Cube Notes

The ratio of Americans to foreigners at the major league level has risen from 3% in 1903 to 26% in 2008. International scouting is more important than ever as there is a high probability that one out of every 5 players on your team will have learned the game somewhere other than in the US.

Some teams and general managers have shied away from foreigners but others have embraced them; to a point where 50% of their players were born outside of the States or Canada. Omar Minaya and Ned Colletti are stocking their teams with imports more than any other General Managers in recent years. Omar Minaya made his presence felt immediately after being hired to lead the Montreal Expos in 2002. Though they already had a large % of foreigners on their team (40.4% in 2001), Minaya quickly boosted it up to 44% and after taking over the New York Mets in 2005, he raised their ratio of foreigners from 23% in 2004 to 47% in 2006. Does this translate to winning? Well, it didn't necessarily result in a World Championship for the Mets but how about for other teams?
Consider the % of foreigners on the last 10 World Series winning teams:

2008 PHI  15%
2007 BOS  33%
2006 STL  24%
2005 CHW  32%
2004 BOS  22%
2003 FLA  28%
2002 ANA  20%
2001 ARI  19%
2000 NYY  30%
1999 NYY  31%

2004 Los Angeles Dodgers 51.2%
2006 New York Mets       51.0%
2005 Los Angeles Dodgers 47.7%
2005 New York Mets       47.6%
2007 New York Mets       46.9%
2008 New York Mets       46.0%
2002 Montreal Expos      44.2%
2003 Montreal Expos      44.2%
2006 Los Angeles Dodgers 44.0%
1997 Toronto Blue Jays   43.2%
2003 New York Yankees    42.9%
2005 Baltimore Orioles   41.3%
2008 New York Yankees    41.2%
2001 Montreal Expos      40.4%
2004 Baltimore Orioles   40.4%
2005 Seattle Mariners    39.6%

Arizona Diamondbacks   25.7%
Florida Marlins        24.9%
Los Angeles Dodgers    24.2%
Pittsburgh Pirates     21.4%
Colorado Rockies       21.4%
Tampa Bay Rays         20.8%
Washington Nationals   20.5%
Toronto Blue Jays      20.1%
Cleveland Indians      18.7%
New York Yankees       18.4%
Baltimore Orioles      18.0%
Seattle Mariners       17.4%
New York Mets          17.3%
Atlanta Braves         16.9%
Texas Rangers          16.3%
Cincinnati Reds        16.3%
St. Louis Cardinals    15.9%
Chicago Cubs           15.8%
Chicago White Sox      15.6%
Milwaukee Brewers      15.5%
Houston Astros         15.4%
Los Angeles Angels     14.6%
Kansas City Royals     14.3%
Boston Red Sox         14.2%
Detroit Tigers         14.2%
San Diego Padres       13.9%
Minnesota Twins        13.6%
Oakland Athletics      13.6%
Philadelphia Phillies  13.4%
San Francisco Giants   12.8%

By Year:

1903 3.3%
1904 4.2%
1905 4.2%
1906 4.3%
1907 3.6%
1908 4.0%
1909 2.8%
1910 2.4%
1911 1.8%
1912 2.7%
1913 2.6%
1914 3.7%
1915 2.3%
1916 3.4%
1917 2.9%
1918 3.4%
1919 2.1%
1920 2.1%
1921 1.9%
1922 1.4%
1923 0.8%
1924 0.7%
1925 1.3%
1926 1.1%
1927 0.7%
1928 0.8%
1929 0.9%
1930 0.6%
1931 1.2%
1932 1.1%
1933 0.8%
1934 0.6%
1935 1.0%
1936 0.8%
1937 1.0%
1938 0.9%
1939 0.9%
1940 1.1%
1941 0.9%
1942 1.5%
1943 2.2%
1944 2.8%
1945 3.1%
1946 1.3%
1947 1.4%
1948 1.4%
1949 2.6%
1950 3.1%
1951 3.4%
1952 3.0%
1953 3.8%
1954 4.2%
1955 5.0%
1956 5.5%
1957 5.7%
1958 6.1%
1959 6.8%
1960 9.0%
1961 7.5%
1962 7.4%
1963 7.9%
1964 8.8%
1965 8.7%
1966 9.3%
1967 10.1%
1968 10.4%
1969 11.5%
1970 11.2%
1971 10.2%
1972 10.7%
1973 11.2%
1974 11.1%
1975 9.7%
1976 11.4%
1977 10.4%
1978 10.3%
1979 10.4%
1980 11.2%
1981 10.5%
1982 10.6%
1983 11.9%
1984 11.2%
1985 11.1%
1986 11.0%
1987 11.9%
1988 13.5%
1989 12.5%
1990 13.1%
1991 14.4%
1992 14.2%
1993 14.5%
1994 15.0%
1995 16.6%
1996 17.9%
1997 21.1%
1998 19.9%
1999 21.3%
2000 22.4%
2001 24.1%
2002 25.4%
2003 25.0%
2004 26.7%
2005 27.1%
2006 27.2%
2007 26.2%
2008 26.2%

+ Not sure why I didn't notice but the South Coast League did not play in 2008. I grabbed the 2007 stats and so there are duplicate stats for all players participating in this league.

I'll have that updated on the site soon.

+ I have added stats for the following Independent Leagues.


American Association
Atlantic League
CanAm League
Continental League
Frontier League
Golden League
Northern League
South Coast League
United League

Two interesting names pop out.

• A new player named Rich Lawyer
• Former NHL hockey player Theo Fleury played in 2 games for the Calgary Vipers.

+ My next project will be to work 100% on the new site design which will hopefully be ready sooner than later. Once that is done, I can go back to my data projects.

+ I'm not sure how much value people put on fielding statistics but in case you are interested, I have finally updated minor league fielding stats for all affiliated leagues between 2006 and 2008. The only exception is that I don't have pitchers fielding stats or DH appearances. As always, for minor leaguers, outfielders will simply appear as "OF" instead of the specific position.

+ At one time, The Baseball Cube was littered with ticket advertisements by competitive ticket companies trying to use link placement as a means of getting higher rankings in the search engines, i.e. Google. Over the last year, Google has made some adjustments to their search algorithm that now penalizes ticket companies and sites that show these ads with respect to search rankings. And so the trend on the Cube is that there are not only less ticket ads but there will likely soon be none.

That provides the opportunity for a site redesign since much of the current design is built around making room for these ticket ads. You can expect to see something new in the next couple of weeks or months. It will be a more vertical display that will require a lot of scroll down but all of the same information will still be there and there may even be a few new surprises.

+ I've started a section on Baseball Studies which thus far only includes the Organization Stability post that I made last week. I have more studies on the way and if you have any interesting "studies" that you'd like to see me complete, don't hesitate to contact me.

+ We're up to date with Major League Stats for 2008. The data products will be completely updated by tomorrow.

+ I've updated the Minor League Team Pages to now include playoff results for 2008.

+ I should have Major League Stats online next week and by extension, all of the data products for 2008 should be available.

+ I have happened on a new band called Kings of Leon. Brilliant straight-ahead gutsy rock. "Arizona" is my new favorite song.

+ Working on a baseball project today, I came across the St. Cloud State Huskies logo and was mortified at their lack of originality. A native Montrealer, I grew up with the Montreal Canadiens as religion and it remains that way into their centennial year.

Surprisingly, I cannot find any reference to this similarity on the Internet either because nobody cares or nobody knows who the heck the St. Cloud State Huskies are.

But no worries. I found some comfort when I saw the name of the St. Cloud baseball field.

+ 2008 Minor League Stats are now available on the site. 

+ From the College World Series winning Fresno State University Bulldogs who to the 4-52 Coppin State Eagles, Division I college statistics are now available on The Baseball Cube.

+ Did you play high school baseball in 2008? Is there absolutely no chance of you making the major leagues like about 99.5% of all high school baseball players? Well, you might now be listed on The Baseball Cube.

I've been adding high school records and rosters for teams one conference at a time, in no particular order and about 2400 US high schools will now have their 2008 record and [possibly] their roster. The long-term plan is to not only post yearly high school data but to link players from the roster to their TBC player page [if it exists].

And if you're a player listed and you'd like to have your own player page with your college stats and biographical information, please send $10 through paypal to us and we'll make the effort to create a page for you and include you in the search.

+ I've also enhanced the high school pages with some additional information. I've added more nicknames and links to web sites as well as the school colors for a bunch of teams. The team's yearly record [2008 only] may also appear on the page with a link to the roster or to the conference standings.

Finally, for many schools, I've included a list of notable alumni that attended the school. These lists are usually debated quite heavily as there will be omissions and corrections for all lists as well as what constitutes notable.

Currently, the "Update High School Information" link does not work so use the contact us form for any corrections until I can get it fixed.

I think this will be a fun and nostalgic section for players and fans in the years to come.

+ If you have any ideas for new baseball lists, please don't hesitate to send them my way.

+ The Devil Rays took Tim Beckham #1 overall for their 4th #1 pick since 1999. The years of futility are finally paying off Pittsburgh Penguins style as the Devil Rays find themselves battling for the AL East lead with the Red Sox.

TBC now has draft results and player pages for all 1504 drafted players.

+ So where have all the updates been? As always, big projects are happening behind the scenes and this time, I'm focusing on high school baseball. You should see some results from this section before September.

+ One of the features that sets us apart from other web sites is our inclusion of disabled list data. I have updated the database for players who were active in 2007 so we now have 2001-2007.

+ The database has been updated to include player deaths and debuts for major leaguers for the 2007 season. The new layout, up until today, did not include this information. Debut dates are linked to the game boxscore from the player page. Death information is for major leaguers only and displays the date of death. For minor leaguers and other players who have passed away, you can send along the date of death for inclusion. For non major leaguers, date of death may be absent as its more difficult to track.

+ I've also added 2008 salaries to the salary database. This is only for players who started the season on a major league roster or on the disabled list. I'll update the rest of the players at the end of the season.

+ Spring training statistics are no more. Not only do they take up space on a player's page, they take up database space and are fairly insignificant. I might try to replace them with more significant statistics like fall/winter Leagues or other International leagues. I've had requests for Mexican League data as well.

+ Disney World was a success for our family. 10 days of non-stop park hopping between the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM), Animal Kingdom, Blizzard Beach, Typhoon Laggon and Downtown Disney. Our kids are 5 and 3 and they had a good time but they were more likely to enjoy the pool or the arcade at the hotel instead of Small World or Astro Blasters with Buzz Lightyear. I would recommend to any family that if you are planning to go to Disney only once, wait until your kids are all 48 inches or taller (so they can ride on most any ride) and are at least 6 or 7 years old. My favorite Disney rides:

• Test Track
• Aerosmith's Rock n' Roller Coaster
• Splash Mountain
• Primeval Whirl
• Expedition Everest
• Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters
• Tommorowland Speedway

+ Sorry for the lack of updates. Sometimes life gets in the way and sometimes you accidentally overwrite your "site build" program and have to rebuild it from scratch.

Current season statistics are now available on player pages. They were updated late last week, before the disappearance of my site building program. I'll try to update the stats at least twice a week so that each player's page gains more relevance. You might notice that for now, the team statistics pages for 2008 are not available. I'll be updating those next.

Oh, and the stats are for the majors and affiliated minor leagues.

+ You might have noticed an update to the layout of the site within the last couple of weeks and at the time of publication, I liked them but upon review, I have decided to redesign once again.

Today, you will notice that the player pages are updated and looking very different. The data is organized differently and the width of the page is compressed into 1024 pixels making design easier and hopefully overall, the site easier to read. Any feedback is appreciated.

+ Recently updated on The Hockey Cube. Includes player logs, player stats analysis, team logs, a calendar, a daily view with daily standings and leaders and finally, the boxscores. Faceoff data was not available for 2003-04 but I'll try to insert it retroactively when I find it.

2002-03 is already underway.

+ Once again, sorry for the lack of updates on the blog. As is always the case, I get wrapped up in a large project and I neglect all others. Though I am still entrenched in designing a new site layout that will clean up the inconsistencies and control the ads a bit better, I have started in on some of the smaller projects that are on my to-do list.

+ The first project on that list was for player Transactions between December 1,2006 and February 28,2008. One of the new features of the Transactions, going forward, is the inclusion of length of contract. I don't have dollar figures but on Johan Santana's page, for example, you'll see he signed a 6-year contract with the Mets after being traded there.
As with every player update, expired sponsorships have been removed and profiles have been updated as a result of visitor updates submitted.

+ I'm headed back to Disney World at the end of April and I am betting that there is snow on the ground here when I leave. Today is the first day of spring and Montreal is celebrating with more snow. My bet is that if the groundhog could get his head out of his little hole and through the 10 feet of snow above it, he would look outside and say six more weeks of winter before jumping back to his hole and his HD television. Ideally, when I leave for Disney, I would like to see a few inches of snow still on the ground so I could at least feel like I was leaving winter behind and heading directly to summer. I'm still wondering why my ancestors decided to settle up in Canada when there were so many tropical climates available.