Release notes

What changed in DataBaller, version by version, and why it changed.

v0.6 2026-09-01

  • "What happens next" now has an answer in all three leagues — The scoring forecast covers the NFL and MLB alongside the NBA: forward change in scrimmage yards per game for running backs and receivers, and in production per plate appearance for hitters and pitchers, each with the reasoning behind it. The forecast was basketball's alone, so a football or baseball question about where a player is headed got a read on the present and nothing about what comes next. The three models disagree with each other, which is the interesting part: NBA scoring momentum tends to persist, while NFL and MLB production above a player's own established level tends to give itself back.
  • Football answers whether production is real — Rushers, receivers and passers get a sustainability read built on yards per touch against the player's own multi-year level, with the excess yards a hot stretch is borrowing. "Is this breakout real" was answerable for basketball and baseball and not for football. One finding changed the model on the way: touchdown rate against a player's own history turned out to be partly skill, so the model reports a touchdown surge rather than promising it will regress.
  • The models that failed their tests are named — There is no quarterback scoring forecast and no baseball role-change model, and the About page says why for each. The quarterback version's evidence reversed direction between the two seasons it was tested against, and the baseball role-change question failed twice. Ask either one and the answer says the model does not exist instead of improvising a number.
  • Answers stop where the records do — Leaderboards and career verdicts now refuse seasons whose statistics were never fully recorded, and a partial season says how many of its games are actually covered. A per-game average computed over a season that is half-recorded is a wrong number presented with the confidence of a right one.
  • MLB player value arrives as real data — Wins above replacement and its components, plus the fielding block, load from the vendor, and offensive WAR gets its own honest entry rather than resolving to the total. Value questions were being answered from the pieces rather than the measure fans actually cite.

v0.5 2026-08-24

  • Teams get their own models — Two new team metrics cover the NBA, NFL and MLB: a power rating — each team's strength as the margin it would be expected to beat an average opponent by — and a sustainability read that measures whether a team's record matches its scoring margins, in wins. Every matchup question used to be improvised from raw standings. Now "what can we expect from Lakers vs. Sixers" is answered from two stored ratings and a measured home-court edge, and "is their record for real" has a number behind it.
  • Matchup forecasts with honest odds — Ask about any pairing and the answer leads with an expected margin and a win probability, built on the spot from the two teams' current ratings — nothing is precomputed, and between seasons the answer says the ratings are carried from last season. Most single games are closer to a coin flip than anyone likes to admit. When the model says 58%, the answer says 58% — not a lock of the night.
  • We tested the conventional wisdom, and cut what failed — The About page's Decision metrics explainer now covers both team models, including the parts we tested and threw away: roster continuity doesn't improve offseason ratings, close-game records aren't pure luck in our data, and the shooting-luck adjustment made predictions worse. These models ship only what survived testing against seasons they'd never seen. The failures are documented as publicly as the passes, because a model you can't check is just a vibe with decimals.

v0.4 2026-08-23

  • Every player has a read, year-round — The three DataBaller scores — role change, sustainability, and the scoring forecast — now read a player's most recent games wherever the calendar sits, straddling the offseason when they have to. Football gets its first full slate of role-change readings, and NBA answers no longer go quiet between the Finals and opening night. The models used to look only inside the current season, which meant they had the least to say exactly when "what happens next season" is the question on everyone's mind.
  • A page that explains the scores — About now has a Decision metrics page that walks through the three scores in plain language — what each one asks, how the number is made, and what it can and cannot tell you — with no statistics background assumed. A score you can't explain is just a vibe with decimals. These were tested against seasons of history before they shipped, and the page keeps the failures as publicly as the passes.
  • The scoring forecast earned its spot — The points-per-game forecast was rebuilt and re-tested against two full seasons the model had never seen before this version shipped. One refinement to the sustainability score failed its re-test and was withdrawn rather than kept. Every claim these models make is written down before it is tested, and a claim that fails is removed, not argued with. What you see is the version that passed.
  • Answers that answer the question — Ask about a scoring jump and the answer now leads with the scoring jump — a name, a number, a direction — with the model detail underneath instead of in place of it. An answer that is technically thorough but never gets to the point isn't an answer. Brilliant and approachable are both the job.

v0.3 2026-08-21

  • Plans and pricing — There is a plans page now with two cards on it — Free, and Professional at $24 a month for full access across the NFL, NBA and MLB — reachable from the front door and the account menu. A paid plan is fair use rather than an allowance: no counter, no quota, and nothing that stops you mid-question. Free stays at five analyses a week with a meter on the account page.
  • Fantasy questions get real answers — Projections, draft-board rankings and DraftKings salaries and slates are loaded for all three leagues, and the agent has tools that read them directly: what a player is projected for, and who is ranked where. It used to tell you flatly that we had no fantasy data. That stopped being true, and it was still saying it.
  • Three modes, and a bar that shows them — Analysis, Stories and Support are now three named places with a switcher across the top of every page, the lockup and version beside it, and the whole bar slides out of the way as you read down a conversation. Getting anywhere used to mean opening a "⋯" menu in the quietest corner of the sidebar, which can't tell you where you can go without being opened first.
  • Your question survives the sign-up — The front door now carries the real chat box under "What do you want to find out?", with example questions that fill it; type one and it is quoted back to you on the sign-in card and asked as your first question once your account is set up. A free account still means giving us an email address; what changed is that the question you arrived with is kept through the whole detour instead of being lost on the way, and the front page shows you the actual chat box rather than four bullet points about it.
  • Is it real, or is he running hot — The agent can now answer with a model rather than an impression: whether a scoring run is supported by the process behind it, and whether a player's underlying game has actually changed, each stated as a model's output with its version and what would prove it wrong, recomputed the morning after every game night. "Is this real" is the most-asked question in sports and the one a box score answers worst. An answer built on a model should say that it is, rather than passing as a statistic.
  • Rosters that know who arrived — A team page shows the players who came in, not only the ones who left, and says which club each came from; a team's standing now names the conference it is a standing within. Asked why writers favoured the Nuggets over the Lakers, the agent saw six departures and none of the arrivals, and answered as though five rotation players had been replaced by nobody.
  • Long conversations stop losing their tail — A conversation big enough to page through storage now reloads whole instead of quietly dropping its newest turns, and an author's stories page no longer breaks past fifty stories. The dropped turns were silent: the count matched the shortened list, so nothing looked wrong.
  • A faster first answer — The first turn of a session no longer waits on a cold start behind the scenes, and two waits came off the path every turn travels. The opening question of a session was taking a median five seconds before a single word appeared, which is the worst possible moment to be slow.
  • An About page — /about says what DataBaller is, who it is for, the five-step method behind an answer, and the principles it holds to, replacing the FAQ and the old docs page. The only written account of what this product is lived in an internal strategy document nobody outside the repo reads.
  • Seasons named, premises checked — An answer says which season a stat line is from, and the agent looks a season up before telling you your premise is wrong. Out of season a number with no year on it is ambiguous at best, and being corrected by something that hadn't checked is worse than not being corrected.
  • Better retrieval behind the explanations — Every reference document now carries the kind of document it is, so the agent can search by kind again, and the 146 metric and concept files gained the analytical phrasings people actually type; floor, ceiling and lineup correlation joined the corpus for the fantasy work. Analytical questions — "which players produce more value than their box score suggests" — matched almost nothing, because the whole corpus was phrased as what/how/why and the questions are which/who.

v0.2 2026-08-15

  • Answers become public stories — Standout answers now get published as public pages at their own URL, with a browsable grid at /stories filtered by sport and tag, related-story links between them, and a Published stories view where you can see the views and likes yours drew. Nothing carries a name or byline, an editorial pass decides what runs, and a takedown removes the page.
  • Charts inside an answer — An answer that shows a trend or compares teams now draws a line or bar chart in line with the text, with a table view underneath it and a button that copies the chart as an image. A trend you used to have to infer from a column of numbers is now visible at a glance, and pasteable straight into a group chat.
  • Ranking questions read a real leaderboard — "Who leads the league in rebounds" now reads a board the database already ranked, instead of the model working the order out from rows it printed. Answers occasionally called someone third when their own numbers put them second; the rank is now part of the data rather than something derived along the way.
  • Is his hot streak real — You can ask about a player's recent stretch and get it measured three ways at once: against his own earlier form, against his full season, and against every comparable player over the same dates, with how much he actually played alongside it. A hot fortnight and a genuine change now look different from each other instead of both reading as "he's up".
  • Finding what nobody asked about — The agent can scan a whole league over a window for what deviates — teams outperforming their record, players far off their own form — and when the data in front of it holds something striking you didn't ask about, it now says so in one line. "I hadn't noticed that" is the reaction this product is built for, and it needed a way to happen unprompted.
  • When a team plays next — "When do the Chiefs play next" now has a real answer, including in the off-season, and it says whether those games are preseason rather than calling one the opener. It's one of the most obvious questions you can ask, and the answer used to be that there was no current-season data.
  • The leagues you follow — The account page lets you name the leagues you follow, and a question that doesn't say which sport it's about is now read against those leagues first, falling back to whatever's in season. Asking "who's hot right now" in August used to mean baseball whether or not you follow baseball.
  • Rate an answer, and say why — Thumbs up and thumbs down sit under every answer, with a comment box on the thumbs down, and you can change a vote you've already cast. Telling us an answer was wrong was previously impossible, and a vote you couldn't take back isn't feedback, it's a trap.
  • Straighter numbers underneath — Games played now counts games a player appeared in rather than nights on the roster, NFL playoff and preseason box scores are collected instead of being reported as missing, spring training no longer counts toward the regular season, and an injury is dated from when it was first reported rather than when the feed last rewrote it. One answer told a reader a player had appeared in all 83 of his team's games when he had played 6. That number, and several like it, came from the data rather than the writing.
  • Saying what it doesn't know — When a metric isn't available, a game log stops at a limit, or a player has no season on file, the agent now names the gap and answers around it rather than guessing at a cause, declining the question, or handing you a menu of things it could do instead. It also won't state a number it privately doubted a moment earlier.
  • Football profiles read like football — An NFL player's page now lays a season out in passing, rushing, receiving, defense, kicking, punting and returns instead of one long list in database order, and shows the games he played. A kicker's line and a quarterback's line used to arrive in the same thirty-odd columns, which made both unreadable.
  • Every name opens — Players named anywhere in an answer are clickable now, not only the ones inside a ranking, and the profile panel opens on a phone as well as a laptop. A signed-out reader gets the panel too, with only the profile itself held back.
  • Nine new concepts the agent can draw on — Reference material went live for Pythagorean expectation, Game Score, whether a hot start is sustainable, how to read a league-wide scan, availability-adjusted value, and why quarterback wins is a weak stat, among others. The agent was already computing some of these and had nothing to explain them with.
  • A front door that says what this is — The site now leads with "Sports intelligence for the everyday baller", and a DataBaller link unfurls in a group chat with a real card instead of a grey wordmark. Signing in with Google or Apple from a shared conversation link also lands you on that conversation now, not a blank new chat.

v0.1 2026-08-08

  • Version numbers and a release-notes feed — A small version number now sits next to the DataBaller name on the home screen and in the sidebar, linking to a feed of what changed in each release. Every update used to be invisible unless you happened to notice something new yourself. Now you can always see what's new and why it was worth shipping.

Something you want to see in the next one? Ask for it on Discord.