Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball
This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Baseball and anything related to its purposes and tasks. |
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Is anyone maintaining these "lists of MLB players"?
[edit]I stumbled upon these lists of MLB players, e.g. List of Major League Baseball players (A), List of Major League Baseball players (Ha), List of Major League Baseball players (La–Lh), but I don't think they are being updated regularly. Many retired players on the lists still do not have their "final game" listed, and players whose careers began after 2011 are not listed. Overall, are these lists even useful if they are not kept up to date? Natg 19 (talk) 07:52, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- Hmm, another thing is that a few of the lists, e.g. List of Major League Baseball players (B), List of Major League Baseball players (D) just are a list of names with no other information. But the lack of updates is still an issue, as the B and D articles seem to be untouched (barring minor link fixes) since 2011. Natg 19 (talk) 07:54, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
Overall, are these lists even useful if they are not kept up to date?
No; even if maintained they run afoul of WP:NOTDIRECTORY but they're even worse when neglected. These walled gardens of specialized data pages are typically made by fanatical editors with little regard for encyclopedic merit or core policies. A bundled AfD may be in order. Left guide (talk) 08:29, 21 June 2025 (UTC)- I might have at best added sone entries to a team's all-time roster, but not often. Still your interpretation of WP:NOTDIRECTORY might be a bit too strict. It reads:
FWIW, (given WP:OTHERSTUFFGENERAL and the like), there's lots of broad list/indexes like List of British actors, List of NFL players, etc. And there's lots of WP pages that are not up to date. —Bagumba (talk) 10:57, 21 June 2025 (UTC)Wikipedia functions as an index or directory of its own content. However, Wikipedia is not a directory of everything in the universe that exists or has existed.
- There are all-time roster lists for every team as well that usually aren't up to date.... I do update the Dodgers list on a regular basis and keep it up to date but I don't think that the other teams have dedicated updaters. If we had enough editors, i'd suggest a project wide effort to update these but not sure we have the manpower. Spanneraol (talk) 13:27, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- I've been updating the Brewers' list after each season's end. NatureBoyMD (talk) 14:07, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- The Tigers' list is kept rigorously up-to-date. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 16:25, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- The policy quote you furnished demonstrates precisely why this group of pages is in WP:NOTDIRECTORY territory, because they collectively attempt to function as a directory of every MLB player in the universe that exists or has existed. The category system is sufficient for this purpose. Left guide (talk) 17:33, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- Categories don't necessarily preclude related lists (WP:NOTDUP). —Bagumba (talk) 02:31, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- There are all-time roster lists for every team as well that usually aren't up to date.... I do update the Dodgers list on a regular basis and keep it up to date but I don't think that the other teams have dedicated updaters. If we had enough editors, i'd suggest a project wide effort to update these but not sure we have the manpower. Spanneraol (talk) 13:27, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- I might have at best added sone entries to a team's all-time roster, but not often. Still your interpretation of WP:NOTDIRECTORY might be a bit too strict. It reads:
- TBH, all sports lists of players should be deleted. They're IMHO too trivial. GoodDay (talk) 14:56, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- I think the team lists have value.. the league lists on the other hand are a pain... I tried to see what it would take to update these and just looking at "A" it doesn't seem to have had any substantial update in about a decade. Considering that new players debut almost every day of the season keeping these updated is tough.. plus the baseball reference list that I would use to update these also has added the negro league players that are not in our lists. Even the team lists are problematic to update considering how different they are.. some are updated some are not and they are radically different format.. I remember the effort that User:Killervogel5 spent on bringing the Phillies articles up to featured lists.. but when he retired the lists quickly went out of sync and he made them kinda hard to update. Spanneraol (talk) 15:54, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- I wonder how hard would it be to have a bot update these pages by culling info from the categories? I developed the Negro league team rosters by culling the WP categories. Every new addition or removal to a cat would prompt a bot action. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not really familiar with how bots work.. but would the fact that the pages have wildly different formats make it hard to do that? Spanneraol (talk) 16:41, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- Probably would need to standardize the page formats, yes. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 16:45, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not really familiar with how bots work.. but would the fact that the pages have wildly different formats make it hard to do that? Spanneraol (talk) 16:41, 21 June 2025 (UTC)
- So what should the path moving forward for this be? Should I (or someone) open an AfD for the overall player lists? It sounds like the team roster lists are more up to date and useful. I agree with the WP:NOTDIRECTORY argument, as someone could just go to Baseball Reference for a list of players (A) (which is where these lists are sourced from anyways). Natg 19 (talk) 21:07, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
- I'd like to keep the team roster pages but I don't see the MLB player pages ever being updated nor do I have any use for them. Spanneraol (talk) 22:57, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
- Agreed with the above, there's definitely merit to the team pages but the master lists... yeah it ain't happening it's too in the weeds and impossible to maintain. Wizardman 02:02, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- Perhaps first convert List of Major League Baseball players to list of players by team, like at List of NFL players#By team. If that sticks, then group nominate all the sub-lists of players by letter for AfD. —Bagumba (talk) 02:12, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- I'd like to keep the team roster pages but I don't see the MLB player pages ever being updated nor do I have any use for them. Spanneraol (talk) 22:57, 26 June 2025 (UTC)
- No, these lists could be updated easily using BX's category culling method above since every MLB player ever already has an article (except John Fogarty (baseball) and the List of 19th-century Major League Baseball players with unidentified given names) We don't need to necessarily worry about the Negro leaguers since they have their own lists (List of Negro league baseball players (A–D), etc.) ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 02:18, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- I'm not up to speed on what the community allows bots to do. Are there similar Db crawls that result in automated article space edits? —Bagumba (talk) 02:23, 27 June 2025 (UTC)
- I added a request at Wikipedia:Bot requests#Culling categories to update lists for further input so this doesn't fade away into the archives with no outcome. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 20:01, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- That seems fine with me. Ideally, these would be kept up to date, but if they are not kept up to date, then I would agree with deleting them. Natg 19 (talk) 19:37, 28 July 2025 (UTC)
Season stats boxes
[edit]Someone has changed the season stats boxes again & now they're are particially overlaping each other. GoodDay (talk) 02:30, 8 July 2025 (UTC)
- @GoodDay: may I please ask for an example article or the pertinent username? Left guide (talk) 02:52, 8 July 2025 (UTC)
- 2025 Major League Baseball season's standings. GoodDay (talk) 09:06, 8 July 2025 (UTC)
Some photos to ID
[edit]Red Sox fans, or others interested, a few photos on Commons from the White House visit (!) last week could use categorizing and maybe cropping to add them in articles; see Boston Red Sox at the White House (July 2025). Hameltion (talk | contribs) 18:48, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
Please add reliable sources to this stub. Bearian (talk) 03:24, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- Perhaps this topic would be better covered as part of Pitcher § Pitching in a game, instead of a separate article? isaacl (talk) 05:19, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- My 2 cents is merge it with Brushback pitch as it is just semantics. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 21:48, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
- I suggest merging both pages to Pitcher § Pitching in a game. isaacl (talk) 21:55, 12 July 2025 (UTC)
List of Negro league baseball players who played in Major League Baseball
[edit]MLB now recognizes the Negro Leagues and as a Major League. When the league or media needs to draw a distinction they generally say “AL/NL.” I believe this article should be adjusted to reflect that.
List of Negro league baseball players who played in Major League Baseball Bonasiar (talk) 01:51, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- Just because it's a major league doesn't mean it's "Major League Baseball" ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 03:03, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- “Major League Baseball” didn’t exist as an individual entity until 2000. Before that the NL and AL were the two Major Leagues who competed for the World Series. I think it makes sense to change the title to be in line with how Major League Baseball describes the relation, instead of how it’s colloquially described. Bonasiar (talk) 04:04, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- Policy is explicitly to use colloquial names for article titles:
Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's official name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used...
- The prose and/or lead is a better place to go into the specifics, in my opinion. Buttons to Push Buttons (talk | contribs) 11:52, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- ^^Agree, per WP:CONCISE. Otherwise, @Bonasiar: what title do you propose? Rgrds. --BX (talk) 22:14, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- “Major League Baseball” didn’t exist as an individual entity until 2000. Before that the NL and AL were the two Major Leagues who competed for the World Series. I think it makes sense to change the title to be in line with how Major League Baseball describes the relation, instead of how it’s colloquially described. Bonasiar (talk) 04:04, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- Agree with OP. The Negro Leagues are major leagues. Move to List of Negro league baseball players who played in the AL/NL, or other suitable title. 162 etc. (talk) 23:07, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
- There was an RM in July 2022 that basically proposed this title change that flopped. There's no real point in changing it as long as we have "(x) Major League Baseball season" articles, as far as I'm concerned. Nohomersryan (talk) 08:50, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
Most biography articles of MLB players do not feature stats. Why is that?
[edit]I have noticed that there are basically no articles of MLB players which feature tables displaying their stats season-by-season. Only a few articles; examples of which include List of career achievements by Babe Ruth, Dick Groat, Joe DiMaggio; have stat tables featuring solely their career totals. My question is, was there a consensus to not add career stat tables to MLB pages? Or was there another relevant reason behind the lack of tables (such as, say, being too bulky)? Looking through MLB player articles, I have never understood why this is, even considering the often complex and varied aspects of baseball stats. Yes, balancing as much as batting, fielding, and pitching stat tables can be tough, but I believe it is doable.
One thing I did recently was add the career MLB stats to the Chuck Connors page. I felt that the page needed the more even statistical coverage, since Connors had also played in the NBA and his respective stats had been on the page for a few years now. I have also been on an endeavor the last few years to increase NBA and other basketball league stat coverage on Wikipedia, with this NBA player article list a reflection of that.
Because I don't follow baseball that much, I wouldn't make a MLB-related list similar to the one above. I at least appreciate the history of it (i.e. Louis Sockalexis); and the fact that Connors, Groat, and Danny Ainge are three of 13 men who have played in both the NBA and the MLB. So, if I could have clarification from any of you on why even Hall of Famer pages often don't have stats, I'd be very much grateful for that. Such an element of the baseball coverage on Wikipedia has given me acute confusion, and I'm hoping I can understand this aspect better. Mungo Kitsch (talk) 07:40, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
- It's been discussed many times.. the general consensus was that linking to the stats pages on baseball reference and mlb was preferable to including them here and the preference was to discuss players performance in prose instead with only a few stats highlighted in the info box. Spanneraol (talk) 15:56, 16 July 2025 (UTC)
- But it seems that manager stats are often displayed, e.g. Ryne Sandberg#Managerial record. I think player stats should be re-introduced. IIRC, the decision was based on a value judgement that editors "should" provide prose. But I think there is value to providing basic player stats tables (not all the advanced ones) without forcing readers off the WP page. —Bagumba (talk) 06:07, 30 July 2025 (UTC)
- On the merits of including stats, WP:NOTSTATS says:
So from a policy standpoint, that is how to judge whether stats belong in an article. Arguments backed by that policy clause would be the strongest in establishing consensus. Left guide (talk) 07:40, 30 July 2025 (UTC)Statistics that lack context or explanation can reduce readability and may be confusing...articles with statistics should include explanatory text providing context.
Requested move at Talk:Hunter Greene (baseball) #Requested move 17 July 2025
[edit]There is a requested move at Talk:Hunter Greene (baseball) #Requested move 17 July 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Servite et contribuere (talk) 22:04, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
Boston Red Sox's 2016 to 2024 season pages
[edit]In the 2016 to 2024 Boston Red Sox season pages, the regular season games stats have been changed to prose style. Why was this done? GoodDay (talk) 03:45, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
- I looked at those articles and the game stats seem to still be there... not sure what you are referring to. Spanneraol (talk) 20:57, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- Meant to say that those Bosox seasons include prose style, along with the game stats. GoodDay (talk) 04:01, 2 August 2025 (UTC)
Good article reassessment for Michael Wacha
[edit]Michael Wacha has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 18:53, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
New articles?
[edit]Does it make sense to have an article for Outs Above Average? And/Or for it to be in the Baseball statistics article? Also - should we have an article for MLB Pipeline, which is in lots of articles? 184.153.21.19 (talk) 23:10, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
- Article topics are generally expected to abide by the WP:GNG notability criteria. Aside from that, if there's a question or concern over whether a topic can/should be integrated into an existing article, WP:PAGEDECIDE may also be worth reading. Left guide (talk) 23:36, 4 August 2025 (UTC)
- Understood. I was looking at range factor and ultimate zone rating and it easily meets that level of references in those baseball defensive statistics articles. And, thinking about the other approach, there are statistical measures in the Baseball statistics article that do not have Wikipedia articles but that have definitions in that article. --184.153.21.19 (talk) 00:26, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
- Is their enough content in these subjects to make it worth having separate articles on them outside of the statistics article? Spanneraol (talk) 01:40, 5 August 2025 (UTC)
- Understood. I was looking at range factor and ultimate zone rating and it easily meets that level of references in those baseball defensive statistics articles. And, thinking about the other approach, there are statistical measures in the Baseball statistics article that do not have Wikipedia articles but that have definitions in that article. --184.153.21.19 (talk) 00:26, 5 August 2025 (UTC)