Compiling Real-life Player Transactions

By Jeff Kindig
May 20, 2020

When Classic Past Seasons (CPS) are upgraded to Deluxe Past Seasons (DPS), one area of the Diamond Mind Baseball database that gets refreshed is the Real-Life Transactions. These transactions represent every roster move made by each team over the course of the season, as well as some non-roster moves such as day-to-day injuries that made a player unavailable.

To assemble these transactions, dozens of hours are invested researching primary sources, such as archives of “The Sporting News”, the biweekly “Official Bulletins” that were distributed from the Office of the Commissioner to all Major League Baseball teams throughout the year and “Newspapers.com”. “The Sporting News” includes transaction information on the box score page, but more importantly contains hundreds of articles and notes from beat writers, which often reveal a more minor ailment or personal leave that may have cause a player to be out for a period of time. Secondary sources such as Retrosheet.org and Baseball-Reference.com are also consulted, with the latter being helpful for players who spent some time in the minor leagues.

When all of the information is compiled, it is verified against players’ appearance logs and also checked against roster limits that were in place for that point in the season. If a transaction would appear to be in violation of the applicable roster limit, then additional research is done to find the corresponding transaction that must have occurred, or to correct the date of the violating transaction.

Even after the above process is completed, there is sometimes an unresolved discrepancy. When this occurs, weight is given to primary sources and to the understanding that teams were required to adhere to roster rules. There also may be evidence from a primary source that indicates a player’s unavailability even when he was officially (contractually) on the active roster. Finally, the number, types, and nomenclature of transactions available in Diamond Mind Baseball may vary from other sources. Any of these scenarios may result in transactions in a DPS database appearing differently from a list of transactions published elsewhere. Here are some common examples:

When a player was “placed on waivers for the purpose of giving him his unconditional release,” that action removed a player from his team’s active roster. To reflect this, the earlier date may be used in the database for the player’s “Released” transaction to clear him from the roster.
When a player was acquired in a trade, sometimes logistical reasons such as travel prevent him from being available to his new team for a couple days. To reflect this, the transaction in the database may be later than the official trade date to prevent a player in transit from being available for use in a game.
Sometimes a player is listed in sources as being “purchased from” or “sold to” another team. These are generally treated as trades within the database, unless specific evidence exists that this was a waiver claim scenario.
Trades between minor league teams and the signing of minor league free agents are generally ignored for the purpose of the database since the focus is on the active major league roster. In these situations, the only transaction shown in the database may be when a player was “promoted” to the active roster.

In conclusion, it is recognized that there is a distinct possibility that one of our transactions in the database conflicts with information that may be found elsewhere. These apparent discrepancies are intentional and based on our research. We believe the real-life transactions included with this database are as complete as possible and will provide the most realistic replay of the season with respect to players’ availability on the active roster for each game.