Each category above is rich with content. The site is centered around the player and stats pages. Each player page includes a wealth of content. All sections expand on the player and stat pages. For example, a player has stats for Vanderbilt. Click on Vanderbilt and see all we have on the Commodores and then by extension, college baseball. Visit the player's high school, ssee who was born on the same date or check out his draft year. It goes on and on.
Here are some tips to help you use the site efficiently and effectively.
PREMIUM:
Before getting too far, its important to mention that we have a PREMIUM subscription section. With it, you get access to research applications, the Player TRACKER, Data Store discounts, grid filters, additional fields and features and possibly the best part of PREMIUM ... no ads. Check out the PREMIUM FEATURES article for a full list of value-added content. I recommend reviewing it before continuing here.
Search:
The TBC Search Engine will help you navigate the site quicker. The responsive search allows you to jump to players, teams, schools (and other topics) quickly. Navigation is quick. Hit ENTER and you`ll see all available results. There`s a search tips article to help. You can also try to rely on Google but once you are on the site, this is the easiest way to jump to the next player of interest. The search works well on both desktop and mobile platforms.
Navigation
At the top of the desktop version of the site, you will see a gray navigation bar with the category headers while on the mobile site, you`ll see a MENU link that will list all sections once clicked. You can navigate to any major section from here. Click "The Baseball Cube" at the top right to bounce back to the home page, which also acts as a site portal. Each category also has its own portal page. The top link (in yellow) in each navigation section will bring you there. On each content page, there is a link [topic] to jump back to the section topic list.
Within each content page, there is a link bar lower down that allows you to jump to other relevant pages to the content you are viewing.
Green links point to objects on the current page.
Blue links point to external sections on TBC
Bold links are external links to other sites.
Dropdown menus will provide ability to jump to the same view for a different parameter. Example: You're on the 2015 draft page and you want to jump to 2013.
Page Layout:
Most pages have a similar layout. Each page has a title row with the topic of the page. Some pages have a Previous/Next link to simplify navigation. Some pages have additional topic information on this line. Depending on the subject, some pages have an attribute section at the top of the page. For example, a player page has his date of birth, height, weight etc. Stat pages will show the team record, manager, league and much more.
Below the attributes, you'll see a list of links related to the page followed by an optional written description of the page. Finally, below that will be the "content". The content are lists and grids. Each page can have multiple grids and/or lists. Most of the grids load after the initial page loads. Be sure to scroll down down to see all content related to the subject. Also note that all grids will be listed in the links section at the top of the page. Some tables are longer/wider than others. If the width of the table is too wide for the display, there will be a scrollbar below the grid. If the grid is long ... you can scroll a few times before you find the end ... you might need some patience while waiting for larger tables to load and sort.
Player pages have additional features (Talent Ratings, Stat Capsules, Player Notes, Player Status)
Data Grids:
Data grids are standardized into (mostly) 3 types of display structures across the site.
Tables: Provide sorting and filtering functionality with data in organized neatly in cells (like Excel). Each table has a totals row of some sort below that counts the records or sums statistical content. Although most links are blue, some are displayed in black. These are considered less important content in the grid but can still be clicked. Since tables are slow, some grids load twice. 1st with 30 rows and then a second time with full data. This is to give feel that page loads quick.
Lists: Dump of data into a long list of data without any formatting or width. They are designed to load large amounts where detail is not required,faster.
Div-Tables:
Similar to tables but without any functionality. They load much faster although look less appealing. They are used for long/wide datasets to keep the site feeling quick.
Grid functionality: Each grid has some special functionality, most of which is only available to PREMIUM subscribers. In most cases, the data will be relatively similar within the grid but its what you can do to the table that will change.
All pages are connected directly to the TBC database which is updated daily. You can track changes to the site through Twitter/X or visit the site news section.
Inline Grid Filters:
A PREMIUM feature. There are some grids that allow for filtering without reloading the page via checkboxes above the content. An example would be a team roster with a Hitters, Pitchers, Active or Recently Active checkbox. Click the box and the content below will be filtered to be a subset based on the filters selected. You can apply multiple filters to the page. Recently Active + Hitters will show players meeting both criteria. The benefit of this features is to allow you to navigate a larger grid within the browser with less noise.
Research Applications:
There are currently 17 Research Applications available to PREMIUM subscribers in the Research section. These applications are all similar in nature.
An application has a list of many filters (up to 29!) and allows you to select as many filters as possible to return a report below. The page will automatically scroll to the output. Selected filters will remain highlighted to grab your attention. The content may be sortable within the grid or through a page refresh. (Click the header column). Each grid has a limit of results, to preserve the database. It is not possible to scroll to page 1-2 etc (yet). For a full dataset, please visit the Data Store
Payments:
The TBC Store/Cart system is primitive at best. Please have faith that there is a human being monitoring all payments and making sure the data or service is sent/activated. We have been in business for 20+ years and have used PayPal exclusively without issue. We refund when necessary, notify of duplicate payments and react quickly to payments. We operate with honesty and integrity.
If interested in a purchase, please do not be dissuaded by the coding. If any doubts, Contact us directly and we will work through the purchase or concerns.
Corrections:
There is no doubt you will be surfing throught the data on the site and you will come across errors in the data, whether biographical or statistical. Sometimes you may find duplicates or 2 players merged together under the same profile. I encourage you to send me the corrections, otherwise I will likely never find them. The database is a beach and though some errors are easily caught, many others require you to walk right by them. I run some quality scripts against the data periodically to identify issues but this will only catch the outliers. Anyways, use the contact TBC form to let us know the error. Please be respectful in your correspondance :-)
For any other questions/suggestions regarding the site, please don't hesitate to send us an email.