I read a lot of sports websites and blogs, and too often I see statistics presented as paragraph text:
Source: Playoff Prospectus: ALCS Preview, baseballprospectus.com
Which A’s player has the highest VORP? Who are the sluggers on each team? Are the players with high on-base percentages hitting at the top of the lineups? A very determined user can answer these questions with the data display given. HTML tables improve readability of sports statistics and increase the chances that people will discover trends and outliers within the data.
| Athletics | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Bats | Player | AVG | OBP | SLG | EqA | VORP |
| C | R | Jason Kendall | .295 | .367 | .342 | .260 | 12.1 |
| CF | L | Mark Kotsay | .275 | .332 | .386 | .256 | 8.9 |
| RF | B | Milton Bradley | .276 | .370 | .447 | .289 | 17.2 |
| DH | R | Frank Thomas | .270 | .381 | .545 | .313 | 40.3 |
| 3B | L | Eric Chavez | .241 | .351 | .435 | .278 | 11.9 |
| LF | R | Jay Payton | .296 | .325 | .418 | .259 | 9.7 |
| 1B | B | Nick Swisher | .254 | .372 | .493 | .297 | 26.9 |
| SS | R | Marco Scutaro | .266 | .350 | .397 | .269 | 13.9 |
| 2B | B | D’Angelo Jimenez * | .264 | .349 | .378 | .260 | NA |
| * Career rates, including 2006 | |||||||
| Tigers | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Bats | Player | AVG | OBP | SLG | EqA | VORP |
| CF | L | Curtis Granderson | .260 | .335 | .438 | .269 | 23.4 |
| 2B | R | Placido Polanco | .295 | .329 | .364 | .245 | 8.4 |
| 1B | L | Sean Casey | .272 | .336 | .388 | .256 | -2.0 |
| RF | R | Magglio Ordonez | .298 | .350 | .477 | .282 | 28.4 |
| SS | B | Carlos Guillen | .320 | .400 | .519 | .314 | 67.0 |
| C | R | Ivan Rodriguez | .300 | .332 | .437 | .267 | 22.7 |
| LF | R | Craig Monroe | .255 | .301 | .482 | .265 | 9.2 |
| DH | R | Marcus Thames | .256 | .333 | .549 | .292 | 20.1 |
| 3B | R | Brandon Inge | .253 | .313 | .463 | .266 | 10.1 |
This is an easy solution that improves both the aesthetics and the usability of a data display. Now I want to know why Sean Casey is batting 3rd and Carlos Guillen 5th.
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