Two weeks ago, we updated our Major League Leaderboards. We appreciated all the feedback and feature requests. One of those requests was to add a way to filter by the handedness of the player, and we’ve done just that!

The filter looks at whether the batter is right-handed, left-handed or a switch hitter, and filters on that value. It works the same for pitchers. We even have a switch pitcher filter, although it’s functional for just one player.

Similar to the position player filter, the handedness filter will not create a subset of data. For example, if you select switch-hitters, it will show you their stats from all their plate appearances, regardless of the side of the plate they batted from.

We still have the handedness splits in the “Split” menu, and these splits can be combined with the handedness filter. So you could look at all right-handed pitchers (Handedness Filter) while facing right-handed hitters (Split):

As always if you encounter any issues or bugs, please contact us at support@fangraphs.com.

We just updated the interface for our Major League Leaderboards, enhancing the user experience while retaining the core functionalities.

This updates includes the following refinements:

• Streamlined Control Panel: We’ve reorganized and consolidated common items within the control panel, creating a more intuitive and efficient user interface.
• Leagues Menu Enhancement: Our leagues menu now allows simultaneous filtering across multiple leagues.
• Primary Position Filtering: We’ve taken special care to clarify our position filtering options. The “Primary Position,” exclusively for batters, is determined based on playing time. If a player spends 25% or more of their time at a specific position, they qualify for that position. This encompasses all plate appearances, regardless of the player’s position during the game.
• Positional Splits: Our positional split feature, available for both batters and pitchers, has been refined for seamless usability. This plate appearance-level split function has been repositioned into a more accessible location, improving overall navigation and understandability.
• Modal-Based Custom Reports: We’ve moved the custom reports functionality into user-friendly popup modals. This enhancement ensures a smoother experience when generating custom reports, eliminating the need to navigate to the bottom of the data grid.
• Enhanced Performance: Our commitment to delivering an optimal experience extends to performance enhancements. Page loading times have been optimized for swifter access to data, contributing to a more efficient user journey.
• More Consistent Control Options: We’ve made a decision not to hide unavailable options for different eras and categories. This ensures a more user-friendly interface by minimizing confusion stemming from disappearing choices.

Additionally, we’ve made some quality-of-life features exclusive to FanGraphs Membership:

• CSV Report Downloads: The ability to download reports in CSV format, facilitating seamless data integration with external tools, will continue to be available only to members.
• Custom Stat Headers: For enhanced report customization, members can create a data grid with as many stat headers they want. Non-members are now limited to 10 stat headers.
• Custom Player List: This member-exclusive feature permits access to data for more than 10 players. Non-members are now limited to 10 stat headers.
• Custom Report Saving: Saving the custom reports created from custom stat headers and custom player lists is now a member-exclusive feature.

Regardless of membership status, your older reports made on the previous leaderboards will remain accessible and compatible with the revamped interface. Additionally, for users with specific needs or dependencies on the legacy version, we’ve retained an older version of our leaderboards. You can find more information here. The legacy version of the leadersboards will be maintained until at least the conclusion of the 2023 season.

Thank you for being a part of this exciting evolution in our leaderboards experience. If you encounter any issues or bugs, please contact us at support@fangraphs.com. Your valued feedback and continued support drive us to deliver the best possible tools for your analytical needs.

We are currently in the process of updating our leaderboards interface. As part of this update, we have already released a quick leaderboard interface in our app, and we are now focusing on developing a modern, mobile-friendly web version of the complete leaderboards.

Just like when we made changes to our player pages, the upcoming modifications to the leaderboards will involve underlying HTML changes that could impact any data analysis tools you have built. To address this, we have created a legacy version of the page, which will remain accessible via a direct URL until the end of the 2023 season. Please note that normal navigation or parameter changes may not work as expected on the legacy page. Its purpose is to allow users to replace the URL in their tool and continue functioning until they have a chance to make any necessary adjustments. Read the rest of this entry »

We are excited to introduce Quick Leaderboards – an intuitive, mobile-friendly interface for accessing our major league leaderboards. With this new addition, you can now easily explore and find leaders for various statistics through a list-based interface. Our goal is to provide a seamless experience that closely reflects the web version’s robust leaderboards within our app. Our future plans are to further develop leaderboards in the app to closely match the functionality of the web version.

To access the app and enjoy these new features, simply download it here:

Read the rest of this entry »

When we released the new FanGraphs app in August, we asked users to tell us which features they wanted to see next. The overwhelming response was to add both articles and leaderboards. We’re still working on how best to integrate the leaderboards, but as of today, we’ve added editorial content to the app. (If you are currently reading this on the app, you might already know all of this!)

If you haven’t already, you can download the app here:

Specifically, we’ve added or updated the following:

• The ability to view our articles on the app.
• A home screen layout that closely reflects the FanGraphs web homepage.
• A blog roll that closely reflects the FanGraphs web blog roll.
• Customization features for Members.

Read the rest of this entry »

We are launching a new FanGraphs mobile app, which is available for both iOS and Android devices. You may remember our previous attempt at an iOS app over a decade ago, but this is a completely new app that more closely reflects our website, built with a native mobile experience specifically for phones in mind.

The app is free to download, but similar to our website, it has ads unless you are signed in as a FanGraphs Member. Any customization features in the app will also only be available to Members.

As we launch today, the app has player pages, scores, and standings available. We plan on adding more features from the site in the future. Read the rest of this entry »

You might have noticed that we updated the main home page to reflect some of the changes we recently made on the RotoGraphs landing page and the new blog roll.

We cleaned up the design, added more photos, and reorganized our content. The left column will primarily contain editorial content, while the right column will have more evergreen site features. Our aim is to make FanGraphs more inviting and discoverable to new users, while simplifying and streamlining the experience for our current users. Almost all of the content from the old home page has been retained with the new home page. We also expanded the most popular article section (which is determined by pageviews) to include more articles and RotoGraphs content.

If you have any questions or comments, or if anything is broken, please let us know in the comments. Please include what device, browser, and operating system you are using in order to help us figure out any issues. Thank you!

Historically, we have made many data tables available for download in a comma-separated values (CSV) format text file. Most of our data grids are rather straight forward and can be translated easily into a CSV file to be consumed by your data analysis tool of choice. Starting today, we are making RosterResource Excel workbook downloads available for FanGraphs Members. You can find the download button to the right of the page underneath the RosterResource navigation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s do something completely different and have some fun! Over the course of the past year, I created an arcade game that can be played on a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) from 1985! The game might looks familiar, but it’s been adapted for baseball.

This is an actual NES game; it is a .nes ROM file that you can play on original hardware. I found a JavaScript emulator, so you can more easily play it online. You can download the ROM here and use it in your emulator, flash cart, or your retro gaming setup of choice.

Below you can click on the photo, which will take you to the online emulator. It works best on desktops running Chrome, Firefox, or the new Edge. Safari is playable but it gives a soft picture without sound. Gameplay suffers on mobile, especially smaller devices. It’s best to use your keyboard to control everything, but there is a virtual controller available, too.

(Click to open FanGraphs Arcade)

Game Play

I don’t want to give too much away about the game, because half of the fun of an arcade game is trying things out, failing, then trying again until you succeed, though I will answer questions in the comments or on Twitter if anyone has any. Read the rest of this entry »

We just updated our player pages! The pages might not look that different, but we’ve redone everything under the hood. We did this to achieve responsive player pages, and it also comes with improvements in speed and a better platform to develop new features in the future.

Quick Look

If you are on a desktop computer, the most noticeable difference on the new pages is the Quick Look section we’ve added to the very top of the page. These will have some popular stats for the player’s major league career and the current or most recent season. Retired players will only have their career stats.

For position players, we’ve also provided a summary of how many major league games the player played at each position, while a pitcher’s Quick Look will show their pitch repertoire. The position breakdown will double count games a player played at two or more positions, and does not include pinch-hitters or pinch-runners, so those values might not add up to games played. We display the Pitch Info classifications for the pitches where usage is 5% or greater for the season. Once again, these will only show for the current or most recent season.

Prospects and players who were recently prospects have their most recent scouting grades and team rankings from the prospect team shown. The report year those grades and rankings come from is shown and also serves as a link to The Board, allowing you to see that report’s entire class. Any in-season rankings are denoted with a (U) for Updated.

Table View Options and Minor League Stats

Minor league stats are no longer shown by default for every player. We do, however, show them for players who:

• Do not have any major league stats.
• Current players who have less than two years of service time.
• Retired players who have minor league stats in our database, but played fewer than three seasons in the majors.

You can toggle the minor league stats into view as always, with the table options between the table header and the data grid.

On mobile, those table view options are hidden but are accessible via the settings gear on the top-right of the table.

Game Logs

The game log calendar has been updated as well. Days when the player played a game are shown in black and have a dot underneath the date. Clicking update will load the new date range. You are also able to select an entire season or all games that we have available. If you select a very long range, it might take a while to load.

We also now have game logs and play logs available for players who played from 1974 to 2002. These behave just like the game logs and play logs of current players. 1974 is as far back as our play-by-play data currently goes.

Mobile

We made the data grid pages responsive. Much like The Board or the minor league leaderboards, you are able to scroll across the table while the season for the row is fixed in the left column.

For the moment, the visualization-based pages still require the full desktop view to use. We hope to move everything over to a responsive view soon.

Other Notes

Fantasy Player Profiles are still in the process of being written and will be available soon. The placement of the profiles on the player pages haven’t changed.

Back in January, we announced the creation of legacy pages for all players pages. The HTML structure on those has not changed. However, they are not meant as a fully-featured alternative, so navigation might not work and new features we develop in the future will not be added to them. This is meant as a stop-gap for any research tools you might have that rely on the HTML structure.

As always if you find any issues or bugs, please let us know in the comments!