Okay, so I needed to look up Raúl Alcántara’s stats today. It wasn’t anything super complicated, just wanted to check some numbers.
Getting Started
First thing I did, pretty standard stuff, just popped open my browser. Went straight to my usual search engine, you know the one. Typed in ‘Raúl Alcántara stats’. Simple as that.
Sifting Through Results
Got a bunch of results back, like you’d expect. Saw the big names: ESPN, the official MLB site, and of course, Baseball-Reference. FanGraphs was probably in there too. Usually, for a quick overview, especially historical stuff, I lean towards Baseball-Reference. It just feels like they cram everything in one place, which can be good or bad, but today I just wanted the basics fast.
So, I clicked the Baseball-Reference link for him.
On the Stats Page
Landed on his player page. It’s got that typical layout, picture, basic info up top. Then I scrolled down to the main part, the stats tables. This is what I was really after.
- Found the main table showing his Major League time. Saw the years he pitched, the teams (looked like Oakland A’s primarily in MLB).
- Checked out the usual numbers: ERA, Wins, Losses, Innings Pitched, Strikeouts. Just scanned across those rows.
- Remembered he played overseas too, so I specifically looked for sections on his KBO (Korean league) and NPB (Japanese league) stats. Baseball-Reference usually tucks these below the MLB stats or has separate links for them. Found his Doosan Bears and Hanshin Tigers numbers there. That was good, saved me another search.
Final Check
I wasn’t looking for anything super specific this time, just a general refresher on his career numbers across different leagues. It was all there. Didn’t need to jump over to FanGraphs for fancy stuff like pitch velocity breakdown or anything today. Just wanted the career totals and league-by-league performance.
So yeah, that was it. Found what I needed pretty quickly. Baseball-Reference did the job this time. Sometimes you gotta hunt around more, especially for guys who played in multiple countries, but this one was straightforward. Got the stats, closed the tab. Done.
