The Community Blog Is Back!

Attention FanGraphs readers and Members: Do you have a piece of original baseball writing or research that you’d like to have published but don’t know where to go? If so, we’re happy to report that we’re relaunching our Community Blog and looking for submissions.

Many of you have probably seen or read the Community Blog, where anyone with a FanGraphs account can submit a piece for review and publication. Some of you may have even written for it previously. But for those of you who aren’t familiar with the process or would like a refresher on how it works, let’s run through how to get your writing onto our site.

Step 1: Create a free FanGraphs account, and while you’re there, please consider signing up for a Membership. (Membership is not required to submit a Community Blog piece.) If you already have an account, you can jump ahead to Step 2, and if you’re already a Member, thanks for your support!

Step 2: Log in and head over to the WordPress dashboard for our Community Blog. If you click on that link, it’ll take you directly to a blank post, which you can create by adding a headline and clicking “Save Draft.” If you don’t know exactly what you want your headline to be just yet, you can use the topic of your piece as a placeholder. Saving it first before adding your text helps with formatting and will make our editors’ jobs so much easier later on.

Once you’ve saved your draft, you can add your text and select the most relevant categories (Research, Player Analysis, etc.). We recommend that you write your piece in a separate application such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs and then copy and paste it into WordPress once you’ve finished. That way you’ll have your initial draft saved in a separate location, which can come in handy during the editing process.

One thing to note: If your piece requires images — such as GIFs, graphs, or screenshots — you should provide an external link to them, as our system does not allow you to upload anything directly.

Step 3: After your piece is finished and in our system, set the post’s status to “Pending Review” so that we know it’s ready for us to look at. Then click “Save as Pending.” That’s it; we’ll take care of everything else.

A few things to know about writing for the Community Blog: First and foremost, any piece you submit must be your own original research or work, meaning you have to be the one who wrote it. That said, you can submit pieces that you’ve published elsewhere, like on your personal blog. Just let us know where else the piece has appeared.

Second, all pieces are subject to editorial approval. Your work needs to be readable, relevant, and appropriate. We will not accept pieces that attempt to redirect readers off our site, or try to sell or promote a product or service. Likewise, please do not submit breaking news posts or reactions to the news; we cover that on the homepage already. The Community Blog should complement our coverage, not double up on it. Similarly, please be sure to check out what else has been written on your subject before you write your piece, and properly situate your own work within the existing research, whether it was published here at FanGraphs or elsewhere. In other words, make sure that your subject or research is current and offers something new. Additionally, you must credit and link to any relevant research or sources, FanGraphs or otherwise, that you used for your work.

Third, please be respectful of both the FanGraphs community and our staff. We welcome pieces that challenge what we’ve got on the main site, but this is not an invitation to yell at us or start a fight with another writer or reader. There are plenty of other forums for that. Likewise, please be respectful of your audience. Remember, proper grammar and spelling goes a long way.

Fourth, please do not submit more than one piece per week, and please do not spam the blog. If you submitted something in the last few months that wasn’t published but that you think is still relevant, feel free to re-submit it. Unfortunately, we’re unable to run all the posts we receive, but we’d like to publish as many as we can, editorial time permitting. I’ll also do my best, time permitting, to send feedback if we decide not to run your post. In addition to facilitating new ideas and expanding the research on our site, we want the Community Blog to be a place for aspiring writers to get some reps and improve their craft. If we do not accept a submission, we want to do our best to help you make the next one better, so that we can publish that one.

Please note that Community Blog writers are not compensated for their work; if you’re interested in pitching a paid freelance piece, please contact freelance@fangraphs.com. Also, the Community Blog is not for fantasy content.

All Community Blog posts will be presented without ads. They will be free for anyone to read, and they will not count toward any article limits for non-Members.

If you’d like an idea of what a good Community Blog post looks like, here are some examples:

• Hiroshi Miyashita, “How Does Seiya Suzuki Stack Up?”
• Namiki, “What Makes a Four-Seamer Good?”
• Alex Bires, “David Fletcher’s 2021 Was Missing Something”

If you have any questions, please feel free to send us an email at community@fangraphs.com. We look forward to reading your submissions.