 | Your Junk my Happy Zone | |
| by Brandon Corbett |
League Lineup is not the prettiest thing out there. It is, however, really convenient for keeping stats. And stats, while essentially nothing more than ego driven fellatio, are an important part of the league dynamic. With teams being responsible for inputting their own stats this year, League Lineup is going to be a crucial part of your responsibilities this season. The reason we are asking you to do this is that last year Carl and I took the entire responsibility upon ourselves and the latter part of the season and playoffs suffered for it: we were burned out. The process of doing the stats is not difficult, but it is one of the most time-consuming jobs in running a league. Splitting this up between every team will free the two of us up to work on the more fun aspects of the league, like player cards, breaking down stats or trends in the league, and embellishing the amusing stories that come up throughout the year. Also, when keeping the amount of games limited to only a few at a time, the work required on your end should be very quick.
Step one: This is a "duh", but yes it has to be said. Go to http://leaguelineup.com/wiffleinsemi. Then click on the red "Administration" link in the left side-bar. You each have your own login name and password. This allows you to edit your team's players, in case you have substitutes that need to be added, and to input the final score, offensive, and pitching statistics of games you play in. One team can input for both teams that played in the game, or teams may choose to do their own. Yeah, it is the honor system we are working on. Yeah, I trust you all not to sully what this league is about, and handle inputting the numbers professionally.
Step two: Adding Players
Check this before you get into the game results in case you had players on your team who had not previously played in games. In the left side-bar underneath "Team Setup" click on "Team Info". Then, in the row of your team name, click on the "Players" link all the way to the right.
This is an example of the "Players" form. It is broken down into categories for "First Name", "Last Name", "Number", and "Position". All that is needed here is to put in information for players not already listed. "Position" is cute and looks nice on a print-out, but is not ultimately necessary; in fact, it is a safe bet that most substitutes will likely be outfielders or "OF". The other three categories are important, however, as both names identify the player and numbers help us properly assign RBIs. Some of your replacement/substitute players may potentially share numbers throughout the season, but it will still help with the cataloging of the stats. Now, onto the good part.
Step three: Game Results
This is where things start to get important: game results and player stats. First, in the left side-bar under "Team Setup" click on "Game Results (Stats)" (a bewildering title, I know!). Then click the top link, "Game Results/Statistics" (Redundant, yes, but an important distinction). Finally, in the list of games find the correct game by Date, Visitor, and Home team; go to the far right, and click the "Edit" link. That will take you to this screen:
Step four: Inputting game results
When you click onto this page you will be on the "Score/Offensive Stats" tab; stay there to start. Begin by ignoring the actual box score; the first thing you need to do is change "Game Status" to 'Completed', 'Innings Played' to 5 (or the number of innings played, if mercy or extras), and make sure 'Exclude from standings' is NOT checked. *Note it is checked in your game on their now, as this is not a real game, and just for educational purposes - DO NOT uncheck it for this game.
The next step is to type in runs by inning, final score and hits into the box score (we do not score errors). Once you have done that scroll down to the table below the "Notes" section where you will find the Offensive Stats.
Step five: Offensive stats
All of your players will be listed here, whether or not they played in the game. I will go through this step box-by-box.
Ord: "Batting Order" - Not essential, so include only if you are anal.
G: "Game" - Select this box if the player played in the game. Make sure it is NOT checked if they did not.
AB: "At Bats" - At Bats are NOT plate appearances! Plate Appearances are literally every time a player appears at the plate. For our game, At Bats are Plate Appearances minus Walks minus Sacrifice Flies.
R: "Runs" - Number of times the player scored a run.
1B: "Singles" - Number of those.
2B: "Doubles" - Number of those.
3B: "Triples" - Number of those.
HR: "Home Runs" - Number of those.
RBI: "Runs Batted In" - Number of those.
BB: "Bases on Balls" or "Walks" - Number of times the player was walked.
K: "Strike Outs" - We do not keep track of offensive failures, so do not input Ks.
SF: "Sacrifice Flies" - Number of times a fly ball is caught, but a runner scores from third base by tagging up.
DP: "Double Plays" - We do not keep track of offensive failures, so do not input DPs.
Once you have the numbers put into the form, make sure to click the Save Changes button before moving on to the next tab.
Step six: Pitching stats
We do not keep Defensive Stats, so skip over that tab, and jump to the "Pitching Stats"" tab. Again we will go box-by-box:
Ord: "Order" - UNLIKE for batters, pitching order matters. 1 is first, 2 second, etc. for when a pitcher entered the game.
G: "Game" - Select this box for any player who pitched in the game.
GS: "Game Started" - Select this box for the pitcher who STARTED the game.
IP: "Innings Pitched" - Number of complete innings pitched.
1/3: "Partial Innings Pitched" - 1 out = 1/3 Inning Pitched. 2 outs - 2/3 Innings pitched. I.E. a pitcher started the game and threw until 2 outs in the third inning: he pitched 2 2/3 innings.
R: "Runs" - We only have earned runs, so total runs allowed.
ER: "Earned Runs" - While the same as Runs, make sure to insert the number of runs in both categories, as ER is used for formulas.
H: "Hits" - Hits allowed.
BB: "Walks" - Walks allowed.
K: "Strike-outs" - Strike-outs recorded.
CG: "Complete Game" - Select this box for the player if they pitched a complete game.
W: "Win" - Select this box if the pitcher won the game.
L: "Loss" - Select this box if the pitcher lost the game.
S: "Save" - Select this box if the pitcher recorded a save (at least 1 out recorded to close the game with a run differential of 3 runs or less).
Once you have the numbers in the form, click the "Save Changes" button, and you are done. Player stats will be updated immediately on the team page and in the league-wide ranking. The first time you go through the process you may have to think about what you are doing a few times, but once you have done it before it becomes an almost mechanical activity. You each have one 'fake game' shared with another team scheduled on League Lineup right now, so feel free to play around with it as much or as little as you need to get used to working with the site.
Check this before you get into the game results in case you had players on your team who had not previously played in games. In the left side-bar underneath "Team Setup" click on "Team Info". Then, in the row of your team name, click on the "Players" link all the way to the right.
This is where things start to get important: game results and player stats. First, in the left side-bar under "Team Setup" click on "Game Results (Stats)" (a bewildering title, I know!). Then click the top link, "Game Results/Statistics" (Redundant, yes, but an important distinction). Finally, in the list of games find the correct game by Date, Visitor, and Home team; go to the far right, and click the "Edit" link. That will take you to this screen:
When you click onto this page you will be on the "Score/Offensive Stats" tab; stay there to start. Begin by ignoring the actual box score; the first thing you need to do is change "Game Status" to 'Completed', 'Innings Played' to 5 (or the number of innings played, if mercy or extras), and make sure 'Exclude from standings' is NOT checked. *Note it is checked in your game on their now, as this is not a real game, and just for educational purposes - DO NOT uncheck it for this game.
The next step is to type in runs by inning, final score and hits into the box score (we do not score errors). Once you have done that scroll down to the table below the "Notes" section where you will find the Offensive Stats.
All of your players will be listed here, whether or not they played in the game. I will go through this step box-by-box.
Ord: "Batting Order" - Not essential, so include only if you are anal.
G: "Game" - Select this box if the player played in the game. Make sure it is NOT checked if they did not.
AB: "At Bats" - At Bats are NOT plate appearances! Plate Appearances are literally every time a player appears at the plate. For our game, At Bats are Plate Appearances minus Walks minus Sacrifice Flies.
R: "Runs" - Number of times the player scored a run.
1B: "Singles" - Number of those.
2B: "Doubles" - Number of those.
3B: "Triples" - Number of those.
HR: "Home Runs" - Number of those.
RBI: "Runs Batted In" - Number of those.
BB: "Bases on Balls" or "Walks" - Number of times the player was walked.
K: "Strike Outs" - We do not keep track of offensive failures, so do not input Ks.
SF: "Sacrifice Flies" - Number of times a fly ball is caught, but a runner scores from third base by tagging up.
DP: "Double Plays" - We do not keep track of offensive failures, so do not input DPs.
Once you have the numbers put into the form, make sure to click the Save Changes button before moving on to the next tab.
We do not keep Defensive Stats, so skip over that tab, and jump to the "Pitching Stats"" tab. Again we will go box-by-box:
Ord: "Order" - UNLIKE for batters, pitching order matters. 1 is first, 2 second, etc. for when a pitcher entered the game.
G: "Game" - Select this box for any player who pitched in the game.
GS: "Game Started" - Select this box for the pitcher who STARTED the game.
IP: "Innings Pitched" - Number of complete innings pitched.
1/3: "Partial Innings Pitched" - 1 out = 1/3 Inning Pitched. 2 outs - 2/3 Innings pitched. I.E. a pitcher started the game and threw until 2 outs in the third inning: he pitched 2 2/3 innings.
R: "Runs" - We only have earned runs, so total runs allowed.
ER: "Earned Runs" - While the same as Runs, make sure to insert the number of runs in both categories, as ER is used for formulas.
H: "Hits" - Hits allowed.
BB: "Walks" - Walks allowed.
K: "Strike-outs" - Strike-outs recorded.
CG: "Complete Game" - Select this box for the player if they pitched a complete game.
W: "Win" - Select this box if the pitcher won the game.
L: "Loss" - Select this box if the pitcher lost the game.
S: "Save" - Select this box if the pitcher recorded a save (at least 1 out recorded to close the game with a run differential of 3 runs or less).
Once you have the numbers in the form, click the "Save Changes" button, and you are done. Player stats will be updated immediately on the team page and in the league-wide ranking. The first time you go through the process you may have to think about what you are doing a few times, but once you have done it before it becomes an almost mechanical activity. You each have one 'fake game' shared with another team scheduled on League Lineup right now, so feel free to play around with it as much or as little as you need to get used to working with the site.
Great article. Hopefully those many leagues out there not properly using the stats feature will get it together.
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