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Q126881: Baseball 1995: ASCII Format Statistics (BS95STRM.TXT)

Article: Q126881
Product(s): Microsoft Home Multimedia Titles
Version(s): WINDOWS:
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): 
Last Modified: 11-DEC-1999

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Complete Baseball Guide for Windows, 1995 edition 
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SUMMARY
=======

The BS95STRM.TXT file contains Baseball Daily's ASCII format statistics. The
following is the contents of the BS95STRM.TXT file included with Microsoft
Complete Baseball for Windows, 1995 edition.

==============================================
MICROSOFT COMPLETE BASEBALL'S BASEBALL DAILY
ASCII FORMAT STATISTICS FILE
==============================================

This file contains information not included in the User's Guide about
Baseball Daily's ASCII format statistics file.

To read this file on-screen, use the Page Down and Page Up keys.  You
can also print the file by opening this file in any Windows word
processing program and choosing the Print command from the File menu.

This file contains important information on the following topics:

1) WHERE THE ASCII FILE IS

2) WHAT THE ASCII FILE IS

3) WHAT THE ASCII FILE CONTAINS

4) HOW THE RANKINGS IN THE ASCII FILE ARE CALCULATED

=================================================================
1. WHERE THE ASCII FILE IS
=================================================================

**** Sample ASCII file located at: ****
x:\MSBS95\BS95_STA\MLSTATS.txt where x is your Complete Baseball drive

Every day when you download the Baseball Daily, you also receive an
ASCII file of player statistics.  This file appears within the
BS95_STA subdirectory of your MSBS95 directory, assuming you
installed in the default directory suggested in Setup (the regular
Daily file has a .mvb extension and appears in the BS95_DLY
subdirectory of your MSBS95 directory).  The ASCII file has a .txt
extension and includes the date of the file in the name.  For
example, the ASCII file for April 7, 1995, would be named
19950407.txt.  A sample ASCII file ships with Complete Baseball in
the BS95_STA subdirectory and is called MLSTATS.txt.

=================================================================
2. WHAT THE ASCII FILE IS
=================================================================

ASCII is a common file format supported by most software programs.
Since the file is in ASCII format, you can easily use it in your
favorite spreadsheet, database, word processor or other software
program that supports the ASCII format.  Many programs will read
ASCII format directly, so you can just open the file directly
in those programs.  Others, typically database programs, support
ASCII format via an import function.  This allows you to import the
ASCII file into those programs where it is converted to the native
format of that program.  Consult your program's documentation for how
ASCII is supported and how to use directly or import ASCII files.

Notepad, which comes with MS Windows, will also read the ASCII file
directly but it can not open files over a certain size, and
formatting may not be ideal for viewing the file.  You should be able
to open the ASCII stats files during the season with Notepad and you
can use it to open the sample ASCII file (MLSTATS.txt) included with
Complete Baseball (keep in mind this file is provided as a sample and
does not include every player who played last season).

By getting your statistics in this format, you can use your favorite
program to search, sort, and manipulate the players' statistics in
any way you wish.  This makes it simple, for example, to track the
statistics of your favorite player, or to sort all second basemen by
ranking them on how many home runs they have hit.
You also can easily chart or graph the performance of players on key
measures using any built-in graphing features of your favorite
program.

You could also, for example, develop your own formula for ranking
players' performance and use the ASCII file to provide the statistics
you need to create your rankings throughout the season.

Please note that these ASCII files are copyrighted and are licensed
to you for your personal, non-commercial use, and any other use or
redistribution of these files is expressly prohibited.

=================================================================
3. WHAT THE ASCII FILE CONTAINS
=================================================================

The file covers every player in the league and contains over 30
statistical categories including players' most recently played
position and a ranking based on key statistical measures.  The
ranking is described below.  The stats are cumulative season-to-date
totals and are updated daily. Both pitchers and hitters are included.

Players' statistics include their most recently played position so
you can, if you want, sort them by position in whatever program you
use to view the statistics.  All players who are active roster
players are listed everyday even if they did not play the previous
day.

=================================================================
4. HOW THE RANKINGS IN THE ASCII FILE ARE CALCULATED
=================================================================

Along with the statistics, each player is given a ranking for the
season-to-date (updated daily).  This ranking is for all players by
league. So if you wanted to find out who the highest ranking American
League shortstop is, you would you use your favorite program to sort
on shortstops in the American League section of statistics and also
on ranking as the secondary sort criteria (see your program's
documentation for how to do sorts and secondary sorts).

This might give results like the following:

  Player         Position   Ranking
  ------         --------   -------
  Cal Ripken Jr.    SS        8.40
  Mike Gallego      SS        7.94
  Greg Gagne        SS        5.67
  Ozzie Guillen     SS        4.34

Cal Ripken Jr. might be the twelfth ranked player overall with his
score of 8.40 but the highest ranked shortstop (and Mike Gallego,
perhaps the 27th ranked player overall but the second-highest ranked
shortstop, and so on).  This ranking system is preferable to a system
ranking just by position (where Cal Ripken Jr. and Mike Gallego would
have numerical rankings of 1 and 2, respectively) because it gives
you a relative measure of a player's performance -- if players are
ranked 1, 2, 3, etc., you have no way to tell the gap in performance
between each player.  With overall rankings, though, it is clear that
two players who ranked 1 and 2 by position have far different
relative performance levels if their overall rankings are 12 and 13,
for example, versus 12 and 157.  In the latter case they might have
ranking scores of 8.40 and 4.43, while in the former their ranking
scores might be 8.40 and 8.34 so you can easily see their relative
performance on the measures included in the ranking.

The Microsoft Complete Baseball Ranking System uses the following
formulas to rank players:

  Hitters:  At bat = .5 point; Single = 1; Double = 2; Triple = 3; Home
  run = 4; RBI = 1; Run = 1; Stolen Base = 1; Caught Stealing = (-1);
  Walk (BB) = 1; Strikeout = (-1)

  Pitchers:  Inning pitched = .5 points; Win = 8; Loss = (-4); Save = 5;
  Game Finished = 2; Strikeout = 1; Walk (BB) = (-1); Earned Run = (-1);
  Hit = (-.5); Complete Game = 2; Shutout = 3

Players' points are summed for all games they have played and are
then divided by games played to render a ranking that is based on
average points per game.  To sort on relief pitchers versus starting
pitchers, search for pitchers with zero games started (these are the
relief pitchers).

The Microsoft Complete Baseball Ranking System is intended for
personal reference purposes only and does not attempt or purport to
establish any objective value for one player over another -- it is
ranking only the performance of a particular player against other
players over the course of the season on an arbitrary set of
measures.

Additional query words: kbhowto 1995multi media multimedia multi-media mmtitles kbmm

======================================================================
Keywords          :  
Technology        : kbHomeProdSearch kbGamesSearch kbBaseballSearch kbCompleteBaseballSearch kbCompleteBaseball1995
Version           : WINDOWS:

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