this subject. Simply put, I disagree with your points and appreciate your willingness to compromise. Cubbie15fan (talk) 22:24, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
I disagree with having 1950 as a cut off as only 4 of the 16 teams had a black player on their roster prior to the 1950 season is a poor rationale as I have laid out above and I would like to see you expand on it please. If you wish not to, then at the very least please stop saying "agree to disagree." Because I do not. On the other points, no one is compromising, we are agreeing. So please stop saying that, too. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 23:56, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
I've been nothing but cordial, and that's fine if you don't see it that way. I'm just a wiki user trying to build consensus. I've laid out my points above a couple times and you're reiterating your points and now you've cherry picked one thing I have said to further your argument. I do not agree with your points, so at this point, why talk in circles. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Cubbie15fan (talk) 01:23, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
It's not cherry picking when it is, from what I can tell, your entire rationale, please read cherry picking. It's also not cordial to be passive-aggressively terminating the discussion with cliches. That's disrespectful. Would you like it if I ended this post with "You will have to agree to disagree and I appreciate your willingness to compromise" and then I continue on by steering the conversation towards my rationale? Funny, though, because otherwise I thought we were on the same side of the debate. *shrugs* Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 01:53, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

The disagreement, as I see it, is centred around what criteria is used to select what information is shown in the infobox. My personal rule of thumb is information that is essential for a concise summary of the subject; it's not a hard-and-fast rule but I find it helps me focus on what is really important and what is not. Regarding the teams shown in the infobox, as I recall from the discussions that resulted in the current guidance, the consensus rationale is that for any player who played in the top-flight leagues, to use Spanneraol's term, their tenure in these leagues is central to their narrative, overshadowing their careers in lower-skilled leagues. Accordingly, the consensus was to omit teams in lower-skilled leagues for these players. Perhaps any parties other than the ones who have already commented can provide their view on whether or not they support this line of reasoning? isaacl (talk) 04:22, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Wilson Defensive Player of the Year Award

Similiar questions on Wilson Defensive Player of the Year Award:

  1. Should it be removed from infoboxes?
  2. Is it ever notable enough to be in the lead? If yes, when? —Bagumba (talk) 13:00, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
I agree that a fan-based popularity poll doesn't hold the same weight as the Gold Glove Award decided by professional sports writers and probably shouldn't be in the Info Box but, can be fleshed out with text in the article.Orsoni (talk) 15:50, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Bagumba I don't think this is as clear cut as the Platinum Glove simply because it is not just a fan vote. I would have to do some more research but my initial thinking is that there is some justification for infobox inclusion based on how sources use it. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:32, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: I did some quick research (not following baseball as much lately). The award is analytics based, as opposed to Platinum Glove Award being fan or Gold Glove being manager vote. Seems to get independent coverage when winners are announced annually. I didn't search if the award gets mentioned much after the fact. I'm pretty sure it's not on par with prestige of Gold Glove, but couldn't find any source that definitely says that. I was going to clean up infoboxes to remove Platinum Glove, and figured if there was anything definitive on Wilson to not have it, I could clean up a lot of common pages at the same time.—Bagumba (talk) 05:13, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Yeah I'm somewhat ambivalent about its usage in infoboxes (I tend to not get too worked up on infoboxes in general) but it is definitely something more than the platinum glove we were previously discussing. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:02, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Platinum Glove Award

I removed Platinum Glove Award from Manny Machado's infobox becuase it seems WP:UNDUE for a fan award, which I don't believe is that significant either, and there's no previous consensus at WP:BASESTYLEPL. I also see the award in his lead, and thought I'd get others' input before removing it from there also. It just seems UNDUE for the lead when 1) he's won Gold Gloves 2) it's a minor award as well.—Bagumba (talk) 06:14, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Bagumba I agree with removing it from the infobox. It probably doesn't belong in Machado's LEAD but could in others. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:25, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
I went and removed it from the lead.—Bagumba (talk) 12:53, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
I have removed it from the lead and infobox of all the other winners now too, added it to the body in a few cases when it wasn't there already. All but Adrian Beltre listed it in the lead. It seems that all the winners had a Gold Glove already, and some had the Wilson award and Fielding Bible there too.—Bagumba (talk) 12:04, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Attempt to remove a photograph

File:Chronicle-telegraph-cup.jpg is Wikipedia's only image which shows the historically important Chronicle-Telegraph Cup, and there is a request to remove the photograph. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:36, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Notability of minor league perfect game

I was a bit surprised to find Manny Parra's perfect game not only on today's Did you know, but also that it was approved as good article. As far as I can tell, the game itself is mostly covered by only MILB.com, with no other continuous coverage. The article itself uses other sources to somewhat go off on a tangent on the rest of Parra's career. My instinct is that this fails WP:GNG's needing multiple sources of significant coverage. What do others think?—Bagumba (talk) 13:47, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Bagumba, I was surprised by it too. If there's enough news coverage to justify GNG it's fine, but the sources in the article don't look like significant coverage. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:17, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I am a skeptic about the notability of minor leaguers but I think that this subject likely passes GNG. As for GA - it's easy enough to open a review of that if you feel it's not up to criteria. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:08, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Afd open Your input is welcome at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Manny Parra's perfect game.—Bagumba (talk) 10:09, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

More input needed @WilliamJE and Muboshgu: Could use more input at the AfD. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 10:04, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: Forgot to include you too.—Bagumba (talk) 10:06, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Relisted Barkeep49, Muboshgu and others: The AfD has been relisted, the fact that it was a GA makes a stronger consensus preferable. Cheers.—Bagumba (talk) 04:27, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
I've watchlisted the AfD but haven't found the motivation to do the research necessary for me to comment at an AfD. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:55, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Bagumba, I will check in. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:33, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Baseball bobblehead photos

I was trying to find some photos of sports bobbleheads to add to that article, but there are none in Commons:Category:Bobbleheads. Does anyone have some bobblehead photos that they can add to Commons? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 21:08, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Bobby Veach (1912-1925) outfielder RBI discrepancy

Hello and good day. There seems to be a huge RBI discrepancy in Bobby Veach's career RBI totals. Baseball Reference and Retrosheet have his total RBI at 1,174, the sources used in the article, but the stat inbox and stats line at bottom of article has his total at 1,166. Baseball Almanac, The Baseball Cube and Fangraphs have his RBI total at 1,166. This is an 8 RBI discrepancy. I would like to change his RBI total to 1,174, I always use Baseball Reference and Retrosheet as my main sources, but there are conflicting figures here. The years 1916-1919 and 1925 have differing figures. What to do here? Thank you and have a good day.2601:581:8000:21B0:304C:CD3D:3958:6A95 (talk) 12:55, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I'll note here that MLB.com uses the 1,166 number and that should be the official source.. might be best to just use both numbers and mark the discrepancy.. unless you want to really take the time to research old box scores and figure out where the issue is. Spanneraol (talk) 15:47, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
Do we know that MLB.com is really reflecting MLB's official number? And even if it is, do we have reason to believe that MLB's official number is better scholarship than something like Retrosheet or BR? I suspect the IP is right that those latter sources are probably actually more accurate than the official number simply because they've done more intensive research into this kind of stat. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:53, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
Researching old box scores would be useful but you'd still have to get the sources to agree, since Wikipedia can't publish original research (but SABR would probably appreciate it :-). For other similar cases, a footnote is added to note the discrepancy. isaacl (talk) 16:11, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Hank Greenberg statistics discrepancy

Hello and good day. I noticed a discrepancy in a few of Hank Greenberg's career stats and I would like to make a note of this, maybe in the notes section of the article. In 1933, some sources say he had 85 RBI, others say 87, which means some sources say 1274 RBI career and others 1276. Even his runs scored differ, some say 1046, others say 1051. How do I put it in the notes section, seems like most appropriate place to put it, is worth mentioning. Thank you and all have a good day.2601:581:8000:21B0:304C:CD3D:3958:6A95 (talk) 12:34, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I tend to use Template:Efn which then requires use of Template:noteslist for the notes section. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:21, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Baseball GAs

I reviewed the GA nomination for Jake Arrieta today. I was struck in doing the review by the lack of prose as compared to basically stats turned into sentences. I saw the same problem hen I looked at some other GAs, such as Kris Bryant, Jacob deGrom, and Madison Bumgarner (with Bumgarner being particularly poorly written imo). I then compared it to Cy Young and Kenny Lofton - with Lofton being a recent player who largely played before the Wikipedia era - and found articles written in ways, at least at a superficial level, that much more closely resembles what I would expect from GAs. What do others think? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:04, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

FWIW I find that what you're talking about is still prose. The season statistics are metrics that tell a story of how a baseball player performed during the season. Using stats in prose is an effective way to tell a player's story and I don't find it coincidental that the GAs of current players have more statistically oriented prose as compared to players of the past, whether they are Kenny Lofton or Cy Young. This possible pattern you've discovered seems to mirror the explosion of data available for players' performance. Cubbie15fan (talk) 20:58, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Yes.. it would be nice if there was more to say about a player's season than just his statistical results... some anecdotes maybe or cited explanations as to why his performance fluctuated during a particular season. Spanneraol (talk) 21:18, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Well, I wrote the Bryant and deGrom GAs.... what's missing from them? The Bryant page goes through his injury woes of 2018, as well as his service time controversy. If there's more context that's needed, what is it? Kenny Lofton's page seems similar to me, I don't see what exactly is different in how his career is presented. A lot of it is in statistics. Cy Young's seems a bit less stat heavy, but also has missing references. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:24, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
I admittedly skimmed through all 5 of these but all the modern ones (with Bryant being the best of the bunch) all felt like "here's a season and what numbers he put up with a fun fact or two." It didn't strike me as a narrative to help me understand something (especially if I was not an avid baseball reader) so much as a collection of stats. Not in a way that would be a problem that needs changing except in the context of being featured content which in this case means well-written prose. The Bumgarner one, for instance, has fifty (50) paragraphs which begin with the word On.
As for what's missing: does every season need indepth coverage or can we summarize periods in their careers? Where are the quotes which bring them to life (there are so many great quotes in Dick Butkus which is one I reviewed)? I'm not saying Cy Young or Kenny Lofton are perfect articles (I didn't look at sourcing at all) but those articles strike me in terms of good article criteria 1 as the mark. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:57, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep: I do agree that the Bumgarner article is a problem and I've had thoughts of a GA reassessment. As for quotes, if I had a quote on one of these guys as good as this quote...

"If every college football team had a linebacker like Dick Butkus of Illinois, all fullbacks soon would be three feet tall and sing soprano."

...then absolutely I would use it. The Bryant article does include a useful quote from MLBPA on his 2015 demotion. I certainly am taking what you're saying as good advice for the future. We can get lost in just putting in a player's stats, salaries, etc., but do need to make a fully fleshed out biography out of this info. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:02, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Muboshgu This isn't really about the Bryant article or deGrom article perse it's more about how we stylistically put these together (Bumgarner is a different matter and I'm going to just go ahead and do a GAR because it's a few deviations worse than any of the other examples we're talking about). The Butkus article has a lot of great quotes (I love the Deacon Jones one) but the Lofton and Young articles both have quotes which bring the stats to life. Again I'm not saying those articles are perfect GAs (as pointed out the Young one has its own issues) but they read better than what we're talking about with modern players. I really think the explanation for that is simple: rather than being written in chunks, these articles were put together one sentence at a time as the player did something. That method of improvement is not going to produce the kind of strong prose demanded in GAs (and certainly FAs). As an FYI I pinged the GA talk page to get some non-baseball people's opinions as well. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:09, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49, yeah totally get you. I'm not too hung up on the specifics of Bryant or deGrom, or Lofton or Young, in spite of how my last reply may have come across. GAR is probably the right route for Bumgarner. It is certainly something to keep in mind as we update articles of active players in real time, compared to the players who retired (or at least had most of their careers) before Wikipedia existed. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:57, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49, looks like deGrom is signing an extension. I'll be able to add that in, and also the weird anecdote about Brodie Van Wagenen going from his agent saying the team should extend or trade deGrom to his general manager working on the extension from the other side. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:46, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

I looked at Bumgarner. The essay WP:PROSELINE captures it.—Bagumba (talk) 23:57, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

  • Comment Coming via a note left at the GA page. I don't know a lot about Baseball. The third sentence in says He was 6–1 with a 1.61 ERA as a junior, and 5–4 with a 1.30 ERA as a senior. I have no idea what this means, what ERA stands for or if it is a good thing (I assume good otherwise why mention it). A variation of this sentence is repeated about 40 times throughout the article, often in successive sentences. It is a real slog to read through.. My general philosophy on GA prose is that I should be able to read it and understand what it is trying to say. If it is a technical article I accept wikilinks to explain those terms. I feel this article fails my metric. I don't know if it is a widespread issue or just a case of editors padding out certain articles, but an ultimate aim of every wikiproject should be to create articles accessible to a layperson. Maybe it does require a rethinking of NotStats. Having an article consisting of just stats is obviously bad, but converting the stats into repetitive prose is in many ways worse. AIRcorn (talk) 21:58, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
    Aircorn Thanks for the comments. I think everyone agrees that Bumgarner is not GA worthy - all who have commented here and at the GAR are in agreement. I for one would be curious about what you think about Jake Arrieta and/or Paul Goldschmidt to name two current GAN which are much better written. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:57, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
    The above comment was refering to the Arrieta article. I haven't looked at others yet. Whether it is GA worthy I don't know. By my standards no, but different editors interpret the criteria differently and that is fine. We don't require exceptional prose like FA so an argument could be made that meets the clear and concise part of GA. I don't think it is clear though as I don't understand all the acronyms or what the numbers mean. It is not really concise either as the same info could be easily presented in a table. At the least I think the stats need to be explained (wikilink at minimum) and any unnecessary stats cut. AIRcorn (talk) 23:49, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Side effect of no stats tables?

Regarding Barkeep49's above concern about excessive sentences of stats in GAs, this might be an unintended consequence of WP:BASEBALL not allowing basic stats tables in bios. Without them, writers are complelled to write monotonous sentences reciting each year's stat lines. Let's face it, stats are important to baseball, but it's boring to read prose about them for each season. A stats table would neatly summarize these and limit prose to the most notable achivements in their career, or truly "explanatory text". WP:NOTSTATS's intent was not to remove tables to instead put repetitive sounding prose about stats.—Bagumba (talk) 14:05, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

It's an interesting thought but ultimately I think we're well served by NOTSTATS. I think if we take a look at Britannica and how they handle stats it's a helpful illustration (ex: Mike Trout, Miguel Cabera, & Clayton Kershaw). They definitely include stats, frankly more than I expected, but also vary which stats are reported and not context and otherwise provide color, both in context and language, to those stats. We, unrusrprisingly, have far more details in general than EB offers which I don't see anything wrong with but does make it a bit easier to get overly detailed with numbers. Overall, I'm slightly less concerned than when I first brought this up. However, having now read additional GAs it seems that we have a strong bias towards the the traditional triple crown stats for hitters and be cognizant that our coverage might actually be too detailed for modern players and a Good Article might not cover every Player of the Month or 3 home run game in the prose. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:32, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Confusing article titles - advice please

As part of a clean-up of batting average / batting average (baseball) / batting average (cricket), I came across Bob Quinn (baseball grandson) and his grandfather Bob Quinn (baseball). The first of these seems to be appallingly named, so looking at WP:NCBASE would it be best to move them to Bob Quinn (1990s baseball executive) and Bob Quinn (1920s baseball executive), or is there some other preferred dismambiguation? I've gone for the decade that each seems to have had the most significant role. Spike 'em (talk) 13:09, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Just to be clear : I don't think the younger Bob Quinn is notable for being a grandson, it is for being a baseball executive. It is incidental that he is someone's grandson.Spike 'em (talk) 13:18, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Your suggested alternatives seem proper to me.. I don't know how that article has existed with such a horrid title for so long. Spanneraol (talk) 13:28, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Spike 'em I agree that the current names are bad. I would suggest rather than some what arbitrarily picking one decade to incorporate both years as this seems to be how I've seen it done for players who would duplicate. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:41, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean by "both years"? If you mean birth years, then Wikipedia:Naming conventions (baseball players) does recommend the use of decades before resorting to birth years. isaacl (talk) 15:18, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Isaacl That should have read "birth years". Sorry for the confusion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:30, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
The decades only work well for players whose career as a baseball player only encompasses one major decade. Executives are usually in their role for much longer than a single decade, so it doesn't work well here. I'll note that per NCBASE, decades should only be used when both players each predominantly played in a single decade. My suggestion would be Bob Quinn (baseball, born 1870) and Bob Quinn (baseball, born 1936). -- Tavix (talk) 16:03, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

I've moved the pages to the years of birth as suggested and will try to clear up the incoming links to both later. Spike 'em (talk) 09:09, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Consensus on college awards in the infobox

Is there any previous consensus regarding which college awards are included in the infoboxes for player's articles? For instance Hunter Renfroe's article includes the Ferriss Trophy, which is a local award given to the best college baseball player in Mississippi. It just seems like infobox padding to me. If there isn't already a consensus on which collegiate/amateur awards should be recognized in the infobox I say we build one now. Best, GPL93 (talk) 12:55, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

College baseball isn't as notable as football or basketball, so it's probably undue to have many of them in the infobox. Perhaps only Golden Spikes Award?—Bagumba (talk) 13:07, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
@Bagumba: I was thinking that and maybe the Dick Howser Trophy, but I'm not even sure about that. As for the other awards, the positional ones and definitely any local ones, simply including the corresponding NavBox at the bottom of the article should suffice. Best, GPL93 (talk) 13:22, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
I'd say only the Golden Spikes Award and Dick Howser Trophy should be included in the infobox. Seems undue to include any additional college awards. Cubbie15fan (talk) 14:23, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

TFD notification

Only WP:CFB was notified. I think all relevant sports should participate in this discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 April 4#Athletic program head coaches navboxes.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:10, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

FL status of Rawlings Gold Glove Award

There is an issue at Talk:Rawlings_Gold_Glove_Award#Softball_awards which could be related to the list's current FL status. Your input is welcome.—Bagumba (talk) 09:33, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Curse of Billy Penn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Billy_Penn

For some reason on the article on google search it's got the start date as October 29, 2008. It was 1987-2008. Start date should be 1987. I don't know how to change it. Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 17:02, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Sports Fan 1997 This is a google problem. You need to click on the feedback button under the box and indicate that the fact is not correct. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I've been sending google feedbacks about this but they still haven't changed it. Can y'all help me and send them feedback so they can see notice? Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 23:46, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Need Play Index help for Madduxes

This morning I made an article on Madduxes. Is there someone who has Play Index access who could run the season by season totals of these thrown and/or the complete list of pitchers to have thrown them? I would like to add a top 10 list and a season-by-season total of these to the article but lack access to the Play Index (or similar such database) to make it happen. If you have access and would like to send me the data, I would be happy to make the tables and otherwise Wikify it. Thanks and Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:41, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Is that a real thing? I've never heard of the term. Is it widely used enough to warrant an article? Spanneraol (talk) 13:30, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Spanneraol It is a real thing. I've found enough coverage to suggest GNG and it does seem to be regularly covered when a pitcher does it from what I can tell. I only included a couple sources because it's such a short article but I am confident it's notable at this point. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:35, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I was able to get this data and so no longer need assistance. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:21, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

List of Major League Baseball progressive career hits leaders, change stats values Tris Speaker 1901-1960 section

Hello and good day. Go to above article and please make following changes to Tris Speakers values as indicated in table:

  • 1923: Change 2795 to 2794
  • 1924: Change 2962 to 2961
  • 1925: Change 3129 to 3128
  • 1926: Change 3293 to 3292
  • 1927: Change 3464 to 3463
  • 1928-29: Change 3515 to 3514
  • 1930-32 to 1960: change 3515 to 3514 (12 levels)

Of course I would have done this myself, but when you click on edit 1901-1960 section, no text comes up and I don't know how to access that. All major sources (except MLB) list his career hit total at 3514, the extra hit in question was around 1912 or so, so there will be changes from 1923-29 and afterward. I changed his hit totals to 3514 for years 1961-2018. Thank you all for your time.2601:581:8000:21B0:304C:CD3D:3958:6A95 (talk) 12:08, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Was done, figured out how to go to template, have a good day. Disregard request.2601:581:8000:21B0:304C:CD3D:3958:6A95 (talk) 03:46, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

MLB playoffs

On the MLB teams WC berths. Don't it supposed to be Wild Card berths with a capital C instead of a lowercase? It's got all the teams that way. I think it's supposed to be capital Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 00:57, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Can I go on all the teams and edit the wording to capital C in Wild Card berths? Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 00:25, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Lower case is consistent with the title Major League Baseball wild card. Generally, we use lowercase for basic English terms, and only capitalize when the proper noun meaning differs.—Bagumba (talk) 05:01, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

About new article Baseball5

Hi WikiProject Baseball people. I'm a wicketball fan myself, so I'm not in much of position to fully appraise what is happening with this article. There does seem to be a lack of WP:SIGCOV of this baseball variant. Was something along the lines of this article that was redirected or stubbified? Would appreciate your thoughts about this. Pete "wicketball tragic" AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 10:15, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Seems legit, with independent coverage by Baseball America [3], Sportsnet [4], Guyana Chronicle [5]. Could just redirect if someone wants to merge it somewhere because they feel it's too early to be a standalone.—Bagumba (talk) 10:56, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
I think it's a bit premature to have a standalone article, for a game formalized last year (though the first "pilot" championship was held in Havana in November 2017) Most of the coverage seems to be about the announcement. Until there is some significant adoption of the sport, I think it should be added as a section to something like Stickball which to me it seems to resemble the most. isaacl (talk) 22:43, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

CFD for minor league teams

Hello, would you mind coming to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 May 22#Binghamton Crickets and offering opinions about the proposed renaming? If you want background information, see WP:RDE#19th-century minor league baseball. Nyttend (talk) 23:40, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Need input for merging Tal's Hill into Minute Maid Park

Tal's Hill is a former feature of Minute Maid Park that was removed in 2013. The Tal's Hill article was merged into the Minute Maid Park article in 2007, but then recreated by a user in 2017. The discussion for the merger is here: Talk:Minute_Maid_Park#New_Merger_Proposal 2600:1700:D6E0:65E0:8400:D781:3985:AB45 (talk) 12:34, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

New Category Category:Cape Cod Baseball League players

I'm pretty surprised this category and the sub-category for each team didn't already exist. Please help out with filling the team sub-categories and the overall category out if you can. Best, GPL93 (talk) 12:50, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

That's because, as amateur teams, they're not all that notable or defining. Yeah, many notable major leaguers have played in the Cape Cod League, but no one is notable just for having played there. They're notable for being major league players. So the fact that someone who later became notable played for a team in ten Cape Cod Leagie for a few summers is not something that defines notability for that player. People are but categorized based on non-defining features. The categories didn't exist because they aren't supposed to. oknazevad (talk) 13:19, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
That isn't quite true. Categories are for things that are defining for the subject. Not necessarily defining of notability. It is very likely a person would go searching for players who played in the Cape Cod League. Just like "People from X Town" doesn't have anything to do with their notability in the vast majority of cases, but it is a defining characteristic of a person. -DJSasso (talk) 13:39, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
I mean, we have categories for just about every college and minor league team-even Gulf Coast and Arizona League teams which have I'd argue have no real identity or contribute to one's notability. Why wouldn't playing on a team in what is probably the most notable Summer League be considered defining? Best, GPL93 (talk) 21:08, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm not really opposed to this in general but i don't know if the teams themselves need categories.. as opposed to just a Cape Cod League Players category.. someone is far more likely to search for an overall Cape Cod League category than care about who played for the Brewster Whitecaps. Spanneraol (talk) 22:33, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Editors updating stats during game

I've found a number of instances of editors updating statistics in baseball-related articles during a game (more specifically, before a game becomes official). The most recent is List of Major League Baseball career strikeout leaders, in which the IP editor 2600:1700:1ef0:87a0:7dc2:5849:a5f4:2585 was updating stats for Cole Hamels (among other edits) while Hamels was pitching on 18 June 2019. Although I think we should put a stop to this, there's no clear way of doing this without restricting editing access. I've left a note for the IP editor in this case, but figured I'd leave this note as a heads up. Mindmatrix 15:58, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree that in-game updates does run afoul of WP:NOTNEWS. I don't think there's anyway to prevent it - merely fix it when we see it happening. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:05, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
Yes, there are some guidelines that say not to update until a game is done, however, based on a very big discussion about this issue in regards to sports in general that happened a few months back (I believe it was on ANI because of an edit war between a couple editors), consensus was that while we should continue to tell people not to do it. You shouldn't play edit war with people if they do happen to do it because you really only compound the problem by doing so and most don't find people jumping the gun to be too much of an issue. TLDR: So really it was a case of tell people not to, but just leave it if they do. -DJSasso (talk) 18:08, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
The biggest problem I see is if editors are making stats changes to articles based on games that are in progress but end up getting rained out (meaning the stats don't count) or suspended (meaning the stats aren't official until the game is completed). Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk •  contributions) 19:12, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
In that case I would revert. But I doubt that would occur to often that someone was both updating early and it rained out. --DJSasso (talk) 19:40, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Merge suggestion

It has been suggested that Ortiz Shift be merged into Infield shift. Comments are welcome on this Talk page. Thanks. Dmoore5556 (talk) 04:58, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Two month virtual editathon on Women in Sports

WikiProject Women in Red is devoting the next two months (July and August) to a virtual editathon on Women in Sports. Please take this opportunity to write more articles about women who lag far behind men on Wikipedia's coverage of baseball.--Ipigott (talk) 07:03, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Sandbox stubs

I got a bit excited about the 2019 College World Series as a Michigan alum/fan. I created some sandbox pages in case they won so that they could have a template. Should I move any of these to article space now?

P.S. can we confirm that the Kerrs are the first 3-generation College World Series family from a school.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:37, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Brewer is probably the closest to meeting notability standards given he was conference player of the year, but even then I'm not sure he meets notability standards yet. Best, GPL93 (talk) 20:57, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

1993 Atlanta Braves season page addition

Hello and good day. Go to players stats, where it says = Indicates team leader, please fill in empty box with yellow color I used to highlight team leaders. I have tried many times to do so without success. Thank you for your time.2601:581:8000:21B0:2057:CEE2:35C1:3A28 (talk) 02:59, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Please disregard request, was adjusted. Thank you.2601:581:8000:21B0:2057:CEE2:35C1:3A28 (talk) 22:40, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Owner vandalism

I have an idea for dealing with the "owner / pwn3r" vandalism that's been ramped up. You know, the super funny and original edits like this one. Team ownership changes very rarely. Could we either (a) embed the ownership details into the template, so that the team name parameter leads to the display of the owner(s), or (b) create a separate template that we use in that parameter, similar to how the team colors work on the biography template? – Muboshgu (talk) 19:51, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Understand the frustration, but is it still just a small part (though memorable) of overall vandalism? In the NBA, something similar happens to players when they are on the wrong end of highlights. Perhaps it's a more general question of protecting mostly static info in the infobox from the rest of the page. I don't follow it much, but was that what Wikidata was for?—Bagumba (talk) 03:42, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
In terms of keeping the owner info up-to-date across different language Wikipedias, yes, using Wikidata would be a good approach. In terms of detecting vandalism, it would mean watchlisting the appropriate data items on Wikidata. This may become a commonly done thing one day, but I suspect at the moment it would be an additional burden for most English Wikipedia editors. isaacl (talk) 05:30, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Unless the template is being template-protected, I think embedding the owner into a template will just move where the vandalism occurs. Selfishly, as I don't have the template editor permission, I wouldn't want the corresponding template to be protected :-). Since option (b) is narrowly focused on the owner info, I suppose protecting it wouldn't be unduly restrictive, but I also don't think it meets the criteria for a high-risk template. isaacl (talk) 05:22, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
On the flip side, one edit to said template—esp with minimal or no protection—could vandalize many or all owners, as opposed to needing multiple edits, saves, and navigations.—Bagumba (talk) 05:45, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
I think the random IPs that tend to do these edits are likely to not know how to get to the templates to vandalism them.. making it less likely that these things will occur. Spanneraol (talk) 12:59, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Maybe... but they'd probably just overwrite the use of the template, instead. isaacl (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Isaacl, I was thinking of making it an edit-protected template. Wikidata could work. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:25, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Do you mean semi-protected? Without going back to check, I'm pretty sure I've seen this vandalism with registered accounts, too. isaacl (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Another thing that can be done is set up an edit filter that flags owner changes as possible vandalism for patrollers. Here's an example of a filter that was triggered because of change to basketball player's height/weight (see its edit summary).—Bagumba (talk) 13:15, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

I looked at that Arizona article history and gave it pending changes protection protection for 3 mos. At least that limits the visibility. One could also make an argument for semi-protection.—Bagumba (talk) 09:02, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Minor league baseball articles being used as incubators

New York Mets minor league players, New York Yankees minor league players, and other such articles listed in Category:Lists of minor league baseball players all feature incomplete lists of prospects in addition to templates containing the full rosters. I was told this is done intentionally as a way of incubating articles that are not yet ready to be published. These drafts are included in the roster articles as a way of allowing editors to source them before publishing them as independent articles if the player makes it to the big leagues.

The problem is, theses articles aren't necessarily singling out the top prospects, nor does the term "top prospects" even have an objective definition. Wouldn't it be better if this WikiProject maintained a series of draft pages for this purpose without simply posting the drafts on otherwise complete articles? What we have now are live articles that are being used for editing work, resulting in incomplete lists of players chosen at random. --Puzzledvegetable|💬|📧|📜 19:57, 9 July 2019 (UTC) + minor edit

The articles are intended to be about the farm system in general which is why the minor league rosters are located on them.. the players that have mini bios are ones that have some sourcing but not enough to meet GNG.. They usually include 40 man roster players who haven't played in the majors yet, top draft picks, and other top prospects that have some coverage. Various editors have occasionally added other miscellaneous players that don't meet those requirements or non notable players who had articles wound up being merged to them. I don't see how draft articles accomplishes anything.. as people would not find them and would start creating articles for all these players which these articles were intended to prevent... it's better the way it is.. though there probably should be more stringent requirements for inclusion.. I used to go through them a few times a year and weed them out but i haven't had as much time the last year or so to curate the minor league pages as often as I used to. Spanneraol (talk) 20:08, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
I never like these type of pages that dont actually build enduring content about the history of their minor league system. It basically churns recent rosters, while acting as an incubator for some content that eventually gets moved to standalong bios.—Bagumba (talk) 20:22, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
I always saw these kinds of articles as an almanac element of pillar 1 and a good alternative to standalone articles on these BLP. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:40, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
I agree in large part with Spanneraol and Barkeep49. I do think that the articles can provide useful information and also serve as a good alternative to deleting or keeping a full article on a player who is on the fence in terms of notability. We should definitely have stricter standards, maybe by requiring that a consensus be formed on article talk pages as to whether or not a player should be added to the article before actually doing so. Spanneraol is right that minor league pages have a lot of players that probably shouldn't be on there, and I'll be the first one to admit I may have added to that problem. I think the other problem is that a good chunk of the player bios aren't really even being incubated, but rather just added to the article and then maybe updated once a year after the end of the minor league season. Even the rosters aren't updated regularly, for instance most of the Phillies affiliate rosters haven't been updated since mid-March. Best, GPL93 (talk) 16:08, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Tom Heintzelman article reference error

Hello and good day. Go to Tom Heintzelman article, utility infielder who played briefly from 1973-78. Go to external links, click on Baseball Reference. It goes to his father, Ken Heintzeleman in error. Can it be corrected? Thanks and have a good day.2601:581:8000:21B0:304C:CD3D:3958:6A95 (talk) 18:24, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I've fixed it. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 19:30, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Tom Heintzelman article reference error

Hello and good day. Go to Tom Heintzelman article, utility infielder who played briefly from 1973-78. Go to external links, click on Baseball Reference. It goes to his father, Ken Heintzeleman in error. Can it be corrected? Thanks and have a good day.2601:581:8000:21B0:304C:CD3D:3958:6A95 (talk) 18:24, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I've fixed it. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 19:30, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

2019 MLB season

As I understood it, we show the wild card races for the rest of the current regular season, beginning in September. A few IP seem to disagree. GoodDay (talk) 18:02, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Inclusion of World Series titles for players not on post season roster.

I think there is a problem that needs to be addressed with leaving out World Series titles from infoboxes for players just because they weren't on the post season roster. The example is Matt Cain of the San Francisco Giants. His page's infobox currently leaves out 2014 as a World Series champion just because he wasn't on the post season roster. Matt Cain played for the Giants in 2014 and contributed to their success and eventual World Series win. He got a ring and is considered by the team to be a 3x World Series champion. The information on his infobox is therefore inaccurate. If he had been out the entire season (or even most of it) then leaving out 2014 would certainly be justified. A team isn't just selected to go to the post season. They have to play to get there. Any player that makes a contribution for a significant part of the season is a part of what gets the team to the post season in the first place. His contributions to the 2014 World Series should be acknowledged by including it in the infobox. Even if a player isn't on the post season roster the team might not have even gotten there if it wasn't for the players regular season contribution. --Jimv1983 (talk) 21:02, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

IIRC, the consensus is the boxes are only for players on the WS roster. Who is to determine who contributed to the team during the year?...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 00:17, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
I think appearing on the roster is a clean delineation we can use. Much easier to ascertain than who received playoff shares. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:24, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
Just for clarification, are you referring to appearing on the team's roster at any time, or to appearing on the World Series roster? Larry Hockett (Talk) 00:29, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
For reference, the last discussion on this topic was held four years ago at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball/Archive 40#Inclusion of players as World Series Champions (hi there, Jimv1983), which links to the discussion before that one. My opinion was to follow what reliable, independent, non-promotional, notable sources say—if they call a player a World Series champion, then the World Series championship can be highlighted in the infobox—but so far there hasn't been a lot of success in attaining a consensus on something other than using the World Series roster. Trying to measure contribution would be original research. One problematic example is players who contributed significantly but were traded away before the end of the year. Often they will get a playoff share, as the championship teams recognizes their value to the season, but it would be odd to consider them to be a World Series champion. isaacl (talk) 01:10, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
My opinion is still that they should be on the WS roster to be included.. Lots of guys grace the major league roster during a season and lots of people gets rings and playoff shares... but we really need to limit it because otherwise you are making subjective judgement on who was important to the championship or not.. something that is even harder to do for early years. The post-season roster requirement is a bright line that is easy to use. Spanneraol (talk) 01:57, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
You said WS roster at the beginning, but postseason roster at the end. Iff we wanted to expand it beyond the 25 players on the World Series roster, we could include players from the LDS or LCS rounds who don't make the World Series roster. That potential compromise wouldn't affect Cain, though, as he missed the entire 2014 postseason. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:20, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Wild Card berths

I don't know if this is a big deal or I'm wrong but on these mlb teams achievements it's got the WC berths as 'Wild card berths' the c is supposed to be capital right? Like it's supposed to be 'Wild Card' instead of 'Wild card' Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 20:53, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Does anyone know if "Wild Card" is a proper noun? Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 19:23, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

No, it isn't. isaacl (talk) 20:04, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

So it's right at Wild card berth? Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 20:40, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Depends on how it's used... if you are talking about the actual Wild Card Game.. then it should still be capitalized as it's the proper name of the event. MLB.com does capitalize Wild Card on it's website also. Spanneraol (talk) 22:16, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah that's what I was saying. Like on all these MLB teams achievements it's got it spelled Wild card berths instead of Wild Card berths. I'm willing to edit it for all the teams if so. Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 23:59, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah I'm talking about the actual WC game Wild Card berth. Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 00:05, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

A wild card berth is a wild card game participant; it isn't a title and so isn't a proper noun. isaacl (talk) 00:16, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Well again it depends.. if you are talking about the pre-2012 teams then it actually is a title.. as teams were designated as Wild Card teams... for post-2012 teams it gets a bit more questionable as they were just participants in the game.. though the game itself is capitalized and the mlb website capitalizes the Wild Card designation.. "The top two Wild Card teams..." I still think it depends on how it is being used in a sentence... for the team achievements I think it probably should be capitalized. Spanneraol (talk) 00:37, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Personally, I don't think that "wild card berth" is a title. A "Wild Card team" is arguably a title (marketing people like to upper case lots of things, but, well, we have to live with it). isaacl (talk) 01:34, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Spanneraol, I think it should be capitalized as Wild Card berths. Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 02:02, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Maybe if you refer to them as Wild Card team instead of berth we can do away with the controversy.Spanneraol (talk) 02:19, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 11:14, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

We generally shouldn't capitalize words that can be found in dictionaries, like wild card. We should only capitalize when the meaning would be different than if it were left uncapitalized e.g. American League and not american league, but American League champion and not American League Champion.—Bagumba (talk) 15:26, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Including career stats at the end of each season

Hello all. I've been editing the Steven Matz article, with the ultimate hope of working it up to GA status eventually. Muboshgu has been doing copy-edits on it, which have been helpful in reining in my tendency to go into a little too much detail. LOL But we had a difference of opinion on one specific bit and (at his suggestion) I was hoping to ask for opinions here and see if a WP:CONSENSUS can be reached. I had added a sentence to the end of the "2018" section of Matz's career saying what his record and ERA was to that point (the sentence was "After the 2018 season, his career record was 20–26, with a 3.98 ERA over 71 major-league starts."), which was removed on the basis of "we don't list his career stats after each season". I see that this indeed isn't usually included on articles about baseball players, but I also don't believe there is any kind of MOS or policy that prohibits it. I personally think it is worthwhile information to include, and it's obviously sourced so it abides by Wikipedia policy in this way, and in any event it's only one sentence added to the section. But I'd love to hear any opinions you guys have on the subject. — Hunter Kahn 18:31, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

my general concern on this article is the sheer amount of detail that's being added. It's just WP:TOOMUCH And I'm looking for places to trim. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:06, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
I think the whole 2018 section has too much focus on the day-to-day rises and falls of the player's statistics. Such details are better left to the various baseball statistics reference sites. In general I think there is too much detail about his week-to-week performance. I appreciate there are some who think that a short summary of every game, or at least series, is desirable in a team season article. I think this is too much detail for a general encyclopedia, and think the equivalent for an individual is also overly detailed. isaacl (talk) 20:16, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
In general I think our coverage of active players is too much in the present tense and not nearly summative enough. That said, highlighting some numbers at the end of the season can be quite encyclopedic as in Britannica's coverage of Mike Trout. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:28, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
P.S. If you're going for GA make sure before you nominate it that you expand your lead so it serves as a introduction to the article. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:29, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
His career record and ERA are reflected in the infobox so they don't need to be included in the article.. I also would prefer to stay away from "as of such and such date" type phrasing as it quickly becomes out dated and is not very encyclopedic. The section on the 2019 season should include his final stats from that season, not his career numbers unless he hits a milestone during the season. Looking at the article, there is too much detail about how he did at certain dates... "by May 23" "at the start of June" etc. Spanneraol (talk) 21:19, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
Nitpick: per MOS:INFOBOX, an infobox summarizes material from the article ("summarizes key features of the page's subject" and "an article should remain complete with its summary infobox ignored").
Other than that, I agree with the comments that there's too much detail in the article. Perhaps Hunter Kahn can review some of the FA-class (eg - J. R. Richard) and GA-class (eg - Doug Fister) baseball articles for some ideas about material to include and exclude from the article he's working on. Mindmatrix 01:44, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks all for the feedback. Based on the above, I'll keep the career stats mentions out of the end of each individual session, I'll try to reduce the amount of detail in my edits, and I'll go back and look through what I've already added to try to tighten it. I'll also review some of the articles Mindmatrix suggested. Much appreciated! — Hunter Kahn 01:46, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Small issue with 2019 Braves page

If anyone can take a second to look at the September schedule on the 2019 Atlanta Braves season I'd appreciate it. Seems like every cell is in bold, which isn't the same for August, July, etc. I can't find anything different in the code to be making it like this, but I'd appreciate any help on a fix. Thanks! Swimmer33 (talk) 01:02, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Swimmer33, there was a ! where a | should have been. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:42, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Harold Baines#Interim manager

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Harold Baines#Interim manager. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:49, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

2001 and 2018 NL Central

I don't get this. In 2001 the Cardinals and Astros tied with a record of 93-69, that year they awarded the Astros the Division title due to winning the season series. But how come it's got the Cardinals as a Wild card berth and Division title for 2001? If that's the case even with the new playoff format, the Cubs and Brewers should be co-champions last year with the record of 95-67. Which means on the Cubs page it should be Division title and Wild card berth for 2018 just like the Cardinals they have both in 2001. I don't get why there was a need of a tiebraker cause the Cubs beat the Brewers in the season series. Shouldn't it been Brewers Rockies WC? Here was the records last year without game 163:

NL Central: Cubs 95-67, Brewers 95-67

NL East: Braves 90-72

NL West: Dodgers 92-71

NL WC: Rockies 91-72 Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 14:58, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

How come who has that? The 2001 Cardinals season properly lists them as the wild card. There is only one division winner determined by tie-breakers as necessary. If some page lists the 2001 cards as division winners that page is incorrect and should be fixed. Spanneraol (talk) 20:59, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Cardinals

It's got them in 2001 as the Division winner and WC berth. The other day I removed the 2001 from their Division title but someone said put it back and said they were co-champions per the article you reference; seeding procedures for post-season doesn't change that. Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 21:09, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I changed it. If it gets changed back, here is a better source for you to cite [6] as it clearly shows the Cardinals finished in 2nd place that season. Spanneraol (talk) 23:48, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
There was also an extensive discussion at Talk:St._Louis_Cardinals/Archive_1#Co-Championship that STL was 2nd.—Bagumba (talk) 06:51, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
Looks like it's a bigger dispute again.. page is now locked apparently so could use some other voices on this. Spanneraol (talk) 01:24, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Well it's locked now and other users are wanting to add the 2019 Division title to the achievements, they won it yesterday. Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 11:00, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

We need one of our administrator members to take a look at it.. consensus is clearly in support of not including the 2001 title. Spanneraol (talk) 17:19, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, can you try to get one of them? Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 17:42, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

@Spanneraol, I'm not really sure but did 9/11 play a factor that year? Is that why the records were tied? I'm not sure if they played all their games that year. Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 19:25, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

All the games were played that year.. they extended the season by a week to get in the makeup games from 9/11. Bagumba can you help with removing the page protection on the Cardinals page? Spanneraol (talk) 20:51, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, Muboshgu, Bagumba can y'all help us get it updated? We need to try to update it before the playoffs start tomorrow. Sports Fan 1997 (talk) 00:22, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
All good... I went back to the original admin that did the page protection and pointed them at the discussion so it's been removed now.Spanneraol (talk) 17:24, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
@Spanneraol and Sports Fan 1997: Glad you were able to get it resolved. I would have abstained anyways as an involved admin. Cheers.—Bagumba (talk) 05:49, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Francisco Melendez wikipedia article

Hello and good day. Go to 1987 San Francisco Giants team page and click on Francisco Melendez redirect. First, this page is in Spanish and obviously not about the baseball player born January 25, 1964 and who played MLB for the Phillies, Giants, and Orioles. It is about, I believe a soccer player born in 1997. Can someone revamp the article to pertain to the baseball player? Thanks and have a good day.2601:581:8000:BDC0:70EA:54F9:A405:50AA (talk) 12:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I've reverted the edits on Francisco Meléndez. It's about the baseball player again. NatureBoyMD (talk) 12:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

MLB standings template

The {{MLB standings}} template is implemented by Module:MLB standings, which I wrote. The template is template protected, so only editors with the template editor user right (which includes administrators) can edit it, but all it does is invoke the module. In April, the module was also placed under template protection. I missed it at the time, and today I requested the permission be lowered so that I could continue to edit the module. My request was granted, however it's not unreasonable for the module to become template protected again in future. To be fair, until MLB changes its playoff format again, I don't expect there to be much updates to the module (in the last six years there have just been formatting tweaks). This is just a friendly inquiry, to see if there are any administrators or template editors participating in this project who are comfortable enough with Lua to help maintain the module or approve edit requests. (No big deal if there aren't; I can just work with the usual edit request queue.) Thanks in advance for your help! isaacl (talk) 01:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Wording of stat1label description for Infobox baseball biography

Hey everybody -

Just a heads up that I started a discussion at Template_talk:Infobox_baseball_biography#Which_stat_should_be_listed_under_stat1label.3F about the wording under the stat1label parameter description. I think the parameter description for stat1label needs to be reworded; it's inconsistent with our usual practice. Larry Hockett (Talk) 05:25, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

ESPN.com linkrot

I've noticed a lot of old game recaps on ESPN.com are starting to become unavailable, potentially causing countless dead links within Wikipedia references. I've addressed any such linkrot for ESPN.com references within the Mariano Rivera article, but obviously the scale of the problem could be much larger so I wanted to bring this to the attention to the rest of the project. These ESPN.com articles are likely to have been archived over time by various archiving services, so that is good news. Also in the good news department, many of these game recaps are articles written by the Associated Press and would have wide syndication nationally across the US in print newspapers. So the alternative option would be to replace web references with print versions. If you have not already, I highly recommend getting access to Newspapers.com so you can help combat linkrot by converting to print references and have another resource available for conducting research. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 15:23, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Tie goes to the runner

The first paragraph and second paragraph of this article seem to directly contradict each other over whether or not the concept of "tie goes to the runner" is actually real. This article needs serious work. --PuzzledvegetableIs it teatime already? 02:34, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I actually don't think the 2nd paragraph has any relevance to the article, unless I'm misunderstanding the rule that is quoted. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 03:16, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
There are three relevant baseball rules—Rule 5.09(a)(10), Rule 5.09(b)(6), and Rule 5.06(a)(1)—that are related to putting out a runner or batter-runner. The longstanding view of umpires is that they never rule that a tie occurred; they rule that one event occurred before the other. Thus it is a moot point whether or not the rules can be interpreted as favouring ties to the fielder or runner. isaacl (talk) 04:08, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Stephen Strasburg

Stephen Strasburg was GAed in 2012. Since then, it's fallen victim to the one section per season format. Without getting into whether that is necessary, a section should at least be a decent size, and definitely not a single paragraph or even sentence per MOS:BODY. I've tagged the problem. No issue if people want to remove it, as long as the cleanup happens. Also pinging some of the major contributors there for possible help: @X96lee15, Muboshgu, Malmmf, Spanneraol, Jprg1966, Ryboy42, Sholom, and Kudzu1: Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 10:12, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

As I've noted in discussions of other baseball GAs we tend to overcover careers of active players. The reason for this is understandable but still something which requires constant curation and editor work. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:49, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
It just isn't baseball articles. Look at the articles for golfers Kathy Whitworth and Lexi Thompson. The former won 88 LPGA tournaments, the latter 11 but who has more written about them?...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 16:24, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
You're correct that article topics whose existence or notability has come during Wikipedia's lifespan tend in that direction in many areas, including sports and many elements of pop culture. However, that doesn't make it OK for baseball (our area of focus here) and it's indeed baseball where (because of my interest and subject-knowledge) I have been a stick in the mud in pointing it out :). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:54, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
I was just pointing out recentism being prevalent all over WP not endorsing it....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 22:34, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Birthplace of baseball player

Maybe some members of this project will be interested in adding to the discussion here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Robert_Stock. --184.153.21.19 (talk) 17:11, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

John Wander Wal article reference error.

Good day. Go to Reference section of John Vander Wal, reference #2. It says Basketball Reference.com, should be Baseball Reference.com. Obvious error. Thanks and have a good day.2601:581:8000:BDC0:304C:CD3D:3958:6A95 (talk) 13:19, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Was corrected today. Please disregard.2601:581:8000:BDC0:9971:3C13:D2B1:2B75 (talk) 16:15, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Draft:Johnny Rizer

I have declined publication of Draft:Johnny Rizer, as this subject does not appear to meet WP:BASEBALL/N, but my decline has been challenged, so I would like a second opinion. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:48, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

BD2412, I agree with the declination. He doesn't meet BASE/N and more importantly, doesn't appear to meet GNG. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:00, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. The challenging party asserts that there are other articles with players from the same minor league team, but I'm not inclined to go hunting for them. bd2412 T 19:45, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
BD2412, Zach Watson and Grayson Rodriguez. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS isn't a winning argument. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:18, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I had in mind to nominate any comparable articles for deletion. I have now done so. bd2412 T 21:01, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
BD2412, I regret naming the pages to you. My point re: OSE is that other stuff being notable doesn't make that draft notable. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:45, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you regret that. If they do not meet the criteria for inclusion, they should be deleted. bd2412 T 21:47, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
BD2412, because I believe they do and that the AfDs are an unnecessary distraction from other work. But you're right that discussions will make the determination. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:51, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Including games ahead or games back in championship infoboxes

While working on 2019 Japan Series, Muboshgu and I have disagreed on if the infobox should display how many games ahead (GA) or games back (GB) a team was in the regular season. It has been included in all of the recent World Series articles that I took time to look at (including the FA 2004 World Series and a couple of GAs), as well as all of the recent Japan Series articles. I believe that displaying the number of GA or GB gives important context to the records that the infobox is showing. Without them, the reader is unable to determine how good or bad that record was in relation to the other teams that year, making the records less impactful. Also, at least for the NPB, it quickly tells the reader if the team won the league pennant. It seems to me that it has been a helpful inclusion in these infoboxes over the years. For fear of misrepresenting Muboshgu's argument, I'll let them respond! Other thoughts? --TorsodogTalk 21:13, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

I think it is more essential to list their Pacific League and Central League Climax Series championships, as this context is more directly relevant for the Japan Series. Their regular season standings are, in my opinion, better left for discussion in the text. isaacl (talk) 21:22, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow. It's assumed that they won their league's Climax Series if they are in the Japan Series. --TorsodogTalk 21:27, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
My rule of thumb for infobox contents is that it should contain key information required for a concise overview of the subject. The Japan Series infobox doesn't refer to the Climax Series at all, which seems like a significant omission. If someone were to describe the 2019 Japan Series in one sentence, I presume they would say it consists of the match up between the PL and CL Climax Series champions.
Similarly, for the infobox in World Series articles, although the NLCS and ALCS results are noted later on, I think it would be helpful to label the teams as NL and AL champions, to directly state that the league champions are the participants. isaacl (talk) 21:30, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
We could probably add the Climax Series to the Japan series infobox in a similar fashion to the LCS in the World Series infobox. I agree that by the time you're in the championship series, how many games ahead or behind you were isn't relevant. I think that's too much information for an infobox, which should be kept concise. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:55, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Muboshgu. If the team was not a great team and fluked their way into a championship that can be covered by the prose backed up by RS. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:13, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
My arguement is that without the GA and GB, the record is much less indicative of anything. And if their road to the Series in the regular season isn't relevant for the infobox, why put their record in there at all? If we're looking for concise, why not just omit the season record too? --TorsodogTalk 23:17, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
I don't have an issue with removing the season record as well. This would leave room for an initial column that could describe the two participants as "NL champ", "AL champ", "PL Climax Series champ", and "CL Climax Series champ", with appropriate hyperlinks. isaacl (talk) 05:22, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
I see that you despite my concerns and no consensus here, you've removed them from all of the World Series articles. Oh well, I guess. Do what you feel you need to do. I don't have the energy or time to argue this any longer and as a non-admin I suppose I lose out by default. --TorsodogTalk 17:06, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
Torsodog, you and I have different reads of this section. isaacl and Barkeep49 agreed with taking it out and nobody else suggested it should stay. That's a consensus. What more are you looking for? – Muboshgu (talk) 17:58, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Stu Clarke article incorrect redirect

Hello and good day. Go to Stu Clarke, shortstop who played for the Pirates in 1929-30. Click on Baseball Reference in External links. It goes to the wrong baseball player, it goes to Fred Blackwell, not Stu Clarke. Please correct. Thank you for your time.2601:581:8000:BDC0:304C:CD3D:3958:6A95 (talk) 01:22, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:32, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Move request

You may please notice this move request:Talk:Perfect game#Requested move 12 November 2019.--Anaxagoras13 (talk) 15:03, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

There's also a move proposed on Talk:Pitcher. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:38, 13 November 2019 (UTC)
And also Talk:Sidearm. Mindmatrix 16:01, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Roster template help

I'm trying to update List of current Australian Baseball League team rosters and the Perth Heat roster won't display for some reason. I could use a set of eyes on this as to why it isn't displaying. Thanks! JRATalk 01:26, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Fixed it. The page had the wrong heading. It was at "Roster" rather than "Current Roster". NatureBoyMD (talk) 02:05, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
Cheers JRATalk 02:16, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Upgraded treatment of Baseball Reliquary/Shrine of the Eternals?

I'm a relatively green editor so forgive if this is the wrong place to inquire, but I feel there is a baseball hall of fame that deserves more attention. The Baseball Reliquary and its Shrine of the Eternals, which has now been around for over 20 years and, more importantly, recognizes a wider range of figures with less emphasis on statistics than the National Hall, has become increasingly relevant, IMHO. Recognition in the Shrine seems like a quirky but competent reflection of a person's impact on baseball through a more cultural lens than the more statistics-focused National Baseball HOF. For example, this year's inductees to the Shrine were J.R. Richard (whose playing career certainly looked to be on HOF trajectory before his stroke) alongside Lisa Fernandez and Billy Beane. I posted this idea a while back on the Hall of Fame Task Force Talk Page, and received advice to post here instead; also, the Baseball Reliquary Wikipedia page was subsequently tagged with "Notability" banner. I just added numerous sources and updated information to the Reliquary page and removed the Notability banner, and figure it's time to re-boot this question. Thoughts (including issues with my additions to the Reliquary page itself)? PatrickAtBeanstalk (talk) 15:08, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

What was the consensus on stat tables?

I was always aware they were obsolete for baseball pages but never really questioned why, and can't find any information. Theroux721 (talk) 22:52, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@Theroux721: Some links here.—Bagumba (talk) 01:10, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
@Bagumba: It's a bit interesting since pages involving other sports have seemingly always had stat tables. I don't really have a stance, but I wonder if they'll ever change their mind in the future, since removing the other tables would require more effort. Theroux721 (talk) 01:21, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
@Theroux721: Which "other tables" are you referring to?—Bagumba (talk) 05:52, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
@Bagumba: The ones on pages for NFL, NBA, NHL, etc. Theroux721 (talk) 08:00, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
@Theroux721: There would need to be a new local consensus in a given project to go and delete there. AFAIK, there's never been an attempt to reach a global consensus.—Bagumba (talk) 09:51, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Bert Cole (1920s American League pitcher) Reference redirect error.

Good evening. Go to Bert Cole page, scroll down to References, Reference #1. Change Minor to Major. When you click on Reference #1, it goes to his major league stats. Thank you.2601:581:8000:BDC0:304C:CD3D:3958:6A95 (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Fixed. Spanneraol (talk) 23:57, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Slow Joe Doyle

Whomever uploaded the image of the Slow Joe Doyle baseball card on his page created an inaccuracy. The actual card is a famous error card that mistakenly claims that he pitches for the NY Nat'l team. In removing the 'Nat'l' from the image, it is now inaccurate.Johnny Spasm (talk) 02:00, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

How is it inaccurate? The article is not about the baseball card.. the picture is of him and he played for a NY team. Spanneraol (talk) 03:47, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
The image is a reprint of a famous baseball card, but without the part that it is famous for. I actually intended to edit the article, discussing the card & its value until I saw this image.Johnny Spasm (talk) 22:50, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Sports reviewing ideas

I've floated some ideas in the hope of increasing participation for FAC reviews of sports related articles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports#FAC reviewing of sports articles if anyone is interested in the idea or has a better one. Kosack (talk) 09:18, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

New bot to remove completed infobox requests

Hello! I have recently created a bot to remove completed infobox requests and am sending this message to WikiProject Baseball since the project currently has a backlogged infobox request category. Details about the task can be found at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PearBOT 2, but in short it removes all infobox requests from articles with an infobox, once a week. To sign up, reply with {{ping|Trialpears}} and tell me if any special considerations are required for the Wikiproject. For example: if only a specific infobox should be detected, such as {{infobox journal}} for WikiProject Academic Journals; or if an irregularly named infobox such as {{starbox begin}} should be detected. Feel free to ask if you have any questions!

Sent on behalf of Trialpears (talk) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:34, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Major League Baseball on NBC

I have removed a list of hundreds of nationally-televised MLB games by NBC from this article as a clear violation of WP:NOT. It appears these had been previously removed with one editor repeatedly adding them back. Eagles 24/7 (C) 14:32, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Usage of standings templates

As a reminder, here is how the various standings templates in the form of <year>_<division or "Wild Card">_standings have been used historically, as documented in Template:MLB standings § Creating an MLB division standings template and Template:MLB standings § Creating a wild card standings template:

  • The division/wild card standing template is implemented using the {{MLB standings}} template, as shown in the documentation.
  • When the template is used within a team season article, it is used using the "highlight" parameter set to the team name. For example, in the 2019 Washington Nationals season article, the following is used: {{2019 NL East standings|highlight=Washington Nationals}} and {{2019 NL Wild Card standings|highlight=Washington Nationals}}
  • In the MLB season article, the "seeds" parameter is used for the division standings template to specify the seeds when known, and "highlight" is used to specify teams that have clinched playoff spot but their seeding is not yet known. For example, in 2019 Major League Baseball season, the NL East standings template is currently used as follows: {{2019 NL East standings|seeds=2:Atlanta Braves, 4:Washington Nationals}}. If, for example, Atlanta had clinched a spot but no seeding had been determined yet, then the following would be used: {{2019 NL East standings|highlight=Atlanta Braves}}

Hardcoded values for the "seeds" and "highlight" parameters are not included in the standings templates themselves, in order to allow the articles transcluding the template to decide what should be highlighted. In a team season article, this is the corresponding team.

Of course, consensus can change, but this is how the standings templates have been historically used, and I think it is a reasonable approach. I just removed hardcoded seeds and highlight values from the 2019 division and wild card standings templates. I trust for 2020, should there be a desire to make a change from historic practice, that a discussion will first be held to establish a new consensus. isaacl (talk) 05:51, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Harry Davis (1900s first baseman) , Early Life last sentence cleanup.

Hello and good day. Go to above player, go to Early Life section, last sentence. Tried to take out unnecessary information, please clean up so it goes to his SABR page. Have a good day.2601:581:8000:BDC0:304C:CD3D:3958:6A95 (talk) 21:18, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I took care of the broken reference formatting, but I would love for someone to verify that the reference itself is structured okay. I can't remember the standard (if there is one) for how we phrase things on a SABR BioProject reference. (Do we just go with "SABR" as the publisher? Or is Society for American Baseball Research usually written out? Is there mention of BioProject or Baseball Biography Project somewhere in the reference?) Thanks. Larry Hockett (Talk) 04:51, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Asterisk appropriate for the Astros World Series 2017?

Do we need to put an asterisk on the Houston Astros page by their 2017 World Series win after the announcement today? TheBigMan720 (talk) 22:24, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

TheBigMan720, no, full stop. Not unless MLB vacates the championship or something, which they won't. Adding an asterisk to the 2017 Astros is like when vandals add an asterisk to Barry Bonds' home run total. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:26, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Okay thank you for clarifying that, because LlamaWhoKnives keeps telling me on his/her talk page that his edits on the asterisk were "correct" which they weren't. I discussed that on his/her talk page and they didn't get the point of view. Plus I am not the one putting an asterisks on the Astros page. TheBigMan720 (talk) 22:30, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

TheBigMan720, the "asterisk" for a tainted record comes only from Ford Frick holding Babe Ruth's home run record up despite Roger Maris' 1961 season, but he never actually put an asterisk in the history books. He simply denoted two different records: Ruth's 60 home runs for a 154 game season, and Maris' 61 home runs for a 162 game season. Then, the record books later dropped Ruth's 60 and kept Maris' 61, until McGwire. An asterisk has never been used for a "tainted" sports record. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:37, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you again. TheBigMan720 (talk) 22:38, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
@TheBigMan720: Looks like the case where you were both sorta correct. They were arguing that asterisks are used in sports, you seemed to be arguing that it was WP:UNDUE (which is probably the general consensus).—Bagumba (talk) 04:33, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Can we get some page protection for List of World Series champions also? Spanneraol (talk) 01:12, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Spanneraol,  Done – Muboshgu (talk) 03:14, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Asterisk? Absolutely not and I just removed it from List of World Series champions....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 03:04, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I've spent a fair amount of time correcting the Baseball Cube links in the stats template at the bottom of our player biographies, but I'm increasingly dubious of whether the Cube is a resource worth including in our articles. In my opinion, Baseball-Reference is both more reliable and more professional. Thoughts? Lepricavark (talk) 04:03, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I had WP:LINKFARM concerns at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Baseball/Archive_43#Baseballstats_template in 2018, when we already had Cube problems. Delete it (if not others too). Many sites do reorg and don't redirect old URLs. Not worth the effort (and the FARM concerns).—Bagumba (talk) 09:41, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
The Cube links actually do redirect if you click on them from one of our articles, but we still have the ugly red text at the bottom of about four hundred articles. The mess has mostly been cleaned up, but I tend to agree that we should probably just go through and delete the Cube links from all of our pages. I'd like to get a consensus here before I do that, however. Lepricavark (talk) 13:37, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm for deleting it.. Cube doesnt provide anything that the other links dont already have. Spanneraol (talk) 13:50, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
I agree - should be deleted. I regret that people had to spend time messing with these links, but I don't think this site provides much value not covered by sites like B-R. Larry Hockett (Talk) 15:33, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
So we have four in agreement and zero in disagreement. Is that enough for me to get started on the removals? Lepricavark (talk) 16:16, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Do you need to remove it from each of the articles or would just editing it out of the template do the trick? Spanneraol (talk) 16:29, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure. The latter might work. Lepricavark (talk) 16:32, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

@Lepricavark: I see you removing Cubs from articles,[7] but it's still on {{Baseballstats}}. Is that by design? I can remove from the template.—Bagumba (talk) 05:32, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bagumba: Feel free to remove it. I don't think that will break anything. Lepricavark (talk) 05:38, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Done. Let me know if anyone sees any issues.—Bagumba (talk) 05:56, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
It looks like there are 6,000+ articles that use the |cube= parameter. Primefac operates a bot that can remove those parameters and their values from articles, if you are interested (and if Primefac is willing). – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:18, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
I think the actual total is still over 9,000 articles, but the category is depopulating itself for reasons that are beyond my technical understanding. Lepricavark (talk) 06:25, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
I removed all Cube-related code, including the ones that track. Any template editor can reinstate the tracking code if useful (the removal process already taxed the limits of my template comfort).—Bagumba (talk) 06:50, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Incidentally, leaving the |cube= in articles is not harmful; it's just ignored. Bots generally are not run solely to remove things that dont change reader experience (but can piggyback on other "useful" edits).—Bagumba (talk) 06:50, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Well, it kind of depends. If you're doing a param check (e.g. populating Category:Pages using baseballstats with unknown parameters) then the 9k pages in the category resulting from |cube= existence would be worth removing. If you're not tracking parameter use, then there would be no reason to remove a parameter that doesn't do anything. Primefac (talk) 18:08, 14 January 2020 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

Changes to the baseball notability guideline

I have started a discussion on a change made to the baseball notability guideline, which changed the following footnote, Articles that are not sourced to published material providing significant coverage of the subject (beyond just statistics sites) may be nominated for deletion., by adding the words "or sourceable". Participation is welcome. isaacl (talk) 02:23, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

I should have also noted there is also a proposed change to the wording regarding other criteria that can be used to determine if English Wikipedia's standards for having an article have been met. isaacl (talk) 18:29, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

All-Star Game

I would vote to have a format for all All-Star games simliar to what we have from 1933-1942 and some later seasons. Some game pages including 1943 and later read more like fan pages since they highlight one team's players and only have the lineups as well as the game.2001:48F8:402E:1869:ED48:F9B2:2D31:28DB (talk) 21:03, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree that there's no reason to focus on the All-Stars from the host team like some of those 1940s ASG entries do, but I do think we should aim to include more actual prose than what we find in the 1933-42 entries. After all, WP is an encyclopedia, so we should be able to bring something different than what can already be found at sites like BR or Retrosheet. For a big annual event like this, I think we can shoot for more than one or two paragraphs of prose. Larry Hockett (Talk) 21:38, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Perfect game template question

I've put up a discussion point at the talk page of the perfect game template, and would ask for comments by interested editors. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:00, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

MLB.com as reliable source

In the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)#Change to baseball notability guideline, there has been some discussion of MLB.com as a reliable source. To try to keep that discussion focused on discussing the changes that had been made to the guideline, I would like to continue the discussion about MLB.com here, if everyone is agreeable. isaacl (talk) 05:01, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

To summarize the discussion: Muboshgu stated that MLB.com is "editorially independent of the MLB franchises themselves. [MLB.com] is a reliable source." SportingFlyer responded that there are "beat writers who I believe have independent editorial rights, but they're thrown in with videos and other media that might not be completely independent," and that MILB sites are a greater concern. isaacl (talk) 05:06, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

My understanding is that we can't make a blanket statement about MLB.com being a reliable source, for a couple of reasons. First, as noted by SportingFlyer, there is content provided by the teams on the site. Second, although there is editorially independent content, it is still sports journalism, which has a certain promotional aspect behind it, particularly on MLB's official site. For factual reporting, MLB.com is a reasonably independent source for purposes of verifiability. For establishing if the standards for having an article are met, it may not necessarily qualify as a non-promotional, independent source, depending on the specific pages being cited. isaacl (talk) 05:14, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
I'd say that it should be addressed on a case-by-case basis. I would consider MLB.com's reporting on transactions, game summaries, notable events, etc. to be very reliable. However, MLB.com also produces some other content, such as "Who you should vote for on the All-Star Ballot" or "10 Greatest Second Basemen of the 2010s." I don't think there is any way that you can make a blanket statement about the reliability of the output of MLB.com, given the wide variety of output the site produces. These case calls for editorial discretion, although a lot of the time, the classification of reliable/not reliable is probably common sense. Hog Farm (talk) 05:17, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Isaacl, the beat writers are among the best in the game. I should definitely clarify that there is promotional content and there are videos and photos that are not public domain. Teams do put out press releases on MLB.com, which are still useful as sources if properly attributed. There's also fan-centric content like prospect rankings and comparisons of pros that we wouldn't want to publish either. – Muboshgu (talk) 05:22, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Sure, I agree (with newspapers getting rid of their beat writers, MLB.com was an obvious destination). Just wanted to clarify that all of the promotional content you just listed is there, too. Press releases are fine as sources for what a team is saying, but not necessarily a good source for determining if an article should exist on a topic (English Wikipedia notability), for instance. isaacl (talk) 05:27, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
@Muboshgu: Does MLB.com still have the boilerplate about being independent? I thought it used to be at the bottom of an article, but now I dont see it. Disclaimer aside, I still was never sold on how truly independent it was if they were being paid by MLB and their teams. I'm not questioning their reliability though.—Bagumba (talk) 06:34, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
I think the beat coverage it has would be fine, but I'm guessing the choice of story that it pursues would be constrained. For example, I wouldn't have expected it to break the sign-stealing story. isaacl (talk) 07:26, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
And I would guess they have a vested interest to write more about minor leaguers than say ESPN would, so I wouldn't use them to establish notability. Facts and verifiability are fine.—Bagumba (talk) 07:51, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it's part of the promotional nature of sports journalism: it tends to promote what its audience is interested in. The hometown paper is going to give more extensive coverage to its local team, and often write in more optimistic tones about its players and probability of success. In a similar manner, MLB.com presumably is interested in good news stories about its players and future prospects, and not as eager to break negative news stories. isaacl (talk) 08:25, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Bagumba, it used to have it at the bottom of their articles, but not any more it seems. MiLB.com still has the disclaimer: "This story was not subject to the approval of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues or its clubs." And that's a negative news article I linked. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:38, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, purely factual stories that affect the day-to-day operations of clubs will certainly get covered. But will there be, for example, an in-depth investigative story on how drug pushers infiltrate their way into minor league teams? A piece on how the subservience of the minor leagues to the major leagues hampers its success in many markets? I have my doubts. isaacl (talk) 16:50, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Is it reliable? Yes.. the articles that it publishes are factual. Is it independent? Not entirely... but it is still a good source for factual information. Spanneraol (talk) 16:55, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with the sentiment that it is largely reliable but not independent. The choice of story selection is real and indeed with the sign stealing story MLB's coverage seems to be less, in terms of quantity but I don't, in a quick scan of the stories, see a noticable different in the slant of the articles. So yes reliable but not independent. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:39, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Reliable has good experienced journalists and not seeing any evidence of unreliability but care needs to be taken with matters of controversy as then a lack of independence may surface, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:57, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment There's no doubt in my mind that MLB.com is reliable. I don't know how you can argue otherwise. It sounds like the question here is whether it's independent. That's a bit more tricky. Smartyllama (talk) 03:37, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Major league titles

Some of the baseball team articles have received some disruptive edits from Davefelmer regarding what is included in the "Major league titles" infobox. Davefelmer was advised to come here to build consensus, but has continued to remove division, wild card, and league titles from the section. I somewhat understand the confusion because there's only one champion in baseball at the end of the season. Baseball is a sport that celebrates all these accomplishments so it also makes sense that they're included. This may have been discussed before, but is everyone on board for listing division, wild card, and league accomplishments under "Major league titles?" - Nemov (talk) 18:09, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

They of course are titles that MLB recognizes. Spanneraol (talk) 18:14, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
Most certainly recognized titles - The league pennant's been recognized as separate from the World Series title for as long as there's been the Series. Hog Farm (talk) 18:39, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
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