Introduction to Sources of Baseball Statistics

If you like to view baseball statistics, a variety of sources exist. Among them are Baseball Reference, FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, Baseball Savant, and Statcast. Baseball Savant and Statcast are products of Major League Baseball.

Baseball Savant can be accessed here and Statcast through its search page though Statcast info is also available from the main Baseball Savant page.

On Baseball Savant’s homepage is a menu bar containing this:

• Gamefeed 
• Probable Pitchers 
• Daily Matchups 
• Leaderboards
• Search

Each of the above menu items will be discussed later. Be aware that the last item, “Search,” takes you to the same page as you reach by clicking the link to the Statcast search page, which is several paragraphs up.

Savant’s homepage contains two sections: a horizontal listing of the day’s games and “Trending Players.” Among the “trending players” on April 21 are Christian Yelich, J. D. Davis, and Yandy Diaz. When I clicked on Davis’ name, a page full of his 2019 stats appears. (More about those stats later.

Savant also contains excellent visuals. Below are two examples. The first one shows the trajectory of a single by Mets first baseman Pete Alonso. The second shows the exit velocity and launch angle of a homer by Alonso. (More about those visuals later too.)

This introduction gives you an overview of what will be in the “baseball statistics” posts. The focus will on enabling you to both access and interpret statistics in various forms with an initial emphasis on those in Baseball Savant.