Beginning today, we’ll be moving our articles on both FanGraphs and RotoGraphs to a metered paywall. Readers will get 10 free articles per rolling 30 days; if you go over that and would like to continue reading, you’ll be required to become a FanGraphs Member.

Our player pages, leaderboards, and other data tools, as well as RosterResource, The Board, and our glossary, will remain available for unlimited use to all of our readers.

FanGraphs Membership now includes:

• Ad-free browsing
• Unlimited FanGraphs and RotoGraphs articles
• One-click data exports
• Customizable player page dashboards
• Dark mode and classic mode page styles
• Leaderboard custom reports
• Optional removal of photos on the homepage

When I think about where FanGraphs sits in today’s media landscape, there are a lot of things that make us an outlier. We are a 100% independent small business that has 14 full-time employees. Everyone who does any work for FanGraphs receives compensation. We don’t focus on chasing clicks. We don’t participate in SEO schemes. We don’t work with sportsbooks or gambling entities. We are a baseball site staffed by baseball experts for baseball fans and experts.

Unfortunately, we’re still very much reliant on programmatic advertising dollars, which you may remember being the focus of a post of mine earlier this year. Whether because of the 2020 pandemic, the 2022 lockout, 2023 search engine changes, or 2024 changes in ad tech, advertising revenue is unpredictable and unreliable. It makes business planning and hiring challenging, and leaves us vulnerable to revenue fluctuations that have nothing to do with the quality of our content or site tools. It isn’t transparent, its presence on the site creates a poor user experience that’s difficult for us to quality control, and it exploits your data to take revenue out of the hands of small publishers and put it in the coffers of the largest, most profitable companies in the world.

FanGraphs turns 20 years old next year. It has taken decades of work from dozens of people who have given their days, nights, weekends, and vacation time to build this site. For an independent single-sport site, the range and depth of content available at FanGraphs is truly special. We hope that these changes will help us further secure the site’s future long-term. Thank you to all of our Members for helping us get this far. Every time we have faced a decline in advertising revenue over the last five years, it has been our Members who have sustained FanGraphs and helped it grow. And if you aren’t yet a Member, there’s no need to wait until you hit your 10 article limit — you can become one now and help us continue to improve the site, just as we have these past 19 years.

Please let us know if you have any questions, either by leaving a comment below or by emailing support@fangraphs.com.

Today, we’ve made some changes to Wins Above Replacement that completes the move from UZR to the full suite of Statcast equivalent metrics in FanGraphs WAR. This process began in 2022, when we replaced UZR’s range component with Statcast’s Fielding Runs Prevented, which is Outs Above Average (OAA) converted to runs above average. UZR will continue to be calculated on FanGraphs through the end of the 2025 season. Today’s changes are retroactive to the 2016 season. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi everyone!

It’s been almost two years since we talked about how FanGraphs is doing, and with Opening Day fast approaching, I thought it would be a good time to give you an update on where the site stands now. Read the rest of this entry »

The application period for this position is now closed. Thank you for your interest.

FanGraphs is now accepting applications to join our staff as a full-time associate editor.

The associate editor will work with the managing editor and the FanGraphs staff to publish daily baseball analysis and help shape the site’s editorial strategy. From free agent signings to statistical analysis, baseball’s top prospects to in-game strategy, we endeavor to present a holistic view of today’s game to our readers. Familiarity and comfort with advanced statistics is a requirement, as is a firm understanding of the current public research landscape. Just as importantly, we’re looking for an editor who displays good editorial judgment, as well as a talent for helping writers sharpen their ideas and hone their authorial voice. The associate editor will also manage FanGraphs’ social media accounts, and will have the opportunity to contribute written work of their own. Read the rest of this entry »

Postseason stats are now available in our leaderboards!

The leaderboards can be accessed in the Leaders navigation bar, or by using the “Season Type” filter in the leaderboards themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve added a new tool that allows you to see who is projected to win the Cy Young Award.

These Cy Young Projections utilize a simple model created by Tangotiger. The original Cy Young Points model has predicted the top two vote getters with high accuracy through 2020. The FIP Adjusted model may be a better predictor of more recent voting behavior.

Along with current season stats (featuring FIP, WAR, and RA9-WAR), you can also use the top nav bar to toggle over to any of the in-season projection systems we carry to show a player’s projected end-of-season stats.

New data tools and the entire site are supported by our Members. Please consider becoming a FanGraphs Member if you enjoy our work!

With the pitch clock and a slew of other rule changes now in effect in the majors, we’ve added a section to the leaderboards dedicated to tracking all manner of rule violations and their run values.

Some important notes:

– The violations include Pitcher Pitch Timer Violations, Catcher Pitch Timer Violations, Disengagement Violations, Defensive Shift Violations, Batter Pitch Timer Violations, and Batter Timeout Violations. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m happy to announce that we now have two pitch quality models, PitchingBot and Stuff+, available for your perusal on the FanGraphs Leaderboards.

PitchingBot is the brainchild of Cameron Grove. We worked with Cameron to be able to run and maintain his model in-house at FanGraphs; he has since joined an MLB front office. You can read all about PitchingBot in the FanGraphs Library here.

In short, PitchingBot takes inputs such as pitcher handedness, batter handedness, strike zone height, count, velocity, spin rate, movement, release point, extension, and location to determine the quality of a pitch, as well as its possible outcomes. Those outcomes are then aggregated and normalized on a 20-80 scouting scale, which is what is displayed on the leaderboards. Read the rest of this entry »

The FanGraphs 2023 Playoff Odds are now available on the site. As a reminder, here’s what each column represents in the current 12-team playoff structure:

• Win Div: The probability the team wins their division.
• Clinch Bye: The probability that the team wins their division and is one of the top two seeds in their league, thus earning a Wild Card Series bye.
• Clinch Wild Card: The probability the team qualifies for the playoffs through a Wild Card berth.
• Make Playoffs: The sum of Win Div + Clinch Wild Card, indicating the probability that the team qualifies for the playoff in any capacity.
• Make LDS (Postseason section): The probability the team wins the Wild Card Series or earns a bye.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re excited to announce that Negro Leagues data is now available on the FanGraphs player pages and leaderboards! In addition, Negro Leagues players now have FanGraphs player pages. All data is provided by The Seamheads Negro Leagues Database powered by Agate Type Research. Special thanks are due to Gary Ashwill and Kevin Johnson for their assistance as we incorporated the data into the site.

The seven Black baseball leagues included in our data mirror those at Baseball Reference and are consistent with the recommendations of SABR’s Negro Leagues Task Force and Major League Baseball’s announcement recognizing these leagues as being major leagues.

Read the rest of this entry »