Baseball Oracle Divines MLB's All-Time Dream Team

Lucid Software has used its proprietary Baseball Oracle software to create the definitive list of Major League Baseball's all-time best players. The “MLB Fantasy Team Roster” assigns field positions to players drafted from a pool of every team roster since 1900. The all-time fantasy roster created by the Baseball Oracle software includes players like Babe Ruth. Other notable names on the roster include Mickey Mantle, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Lou Gehrig, who beat out Mark McGwire to play first base.

(PRWEB) October 3, 2006 -- Lucid Software has used it's proprietary Baseball Oracle software to create the definitive list of Major League Baseball's all-time best players. The “MLB Fantasy Team Roster” assigns field positions to players drafted from a pool of every team roster since 1900. “Although player stats exist from 1871, baseball was a different game back then” says Pierre Levasseur, Lucid Software's founder and CEO. “1900 was the first year of what's called baseball's modern era, and that's why we start our Fantasy Team roster with players from that year.”

The all-time fantasy roster created by the Baseball Oracle software includes player, like Babe Ruth, who have become part of the game's legend, but there are also equally familiar names that might surprise fans. Despite an injury that has taken him out of this year's post-season playoffs, “Pedro Martinez would, without a doubt, be the starting pitcher on this team,” says Levasseur. Other notable names on the roster include Mickey Mantle, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Lou Gehrig, who beat out Mark McGwire to play first base.

1900 was the first year of what's called baseball's modern era, and that's why we start our Fantasy Team roster with players from that year.

Bill James' secondary average was the metric Levasseur used to calculate the roster. “To rank the players, we calculated their secondary average for each season with 250 or more plate appearances against the league that season. This gives a ratio where 100 is the base line, which was then averaged out each season for each player to give a ratio for their career (at least 5,000 appearances).”

While debating baseball statistics is a hobby that many fans enjoy, the Baseball Oracle software brings a level of sophistication to the pastime that was otherwise difficult to achieve. According to Levasseur, unless the hobbyist happened to be a statistician, comparing player stats across seasons or different eras has always been guesswork at best.

Baseball Oracle, which is available to the public, has the ability to compare players from any season's rosters across multiple data points. According to its feature list, the software collects 159 statistical fields on every player in both the regular and post seasons. This depth of data allows fans to quickly run complicated queries such as, who is the southpaw pitcher with the most wins at Fenway Park between 1916 and 1956. The software is also able to adjust player stats so that, for example, you could accurately compare the batting average of a player in 1920 with one who played this year.

Levasseur, who describes himself as an avid baseball fan who loves to pour over player statistics, believes that today's baseball stats fans are like himself. “They are sophisticated and want a level of information access that goes beyond what you can get from a printed sports encyclopedia.”

Baseball Oracle is what Levasseur classifies as a “fourth generation” stats encyclopedia. The first generation most notably included The Baseball Cyclopedia, published in 1922 by Ernest Lanigan, which only included player names and other information but no statistics. Then came the second generation with The Baseball Encyclopedia published by MacMillan in 1969, which was the first guide to list every player and most of their major statistics. The Internet ushered in the third generation, and significantly changed how stats fans collected information. However, locating disparate, fan-created, websites often proved difficult. Also there has been little guarantee that the information would stay current, or was originally vetted for accuracy.

Levasseur's “fourth generation” encyclopedia combines the power of real-time statistical computation with the right-at-hand access associated with print guides to make complicated stats comparisons a, “piece of cake,” according to Levasseur. "When my brother bought me Bill James' Baseball Abstract for my birthday in 1984, my interest in baseball stats exploded. But I realized that to do the kind of things James was doing, I needed a computer. He was using one himself even back then.

“I knew other baseball fans would want to do the same kind of research but not have the same computer expertise as I did. Ultimately that's why we created Baseball Oracle. As a stats fan, myself, I've always wanted every piece of information right now, and I know others are the same way.”

Baseball Oracle's MLB Fantasy Roster

Position                             Player
First Base                            Lou Gehrig
Second Base                     Joe Morgan
Third Base                         Mike Schmidt
Short Stop                         Alex Rodriguez
Left Field                            Barry Bonds
Center Field                        Mickey Mantle
Right Field                         Babe Ruth
Catcher                                Gene Tenace
First Starting Pitcher         Pedro Martinez
Second Starting Pitcher     Walther Johnson
Third Starting Pitcher         Randy Johnson
Fourth Starting Pitcher        Greg Maddux
Relief Pitcher                     Mariano Rivera
Relief Pitcher                     Billy Wagner
Relief Pitcher                     Keith Foulke
Relief Pitcher                     Robb Nen
Relief Pitcher                     Hoyt Wilhelm

-provided courtesy of Lucid Software.

Lucid Software is based in Ottawa, Ontario, which is known as Silicon Valley North. The company is a leader in custom database development and building small applications using FoxPro.

The 2007 edition of Baseball Oracle will be released on October 11, and will retail for $24.99 as an instant download, or $34.99 for a CD-ROM version. The software will be available for purchase at Lucid Software's website or on Amazon.com. For additional information about Baseball Oracle, or for Levasseur's detailed explanation of the MLB Fantasy Team, visit www.lucidsoftware.com/baseball.

Contact:
Pierre Levasseur
Lucid Software
1-888-683-1144

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