Introducing Pitcher Game Cards

Late last season, we completely rebuilt the Scores section of FanGraphs from the ground up. During the offseason, we continued that effort by redesigning the pages that support it, including new Box Scores, Game Graphs, Game Stats, and Play Logs. Those updates were aimed at making it easier to explore and understand everything that happens during a game, from the first pitch to the final out.

Today, we’re excited to introduce the newest addition to that suite of tools: Pitcher Game Cards, which can be found in Game Graphs.

The Pitcher Game Cards are designed to provide a detailed, game-level snapshot of every pitcher who appears in a game. While a traditional box score can tell you what happened, the Pitcher Game Cards help explain how it happened by combining game results, pitch usage, movement profiles, and pitch quality metrics into a single view.

For each pitcher, the card begins with the headline results: innings pitched, hits allowed, earned runs, walks, strikeouts, home runs allowed, pitch count, swinging strikes, barrels allowed, and hard-hit balls. Those numbers provide a quick summary of the outing before the rest of the card dives into the details of the arsenal that produced those results.

The Pitch Usage section breaks down how frequently each pitch was thrown, and shows usage against both right-handed and left-handed hitters. This allows users to quickly identify game plans, platoon adjustments, and pitch preferences that may not be apparent from the box score alone.

Alongside the usage breakdown is a movement chart that visualizes the shape of each pitch. By plotting horizontal and vertical movement, the chart provides an immediate sense of how a pitcher differentiates their offerings and how each pitch fits within their overall arsenal. The chart also compares each pitch’s movement in the game against its season-long movement profile, making it easy to spot pitches that moved differently than usual.

For users looking for additional detail, the Pitcher Game Cards also include an expandable Pitch Locations view. This plot shows every pitch thrown during the game, and can be filtered by both batter handedness and pitch type, making it easy to see how a pitcher attacked different hitters with different offerings. Hovering over an individual pitch reveals additional information about that pitch, providing even more context for the outing. On desktop, the view expands alongside the card, while on mobile devices it appears beneath it:

The Pitch Arsenal table provides a deeper look at every pitch thrown during the game. In addition to average velocity, users can see strike zone rate, chase rate, and swinging strike rate for each offering. Velocity differences from season averages are also displayed, making it easy to spot outings where a pitcher gained or lost velocity relative to their normal baseline.

The Pitcher Game Cards also feature pitch quality metrics from both the Stuff+ model and FanGraphs’ PitchingBot system. Users can toggle between the two views, displaying either Stuff+, Location+, and Pitching+, or PitchingBot’s Stuff, Command, and Overall grades. Because PitchingBot metrics are available live during games, the Pitcher Game Cards can provide advanced pitch evaluations in real time, while Stuff+ metrics populate the following morning once postgame processing is complete.

The result is a tool that can answer a wide range of questions at a glance. Why did a pitcher generate so many strikeouts? Which pitch was responsible for producing swings and misses? Was the pitch’s velocity up compared to previous outings? Did a pitcher succeed because of elite stuff, outstanding command, or both? Rather than searching through multiple pages and leaderboards, users can find those answers in a single card.

The Pitcher Game Cards are available directly within Game Graphs for every pitcher who appears in a game. FanGraphs Members can download the cards and copy them as an image. Whether you’re a fantasy manager evaluating a recent performance, an analyst looking for deeper context, or simply a fan interested in understanding what happened on the mound, the Pitcher Game Cards provide a fast and comprehensive way to explore a pitcher’s outing.

As with all of our Scores tools, we’ll continue to refine and improve the Pitcher Game Cards over time. We hope they become a valuable addition to your game-day experience, and we look forward to hearing your feedback.