Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball

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Latest comment: 5 days ago by Polygnotus in topic BLP needs some eyes

Is anyone maintaining these "lists of MLB players"?

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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)Reply

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)Reply
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)Reply
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:

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.

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)Reply
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)Reply
I've been updating the Brewers' list after each season's end. NatureBoyMD (talk) 14:07, 21 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
The Tigers' list is kept rigorously up-to-date. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 16:25, 21 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
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)Reply
Categories don't necessarily preclude related lists (WP:NOTDUP). —Bagumba (talk) 02:31, 27 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
TBH, all sports lists of players should be deleted. They're IMHO too trivial. GoodDay (talk) 14:56, 21 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
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)Reply
  • 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)Reply
    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)Reply
    Probably would need to standardize the page formats, yes. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 16:45, 21 June 2025 (UTC)Reply
  • 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)Reply
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)Reply
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)Reply
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)Reply
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)Reply
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)Reply
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)Reply

I'm copying the response from the Bot Request page:

Perhaps the trickier part would be removing items inserted in error. It would certainly be possible, and if there was consensus to do it, then it would be permitted. In principle it could be a clean operation, but there are a lot of detailed decisions to be made. For example Boston Red Sox all-time roster has bolding for Hall of Famers and flags (possibly against guidelines) for non-US players. Anything like this would either need to be supported, not interfered with, or overwritten. There would have to be acceptance that the article name for the player would be the name used in the list, or some other way of determining that. There might be no entries for people who did not have an article. Nothing impossible to deal with, but it would need to be worked out. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 21:56, 30 July 2025 (UTC).

If we decide to move forward with this, it seems very possible to do, but a few details need to be agreed upon. The lists would need to be standardized (I would suggest basic tables). I figure a bot might be able to uniformly format the pages for us if we decide on such format. Minor details such as bolding would be done manually (any player that needs bolding would probably be added by a human anyway). Player names and article names are identical so we would only need to worry about (disambiguation) in the title. Very few major leaguers would be without an article but those would probably be added by a human with either no link or a redirect. If this is a desirable task, I believe step 1 is how the list should look. It could be something as basic as a list of names (with is what a category does) or more detailed tables with Name, Years on team, Position and ref; the info can be pulled from the infobox by the bot. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 23:07, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Bumping (Is anyone maintaining these "lists of MLB players"?)

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If there is support for this, I'd be willing to work with a bot operator to set it up. I believe this is a very long-term solution to list-rot not just with MLB rosters, but possibly with any active list. I would lean towards updating the team lists and then, when completed, deleting the MLB list. First, the team rosters should probably be standardized. Since a bot will be involved, it seems we could use one to do the actual standardizing as well.

The 30 teams use about 4 different styles: 14 have names only (ex. San Francisco Giants all-time roster), 8 have names with position and years played (ex. St. Louis Cardinals all-time roster), 4 have names with position and years played plus national flags (ex. Seattle Mariners all-time roster), 3 have tables (Baltimore Orioles all-time roster, New York Mets all-time roster, Milwaukee Brewers all-time roster) and then there is the Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (boy howdy). Also going to throw in the Negro league roster example (Homestead Grays all-time roster). Is there any one layout that is preferred? Rgrds. --BX (talk) 01:29, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I prefer the Cardinals style which is also what I have been using for the Dodgers as it is fairly easy to maintain and more informative than just names... the flags should really be removed as it is against policy, the tables become more complicated if the team has been around longer than those three teams... the Phillies one... I remember when User:Killervogel5 made all those and got them up to featured list status.. but maintaining that kind of list is really difficult and requires a lot of work.. which is why they stopped being updated when he retired. Spanneraol (talk) 01:38, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's ironic that the better the list is the less it is maintained. I suppose the notes in the Phillie list(s) can be preserved but any new additions by a bot would probably be left blank. I also suspect having separate pages for letters actually decreases a casual reader's experience due to having to click multiple pages. The name-only SFGiants style seems redundant to a category page and does not benefit one as a reader (IMO). I, too, lean towards the Cards/Dodgers style, but even more so I prefer tables. I would even go so far as to suggest breaking down the lists by decade so the list would not be so cumbersome. This would allow for sorting out players on Brooklyn or LA. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 19:28, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The issue i have with the tables ones is that it's harder to find someone if you have to run down a long list of connected names rather than sorting it by letter like the other ones are... also harder to maintain cause you need the table coding stuff. Spanneraol (talk) 01:56, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The tables can (and IMO should) be split by letter. The Homestead Grays all-time roster is split into 4 letter groupings. The MLB teams could/should be split into 25/6 tables for each letter. Table coding wouldn't hamper a bot, but I get that not every editor is table-savvy. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 02:13, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Most biography articles of MLB players do not feature stats. Why is that?

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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)Reply

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)Reply
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)Reply
On the merits of including stats, WP:NOTSTATS says:

Statistics that lack context or explanation can reduce readability and may be confusing...articles with statistics should include explanatory text providing context.

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)Reply
It makes no sense that Larry Bowa played 16 years but has no basic career stats included, but the project somehow green lights a table for his six-year managerial career at Larry Bowa § Managerial record. —Bagumba (talk) 14:14, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Boston Red Sox's 2016 to 2024 season pages

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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)Reply

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)Reply
Meant to say that those Bosox seasons include prose style, along with the game stats. GoodDay (talk) 04:01, 2 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

New articles?

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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)Reply

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)Reply
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)Reply
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)Reply
Certainly for Outs Above Average mention alongside other fielding statistics now in the Baseball statistics article I think. Do you agree? And certainly there is as much content on them as we have in the range factor and ultimate zone rating articles. Do you think that is enough? --184.153.21.19 (talk) 07:54, 6 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Requested move at Talk:Yakyū-kyō no Uta#Requested move 31 July 2025

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There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Yakyū-kyō no Uta#Requested move 31 July 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ROY is WAR Talk! 01:41, 6 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Inside pitching (2)

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Please add reliable sources. Bearian (talk) 01:50, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Bearian: Thanks for flagging; in the thread about this article you started earlier, there are some merge proposals, any thoughts about those? Left guide (talk) 02:17, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's merger season. Merge away! Bearian (talk) 02:19, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
No AfD or merge discussion at the page. The topic seems notable and familiar to baseball fans, so familiar that the title of a major baseball magazine alludes to it. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:51, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't think this is a notable enough topic to stand on its own. Why not an article on "high pitching" and "low pitching" too? What we really need is a "pitching strategy" article that covers the different approaches to pitching and situationally how pitchers alter that approach. An article such as that could cover topics like power pitcher, ground ball pitcher, intentional walk, inside pitching, and others in discussing overall pitching strategy.Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talkcontributions) 17:14, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I previously suggested covering these aspects in Pitcher § Pitching in a game. Until there is an article on pitching strategy, I think it's a good place to cover strategy. isaacl (talk) 18:59, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Nothing wrong with keeping a variety of articles on the important parts of the game. There are many topics involved in hitting, pitching, and fielding, and many, like this one, seem unique enough for stand-alone articles. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:16, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Then add sources. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 22:31, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I see you have already. But maybe not enough to pass muster. Still seems like the best path forward is merger. Rghrds. --BX (talk) 22:35, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
There's also nothing wrong with choosing to integrate discussion of different aspects of pitching, particularly when their usage reinforce each other, both with respect to pitch positioning and pitch selection. It's an editorial choice that the community can make. isaacl (talk) 22:37, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Merge proposal started: Talk:Inside pitching#Merge proposal. Rgrds. --BX (talk) 23:23, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

1916 World Series home field

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What was the home-field setup for the 1916 World Series? I'm talking about 2-2-1-1-1, 2-3-2, that sort of thing. Mk8mlyb (talk) 03:45, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Mk8mlyb: 1916 World Series#Summary shows the home-field pattern for the five games that occurred. NBC Sports Philly says The 2-3-2 playoff format has been utilized in the World Series since 1924. Left guide (talk) 06:44, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Red for winning, Green for losing?

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Looking (for example) at American League Central's section of Champions by year. Shouldn't green be the background colour for teams that won the World Series, an pinkish red for teams that lost the World Series? GoodDay (talk) 04:58, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would agree with you, the current colors don't make sense to me (particularly without a legend). Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talkcontributions) 05:48, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Personally, I agree there should be a legend. Also, the use of team colours for background and text colours in the table diminishes legibility. isaacl (talk) 17:34, 10 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Infobox Awards

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It has been almost four years since this conversation occurred, in which roughly six people got to vote on what awards are allowed to enter a player's infobox. It was decided that all awards concerning the World Baseball Classic, the All-Star Game/Home Run Derby, and the All-MLB Second Team are not worthy of inclusion.

I disagree for various reasons, the WBC is more popular and respected than ever, I would argue many fans around the world care more about the WBC than the MLB, and the actual players consider those awards to be important as well. Concerning the All-MLB Second Team, the award wouldn't exist if it wasn't considered an honor worth mentioning, and other sports (such as the NBA) do include Second Team selections in their infoboxes.

Also, I think it should be taken into account what awards/honors are referenced on a player's Hall of Fame plaque, clearly if they are worthy of mentioning there they would be mentioned in a player's infobox, right? Well the All-Star Game MVP award is clearly mentioned on Ken Griffey Jr.'s plaque, and Gary Carter's, so we can assume the actual professionals care about that award, despite it being just an exhibition award.

Does anyone else think this is worthy of an updated discussion? Or should I just accept that these awards will continue to be taken from player's infoboxes? Polythene-psychonaut (talk) 16:02, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I doubt that "many players around the world" consider the WBC to be above MLB. Spanneraol (talk) 17:48, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Am I missing something about the ASG/HR Derby? I see no discussions on that linked page about either of those two. I would agree that 2nd Team All-MLB is not particularly notable. The All-MLB team is not an award with any meaningful history and the MLB has a bunch of position-specific awards that, e.g., the NBA doesn't have. Alyo (chat·edits) 18:18, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
The only one I agree with is the AS MVP. I don't think that should ever have been removed. Absolutely no on the WBC honors-- Yankees10 22:15, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
As I said in that previous discussion, I think it would be useful to come up with guiding principles. For example:
  • achievements that are indicative of individual excellence (in the sense of being one of the best active players at the time). Most of the accomplishments for which there is currently consensus fall into this category, namely season leaders in specific categories.
  • achievements that are indicative of individual leadership in a category significant to the player (for example, being a season leader in doubles)
  • signature achievement for which a player is known
With a framework in place, we can discuss if something like all-star game most valuable player fits into one of the agreed-upon principles. isaacl (talk) 22:30, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think it would be worth revisiting awards and achievements on a case-by-case basis. But I for one do not believe single exhibition-game awards (like All Star Game MVP or winning the Home Run Derby) belong in the infobox alongside honors like Triple Crown winner or AL/NL MVP. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talkcontributions) 00:06, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think it would be helpful to understand the underlying rationale, so that other cases can be examined with the same reasoning in mind. For instance, exhibition game awards aren't indicative of sustained individual excellence, but of a notable (in the general sense) single performance, and not necessarily an unusual one. Leading the league in one or all of the triple crown stats, or the season MVP award, on the other hand, are indicative of sustained individual excellence over a season. isaacl (talk) 01:02, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Isaacl: I think it would be useful to come up with guiding principles. Our most important guiding principle here should be MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE:

The purpose of an infobox is to summarize, but not supplant, the key facts that appear in an article…The less information that an infobox contains, the more effectively it serves its purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance.

Left guide (talk) 02:43, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, as I've previously said, based on that guidance, my rule of thumb is that the infobox should have information essential for a concise summary of the subject's key characteristics. Nonetheless, there are different viewpoints on what are the essential facts to summarize, and different rationales for those viewpoints. For example, some think team-level accomplishments don't summarize characteristics of a player, while others think that they form part of the player's historic profile. Too often participants in these discussions have simply said, I think the infobox should have X but not Y, without providing reasoning, and so there's nothing more to base the discussion on beyond personal preferences. isaacl (talk) 04:16, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Then in that case, we defer to the WP:WEIGHT of sources, which is a metric far superior than personal preferences, as WP:WEIGHT says:

in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public.

So, how do sources typically treat these awards for a given player? Left guide (talk) 04:22, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Layout decisions, though, remain an editorial decision. Both readers and editors benefit from commonality of article layout across player articles. Thus it's reasonable to seek consensus on some basic framework items, while allowing other aspects to be decided on a player-by-player basis. But even an agreement on what types of sources to examine regarding item X in the infobox would be helpful. (For example, since any reasonable biography is going to mention an all-star game appearance, the question is what type of source or sub-portion of a source should be considered as one that identifies the key facts about a player?) isaacl (talk) 17:21, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
the question is what type of source or sub-portion of a source should be considered as one that identifies the key facts about a player? The answer to that (imo) is WP:BESTSOURCES:

basing content on the best respected and most authoritative reliable sources helps to prevent bias, undue weight, and other NPOV disagreements.

A pragmatic way to do that is surveying sources that discuss player awards and picking out the ones with the highest WP:UBO citation counts. Left guide (talk) 17:37, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
This presumes that the infobox should include a (potentially) unbounded list of awards, which is an editorial decision made apart from examining sources. It's one reasonable choice, but it's one that the community makes. Personally, I don't think looking at how many sources cite sources discussing player awards will help much to determine which awards form part of the key facts about a player. The most likely citations are to comprehensive stat sites, which will have comprehensive lists. isaacl (talk) 18:02, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Positionplain

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I saw that Mark Grant (baseball) has both pitcher and color commentator in his infobox. It is using |positionplain= in {{Infobox baseball biography}}, which I never noticed before. How is that parameter supposed to be used? —Bagumba (talk) 04:06, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Bagumba: Don't know, but it appears on the page creator's December 2008 original version of the doc page (including the very first edit). You are free to experiment at the sandbox and/or testcase pages to test that parameter and learn how it works. Left guide (talk) 08:43, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
It's visually clear what it shows, and how it does it. The question is "Why?". —Bagumba (talk) 14:57, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Here's a similar note from an older version of the NFL infobox's doc page - "currentpositionplain - may be used in favor of currentposition for players who play multiple positions (ex. Cornerback / Safety) or players that play a position with an article located at a disambiguated page (ex. Guard (American football), Fullback (gridiron football), etc.). ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 17:04, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I assume the baseball equivalent would be something like infielder or outfielder. Alex Rodriguez is the first player who comes to mind, since he played both third baseman and shortstop. Left guide (talk) 17:30, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
"currentposition" in the NFL infobox used to link the positions automatically I think without brackets (so just "currentposition=Quarterback" instead of "position=[ [Quarterback] ]"). Seems pretty pointless. The plain parameters don't serve a purpose anymore since everything is linked manually due to disambiguated article names. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 17:38, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Question about linking specific years

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Is there any consensus on linking x-year-season or x-year-in-baseball articles? I've been copy-editing a few pages and just haven't been sure which to keep or remove. Thanks. BrotherGunk (talk) 23:46, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I link to the team season pages when talking specifically about a particular season as it affects a team rather than just a player. I use the x year in MLB links only in the info box. I think I only use the generic x-year in baseball links in info boxes if the player didnt play in MLB. Spanneraol (talk) 00:34, 13 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Cool, that makes sense. Thank you! BrotherGunk (talk) 01:38, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
In the spirit of MOS:LINKYEAR, don't link to a year page that would provide "little if any content" about the topic of the current page. For example, a player's team season page would generally be more relevant for their bio than the MLB season page. —Bagumba (talk) 03:10, 13 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Missed this rule, thank you! BrotherGunk (talk) 01:34, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Closure request for LA Angels RfC

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Is there anyone uninvolved who's willing to take a stab at assessing consensus and closing Talk:Los Angeles Angels#RfC: How to indicate team ___location in the first sentence? The team ___location is still being changed at the article's lead sentence, and there's not an obvious outcome, so I believe a proper close is warranted; the instructions at WP:CLOSE may be helpful. I'll wait for a day or two, and if nothing comes of it, I'll post to a broader audience of potential closers at WP:CR, thanks. Left guide (talk) 19:20, 13 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Fred Crane (baseball) - really two other people?

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See this Sports Reference blog post about SABR's work on the confusing name situation with this guy. BR deleted this guy but created entries for two new people. (They explain it better than I do.) If someone has more initiative and greater technical WP knowledge than I do, this could be a good thing to tackle on WP.

https://www.sports-reference.com/blog/2025/08/two-new-major-league-players-discovered-and-one-removed/ Larry Hockett (Talk) 12:46, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I updated the article. Thanks. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 15:42, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

BLP needs some eyes

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Please take a look at Reginald R. Howard. Thanks, Polygnotus (talk) 05:42, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Polygnotus: Thanks for flagging. I cleaned up some obvious puffery and essay-like tone. Aside from that, is there anything specific that should be examined with this article? Left guide (talk) 05:52, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Left guide Thank you! You fixed all the problems I could detect. I know literally nothing about baseball. Thanks again! Polygnotus (talk) 06:08, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply