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’re pleased to announce that we’ve begun publishing MLB’s Statcast data on FanGraphs!

At the moment, you can view Average Exit Velocity, Maximum Exit Velocity, Launch Angle, Barrels, Barrel%, HardHit balls, and HardHit%. For specific details about these measurements and metrics, please consult MLB’s Statcast Glossary. In addition to the stats listed above, we’re also reporting Events, which are calculated batted balls determined by PA – SO – BB – HBP for batters and TBF – SO – BB – HBP for pitchers. Statcast data is available from the 2015 season onward.

These metrics are currently available on our player pages and leaderboards, and in our game logs. In addition, Average Exit Velocity will display as a column on the players’ dashboard for both batters and pitchers. Read the rest of this entry »

With the surprise news that the 2020 season will feature expanded playoffs, we’ve been scrambling all afternoon to get our playoff odds updated:

And we did it! Or, at least we think we did it, based on the following reporting earlier in the day, which gave us something of a head start:

Seeds 1-3 will go to the division winners based on record.

Seeds 4-6 will go to the runners-up based on record.

Seeds 7 and 8 will be based on record.

Thus, there is a possibility the third-best division winner actually plays a worse team than the two best division winners.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 23, 2020

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Somewhat lost in the hubbub of the long-awaited arrival of Opening Day is the coincidence that, if not for the coronavirus pandemic, Thursday would have marked the beginning of the 2020 Hall of Fame Induction Weekend in Cooperstown. On April 30, at a point when the Hall of Fame’s doors had been closed for a month and a half, the institution officially announced that its board of directors had unanimously voted to postpone this year’s festivities, with the honorees instead slated to be recognized next year alongside those from the Class of 2021. The decision came down in spite of the fact that Cooperstown itself had been relatively untouched by the spread of the coronavirus, but in anticipation of a potentially record-setting crowd on hand to witness the inductions of Derek Jeter, Marvin Miller, Ted Simmons, and Larry Walker, the institution took an admirably proactive stance, not wanting 50,000-plus attendees from all around the country (and the world) to pack together and then risk carrying infections back to their communities.

The minimal spread of the coronavirus to Cooperstown and the Mohawk Valley allowed the Hall to reopen four weeks ago, with appropriate safety measures in place, but the loss of the weekend’s festivities hits home for this scribe. Not only would I have been attending my fourth Induction Weekend in a row, celebrating with fellow writers, fans, local Cooperstown residents, and other friends I’ve made through my repeated visits, but I would have been hawking copies of The Cooperstown Casebook on Main Street, meeting and greeting readers, a handful of whom have made an annual ritual of buying another signed copy to give to a friend while arguing good-naturedly about the merits of their favorite candidate. That Simmons and Walker were both profiled at length in the book — as were 2017 honoree Tim Raines, ’18 honoree Alan Trammell, and ’19 honorees Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, and Mariano Rivera — makes this year’s postponement sting just a bit more, because it’s incredibly gratifying to share the joy with fans of the honorees for whom we’ve all gone the extra mile, figuratively and literally. Aw, wait ’til next year! Read the rest of this entry »

While researching his latest article, Ben Lindbergh of Effectively Wild and The Ringer asked me and David Appelman if we had data for the most WAR accrued over any given 60-game stretch for a player since 2002 (Hint: It’s Barry Bonds). One question begets others, like who had the worst WAR over 60-games since 2002 (poor Ryan Doumit). The next thing we knew, we had literally millions rows of data, so we decided to make a leaderboard out of them so you can use the data we found.

Creating a quirky leaderboard for this equally quirky baseball season takes database resources and developer time. Your continued support and Membership allows us to afford those resources and create a leaderboard you won’t find anywhere else. If you haven’t already, please consider becoming a FanGraphs Member or donating to the site, so that we can continue to create awesome tools to answer your (and Ben’s) baseball questions.

The Basics

• We have 60-game rolling stats for batters.
• We have 12-game rolling stats for pitchers. By default we only show 12-game spans that have all been starts.
• The rolling stats are delineated by season, so each span of games occurs within the same season.
• This is an extension of the data engine behind our rolling graphs on the player pages, except pivoted into a leaderboard.
• Unfortunately, the length of the rolling stats are fixed to 60 or 12 games, and can’t be changed to other values.
• Since these are rolling stats, you can have spans that have fewer than 60 or 12 games. This typically happens at the beginning of the season or if a player didn’t play enough games over the course of the entire season.
• We include data from 1974 to 2019.

Read the rest of this entry »

With baseball scheduled to return in a couple of weeks, I wanted to give everyone an update on how FanGraphs is doing business-wise. For those of you who are returning to the site for the first time since the season was postponed, a lot has happened since you last visited.

You can read all about what’s been going on here, here, and here, but the quick recap is this: When the season was postponed, our traffic decreased by over 70% and ad rates declined by as much as 45%, causing an 80% decrease in ad revenue, which is far and away our largest source of site revenue.

We asked you for help in sustaining the site and you’ve come through in overwhelming fashion over the past four months, giving us some breathing room to try to weather the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were also able to secure funding through the second round of the Paycheck Protection Program, which was another boon to our short-term viability. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who helped keep the site alive. We would not be here today without you.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t still need your support and assistance. We still have a long way to go. Read the rest of this entry »

Building off the recent addition of KBO player pages, we’ve created a leaderboard that compiles player stat lines. The details of our current KBO data offerings can be found in the KBO player page introduction post.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m pleased to announce that FanGraphs now has KBO player stats going back to 2002!

Currently, these stats are available on player pages and include full season stat lines. They will be updated nightly to reflect the previous day’s games.

We’ve integrated a new section into our player search specifically designated for international players. Any player you search for who has played in the KBO will show up in the International section as well as in the Major or Minor League sections if they have MLB-affiliated playing time. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi again. Thank you so much for the support you’ve shown the site over the past few weeks. In the spirit of continued transparency, I wanted to give everyone a fairly in-depth update on how things are going at FanGraphs. A few weeks ago, we had to change our business model from one primarily driven by ads to a one predominantly driven by site memberships because of the current COVID-19 pandemic, which postponed the start of the MLB season and caused a drastic decrease in both FanGraphs’ traffic and general advertising rates. We set a Membership goal of 40,000 Members, which in a typical year represents less than 4% of our monthly site visitors.

First, let’s look at the some of the good news, which is that Memberships are going in the right direction. Thank you to everyone who has decided to continue their Membership while baseball is on hiatus, upgraded their existing Membership, or signed up for the first time! Prior to March 30, we had 10,004 active Members; that number has increased to 14,739:

If we include merchandise sales, gift memberships, upgrades to Ad-Free, and donations (at the equivalent of the $30 annual Membership), the progress towards that 40,000-Member goal looks even better. Furthermore, our breakdown of Memberships has shifted slightly towards Ad-Free; about 5% of all Members have moved toward Ad-Free. When we include all these additional contributions, it effectively puts us at 16,244 members:

Read the rest of this entry »

FanGraphs merchandise is still available for pre-order! Pre-orders for all sizes will be available from now until May 10, with merchandise expected to ship in early June.

Items available for pre-order include:

• FanGraphs Hoodies
• Effectively Wild T-Shirts
• Men’s Gray FanGraphs T-Shirts

Read the rest of this entry »