mlb starting lineups

[bztips]

Anybody know of a reliable site that lists daily starting lineups in a "convenient" display?
I'm working on a model that requires this info; I've tried using rotoinfo.com, but their lists are filled with misspellings, nicknames (eg, Pudge) and inconsistent formatting -- not very handy for scraping or crossmatching with a standardized database of names.

Any help appreciated.

[Bsims]

Anybody know of a reliable site that lists daily starting lineups in a "convenient" display?
I'm working on a model that requires this info; I've tried using rotoinfo.com, but their lists are filled with misspellings, nicknames (eg, Pudge) and inconsistent formatting -- not very handy for scraping or crossmatching with a standardized database of names.

Any help appreciated.

I scrape from MLB.com when the box score first appears. I actually pull out the 6 digit player ID instead of using the players name.

[bztips]

In case it wasn't clear, I'm looking for the starting lineups an hour or so BEFORE the game starts.

[Data]

I'm looking for the starting lineups an hour or so BEFORE the game starts.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/scoreboard

[Rich Boy]

yahoo has them about 1 hr before gametime.

[bztips]

Thanks. After checking out the yahoo and mlb sites, I've decided to go with mlb (either one would work well); looks very straightforward for scraping purposes. And yes, much better to grab the player id's -- anyone know if there's a master list of player id's on the mlb site?

[wallnbroad]

sports.yahoo.com
select "scores and schedules"
starting pitchers are listed well ahead of time.

[arwar]

I scrape from MLB.com when the box score first appears. I actually pull out the 6 digit player ID instead of using the players name.

how many players do you list? also are the player id numbers the same at say yahoo & covers? finally can you post a list of the ids?

tia

[KC]

rotoinfo.com by far the best, they know lineups sometimes 5hours before game

[bztips]

how many players do you list? also are the player id numbers the same at say yahoo & covers? finally can you post a list of the ids?

tia

I'm now doing the same -- scraping from mlb.com.
For me, the key is the unique player id's, which I'm using for all of my data. The MLB id's are the same ones used by Elias Sports Bureau (which I believe actually provides the data to mlb); these are NOT the same as at yahoo or covers. That's one of the (many) practical problems you have to account for when getting data from different sources -- player and even team id's are all different, so you need to construct a cross-walk database of equivalencies.

As for KC's comment about rotoinfo: As mentioned in my OP, their lineups (while they may be timely) are virtually useless if you want to automate things because they don't use consistent player names or lineup formats.

[Waz]

I've never scraped data from a site before. Is this easy to learn?

[skrtelfan]

I would actually suggest using multiple lineup sources if at all possible because there are occasionally errors and discrepancies, and I'm not always sure if the errors are due to a lineup change from the initial lineup submitted to the websites, or if one site made a mistake. I know I've been burned before by placing a bet because a questionable player was listed in the lineup, or vice versa, only to find out later the initial lineup was wrong. This doesn't happen often but it's certainly happened to be more than once.

[arwar]

I've never scraped data from a site before. Is this easy to learn?

let me know which site you want to scrape and which data you are after. we probably have a scraper lying around that you can use. that's the easy part. it's what you do with the numbers after you scrape them that counts.

[Waz]

let me know which site you want to scrape and which data you are after. we probably have a scraper lying around that you can use. that's the easy part. it's what you do with the numbers after you scrape them that counts.

I'm guess I'm just trying to learn how to scrape data in general. I use a lot of models and need lots of different stats from lots of different sites. I spend way too much time copying, pasting and reformatting this data. Any advice you have would be great, or a good site to go to for learning.

[Data]

let me know which site you want to scrape and which data you are after. we probably have a scraper lying around that you can use.

I could use a scraper for this website: http://www.wunderground.com/sports/MLB/?MR=1
Can you help with that?

[byronbb]

twitter.com/mlbstarting9

[No2012]

rotoinfo is good, they have lots of lineup hours b4 game. i know u don't like it but i've been using them for a while, it works well.