I’m sure you’ve found yourself sitting in the booth before a baseball game, getting frustrated because you can’t find that one nugget you need for a broadcast. The PR staff is busy and you are left to scratch your head. Never fear, the internet is here to help you solve your problem. But the web is tricky in that there is so much out there and some of it, isn’t legit.
I know, unbelievable right? So, where can you go for quality, correct and instant info? I have a few suggestions based on my own experiences.
One of my favorite sites is Baseball-Reference.com. You can research not only Major League players but also guys in your minor league system. If you have questions about pronunciations of a player’s name, they have you covered. Wondering about what uniform numbers a guy has worn over his career, again, it’s there. BR also allows you to dig deep into the archives of old games, complete with box scores of games from yesteryear.
The site is complete with yearly, season, career and franchise records. It will show you progressive records too, which shows what player led in a certain category at a certain point in time. For example if you want to know who the all-time leader in RBI’s was in 1930, it was Cap Anson, the active leader in that same year was Babe Ruth. It’s kind of a fascinating thing to look at if you’re a history buff.
For more cotemporary purposes you can easily access trends in players games. If you want to know what Player A has done since coming back from the IL, highlight the date he first played and highlight the last game played. The site will then generate his numbers from that range of dates. It’s a very helpful tool which also works on the game logs for minor league players. You can also use this site to see what happened on a certain date in MLB history, or birth/death dates of former players as well. Most of this information is free. They do have a pay portion called the Play Index which allows you to see batter/pitcher match ups and other head-to-head numbers. This is a website I’ve gotten lost on for hours just looking at historical information.
With today’s tendency to rely on analytics and internal numbers, there’s a great site that continues to get better. BaseballSavant.mlb.com. The site evolves constantly and recently included in-game updated Statcast information from MLB.
You can see how many of each pitch type a guy has thrown in real time. They’ve now included win probability, exit velocity leaders and the ability to still see a real time look at each at bat showing exit velo, launch angle, distance, pitch velocity and other useful information while the game is going on. If you want to see how hard Yuli Gurriel’s home run off of Ross Detwiler was hit, you can go to the White Sox/Astros game feed and see that the ball left the bat at 105 MPH at a launch angle of 25 degrees and so on. This is great for reference during a game.
It’s also a great spot to go for pregame prep as well. I use it to get Statcast numbers for the starting pitchers. What is his percentage of barreled balls? What is his average exit velocity? Both easily accessed on this site. I also like to see what a pitcher’s repertoire is. For example, what’s the percentage of fastballs thrown? Curves? Sliders? Also provided within those pages is info on average pitch speed and spin rate. I really enjoy getting lost on this site as well.
Fangraphs.com is another excellent resource for analytics and stories about players. It’s a great place to check out what they call “Roster Resource”. This is invaluable to see a team’s “go to” lineup against RHP or LHP. You find out the main position, age, how they were acquired, how many options are left, service time, original signing info, where a player ranks on the prospect list and what position they’ve played in the last 6 games. You get this for position players and pitchers and minor leaguer’s as well.
Fangraphs also provides stories about each player, just by searching his name. Also on a player’s page you can get a daily projection as to how he’ll do that day. As a member you can customize the information you receive on that page, but even for free, analytical info is available for each player. It’s a great resource for those that want to get more in depth on metrics.
These are the main sites I tend to visit. Below I’ll list some of the other helpful sites folks in the industry have mentioned to me or I’ve also checked out.
MLB
MLB.COM is the official site of Major League Baseball. So if it’s happening officially in the league, you’ll find the story here. Stat pages are pretty good with biographical information as well.
Minor League Baseball
MILB.COM is the official site of Minor League Baseball. You can get great statistical information about the top minor league prospects and all players in a team’s system. Game logs are included for the previous 10 games as well. There’s an option to sign up for MILB TV to watch games live for a fee.
Baseball Prospectus
Baseballprospectus.com is another good site. This one is mainly a pay site with a basic plan option built in as well. You have to sign up for any service by providing email address, etc. The site has correspondents that cover each MLB team which can help research a team you aren’t as familiar with. Helpful during interleague play for sure.
Baseball Almanac
Baseball-Almanac.com is basically what it sounds like, a historical account of the game. Check on history of ballparks, information about past playoff series and player information.
Andy Masur is a columnist for BSM and works for WGN Radio as an anchor and play-by-play announcer. He also teaches broadcasting at the Illinois Media School. During his career he has called games for the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox. He can be found on Twitter @Andy_Masur1 or you can reach him by email at Andy@Andy-Masur.com.
