Where can find the leaders for the decade of the 80s?
Who had the highest avg in the 80s?
Most HR?
Most H?
Most RBI?
I bet the list is full of RBI'ers.
My only problem with baseball-reference.com is that you can't query the data...
Mlb.com (http://www.mlb.com) will give you most of what you want.
From the main page, click on the stats link. You'll have a menu on the left with a link for Historical Stats. You'll get another menu of the left; click on the Historical Leaders link. The new page will give you a list box in the bottom right corner for Season Stats. Hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard, and select 1980,81, 82, etc. Click on the Go button below the list box to view the query. It might take a minute or so to load.
The results might be a little misleading, because they are by player and position played. Paul Molitor will appear to lead in batting average (.353), because that was his average as a DH. But for the most part, you'll have a fairly accurate list of leaders for the decade. You just might want to double-check totals against the year-by-year stats for a player.
This is a direct link to the query that you want. (http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/stats_historical/mlb_historical_leaders.jsp?baseballScope=mlb&statType=1&sortByStat=All&timeFrame=1&timeSubFrame=1989&timeSubFrame=1988&timeSubFrame=1987&timeSubFrame=1986&timeSubFrame=1985&timeSubFrame=1984&timeSubFrame=1983&timeSubFrame=1982&timeSubFrame=1981&timeSubFrame=1980)
I also found this website: http://baseball1.com/statistics/
You can download statistics in a CVS, Excel, or an Access (97, 2000) file. If you're crafty with Microsoft Access, you'll be able to get a lot out of this file. Or import the data into something else like MySql or MSDE (Sql Server).
If I have some time this weekend, i'll write an interface for querying data and saving results (which will be helpful for people not familiar with Access).
Edit: the reality of this is that I will probably sit on my ass all weekend, and the next month for that matter, and this will never actually happen. But perhaps, just maybe, motivation will kick me in the ass.
Hold the phone: all the work has already been done. Download the baseball almanac this guy put together and every freakin stat is at your fingertips and queries are easy:
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Slope/5309/baseball_almanac.html
Someone turned me on to it last week and it is fabulous. Note it takes a few minutes to get your bearings once you unzip it and jump in, but it is ultra powerful.
P.S. Double-click on 'setup' to install it. I know, I know, it's scary to download a zip file from the internet and then install it, but this is legit.
Oh crap, it looks like he took it down. Sorry for the bad link (actually the link works, but you can't download the baseball almanac anymore). I'll try to find it elsewhere. If it doesn't work, I could also upload the zip file here, but it is 8MB. Not sure Gantry would go for that.
Looks cool...
I increased the attachment limit to 10MB and allocated 1GB for the attachments directory when we upgraded the forums. So try to post that bastard, it's a good test....
Didn't work
Below attachment spot
"Maximum attachment size allowed: 9000 KB"
The zip file I grabbed was 9.6 MB, so probably too big
I e-mailed the guy to see if he has a new place to park this file, but in the meantime, here it is.
Edit: Here's what I got after trying to upload it twice:
Your file is too large. The maximum attachment size allowed is 192 KB.
does this show things like mike schmidt leading the 80s with 313 homers?
that's what i'm looking for.
Yeah, it does. I was able to figure out Stargell was the 70s leader in about 1 minute.