Fangraphs, Baseball Reference, Baseball Savant, Other?

[Richie the Rally Goat]

What’s your go site to for stats?

why?

Mix and match?

what are your favorite stats for specific applications?

why?

[Richie the Rally Goat]

Inspired by Brad

My post there:

WAR gets calculated slightly differently depending on your source.

I like Fangraphs. FWAR is the shorthand for Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement the link goes to the Fangraphs library where they define the stats.

For hitting I like wRC+ because it puts hitters relative to all other hitters (100 as average) by components of run creation.

For pitchers FIP is a great stat. It predicts ERA better than historic ERA does by calculating out if a pitched were to experience league average BABIP

For fielding I like OAA…
 

…afterwards I started thinking about if the shift and Manfredball might change my thoughts about my preference for WAR and if BWAR might overtake FWAR because BWAR weights fielding/pitchers to a greater extent.

[Brock Beauchamp]

For WAR and wRC+, I like Fangraphs.

If I'm in a hurry and just want a general view of a player or I want easy access to splits, I use B-Ref.

If I'm really digging into a player and want to know how each piece of their toolkit grades out, Baseball Savant.

[Vanimal46]

B-Ref is usually my go to. I’m used to the UI and I like the easy access to splits stats. 

FanGraphs is good when I want to know velocities and pitch mixes. 

I truly don’t know enough about the WAR difference on either site to have an opinion. It’s just a quick way to determine value. 

I rarely go to Baseball Savant. They have a terrible interface on mobile devices. 

[Dave Borton]

Time for me to dig in again. I was all old school until I read Law's "Smart Baseball" a few years ago. Taking it to Arizona to read again while I take in College Div I ball for a couple of months.
I lean on Baseball Reference - 1st, Fangraphs - 2nd. I use Fangraphs when I really want to dig in/drill down.

 

 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

8 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

For WAR and wRC+, I like Fangraphs.

If I'm in a hurry and just want a general view of a player or I want easy access to splits, I use B-Ref.

If I'm really digging into a player and want to know how each piece of their toolkit grades out, Baseball Savant.

Why wRC vs b-ref OPS+? The differences aren’t very big on the page

[Richie the Rally Goat]

8 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

B-Ref is usually my go to. I’m used to the UI and I like the easy access to splits stats. 

FanGraphs is good when I want to know velocities and pitch mixes. 

I truly don’t know enough about the WAR difference on either site to have an opinion. It’s just a quick way to determine value. 

I rarely go to Baseball Savant. They have a terrible interface on mobile devices. 

UI matters more than we talk about, but it’s very subjective.

agreed, baseball Savant is terrible on mobile.

FG’s glossary is a pain in the butt on mobile too. Adds cover it up and it drives me bonkers!

[Brock Beauchamp]

45 minutes ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

Why wRC vs b-ref OPS+? The differences aren’t very big on the page

I think wRC+ does a slightly better job balancing offense but as you said, the difference between wRC+ and OPS+ is often so small it doesn’t matter.

I also like FG’s defensive metrics and options better than BR. I rarely use BR for anything if I’m looking into defense. 

[stringer bell]

I like BBRef for a quick bio or split stats. 

[CRF]

I'm old and old school...I do Baseball Reference. 

[wsnydes]

I'm not a huge stathead, but I do reference B-Ref quite a bit if I'm looking something up.  I do think I need to use Fangraphs more than I do though.

[2wins87]

They've all got their strengths.

Fangraphs might be the most useful to me overall, not just stats, but depth charts and prospect scouting reports.  Their leaderboards are really flexible when you get the hang of them which is great if you're trying to look up something more comparative.  My main complaint is that the memory overhead seems to get pretty high which is noticeable for someone like me that typically has too many tabs open,

BBRef is more where I go for historical stuff. I also do like their minor league game logs and splits pages.

Baseball savant has great granular data though I think it will take some time before there are more useful aggregate level stats.  I think my favorite aspects is being able to get data on guys that are new to the majors.  Certain metrics stabilize pretty quickly and you can get some better impressions on how they are doing vs just the top level stats which are often deceptive early on.

[Doctor Gast]

I guess I'm mainly old school, I like digging into underlying conditions. But with overall comparison my  favorite stat is bWAR. But day to day stuff I like the splits w/ BB reference.

[Eris]

Fangraphs because I find their site easier to use. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

“The only nits I pick are that I like all numbers on a "relative to all other players" stat. A 3.75 FIP in 2023 meant a roughly average pitcher. In 2003, it meant a borderline all-star. 

Using FIP+ (or minus if you prefer) helps identify performance relative to the league at the time. 

OOA is a relative stat already, it just was not mentioned as such in your post. I think that is worth pointing out.”

 

@Minny505

i love this post and wanted to unpack this a bit.

you caught me in between understanding what happened historically and predicting future outcomes. Well done.

 

FIP predicts ERA but neglects context.

FIP+ provides the relative context but isn’t very predictive. (I always prefer the plus (minus seems counterintuitive to me)

how do you pull together both the context and predictive without writing massive paragraphs? I’m a lazy typist. 
 

 

 

[Minny505]

1 hour ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

“The only nits I pick are that I like all numbers on a "relative to all other players" stat. A 3.75 FIP in 2023 meant a roughly average pitcher. In 2003, it meant a borderline all-star. 

Using FIP+ (or minus if you prefer) helps identify performance relative to the league at the time. 

OOA is a relative stat already, it just was not mentioned as such in your post. I think that is worth pointing out.”

 

@Minny505

i love this post and wanted to unpack this a bit.

you caught me in between understanding what happened historically and predicting future outcomes. Well done.

 

FIP predicts ERA but neglects context.

FIP+ provides the relative context but isn’t very predictive. (I always prefer the plus (minus seems counterintuitive to me)

how do you pull together both the context and predictive without writing massive paragraphs? I’m a lazy typist. 

😂 And this is the conundrum of TV and radio broadcast teams across North America.

That said, I think FIP+ is both contextual and predictive in that it predicts the future performance of a pitcher relative to the league. A FIP+ of 110 predicts that a pitcher will be roughly 10% better than the average pitcher.

Tangent time: One stat I always wish was available readily available is something spFIP+, which was relative to only SPs, and it's counterpart, rpFIP+. For that mater 2BwRC+ for relativity on offense to to positional average. A 90 wRC+ from a catcher is roughly equivalent to a 105 wRC+ for a RF. Either a separate stat or something like the positional average in parenthesis next to the + stat. 

Maybe it's time to dust off the SQL skills...but I wouldn't even know where to get the data sets to begin. 

And FWIW, I agree on + being superior to - for FIP. It's easier to quickly comprehend for whatever reason.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

41 minutes ago, Minny505 said:

😂 And this is the conundrum of TV and radio broadcast teams across North America.

That said, I think FIP+ is both contextual and predictive in that it predicts the future performance of a pitcher relative to the league. A FIP+ of 110 predicts that a pitcher will be roughly 10% better than the average pitcher.

Tangent time: One stat I always wish was available readily available is something spFIP+, which was relative to only SPs, and it's counterpart, rpFIP+. For that mater 2BwRC+ for relativity on offense to to positional average. A 90 wRC+ from a catcher is roughly equivalent to a 105 wRC+ for a RF. Either a separate stat or something like the positional average in parenthesis next to the + stat. 

Maybe it's time to dust off the SQL skills...but I wouldn't even know where to get the data sets to begin. 

And FWIW, I agree on + being superior to - for FIP. It's easier to quickly comprehend for whatever reason.

I believe subscription to Stathead from b-ref can get you access to the underlying data. 

[Baseball44]

We just released a new free stats site with a beautiful design, and importantly, without ads.  We will be releasing a ton of features for baseball fans, Twins fans specifically, baseball researchers, and fantasy players in the coming weeks and months.

Let me know if you would like an invite to our Discord server.

Go Twins!

Baseball44.com

Edited August 6, 2024 by Baseball44
forgot the url

[August J Gloop]

14 hours ago, Baseball44 said:

We just released a new free stats site with a beautiful design, and importantly, without ads.  We will be releasing a ton of features for baseball fans, Twins fans specifically, baseball researchers, and fantasy players in the coming weeks and months.

Let me know if you would like an invite to our Discord server.

Go Twins!

Baseball44.com

Most folks accept that ads are a reality on websites. The thing they're not wild about are sites that lie. You pop in a note saying 'no ads' and then on your splash page you're selling ad space. I know you think you've cracked the code by calling it 'page adoption', but the adoption can be used to promote a business? That is an ad. Your site lay out is pretty sweet, but if you want to stay afloat, might as well make peace with the ads.  

[Baseball44]

23 hours ago, August J Gloop said:

Most folks accept that ads are a reality on websites. The thing they're not wild about are sites that lie. You pop in a note saying 'no ads' and then on your splash page you're selling ad space. I know you think you've cracked the code by calling it 'page adoption', but the adoption can be used to promote a business? That is an ad. Your site lay out is pretty sweet, but if you want to stay afloat, might as well make peace with the ads.  

Hmm, how to respond?  First, thank you for the compliment about the lay out.  It is appreciated!  Second, not to quibble, but I am not lying.  I am an honest person.  So maybe the attack was a bit harsh?  That said, it is a fair critique based on what I posted.  I think the issue is that I was not clear on what I was referring to when I said "without ads".  What I meant is that there are no intrusive ads (ads in the page gutters, in the header, sticky ads, etc), no ads served from ad networks that slow the site down, no ads that clutter the user interface.  You are correct that there are page sponsorships.  These are text-only messages, served up with the page, take up very little bandwidth, and are hidden away for those who are not interested.  Additionally, the idea behind the Adopt a Page program is that they are not geared toward companies that want to advertise, but rather, are geared toward individuals who may want to sponsor their favorite player's page, a ballgame they attended with a loved one, an 'on this day' page that honors someone's birthday, etc.  That said, companies may sponsor a page, but they must do so using the same clean, uncluttered, hidden away, Adopt a Page interface.

I hope that clarifies my original post.  I know this site uses ad networks, so perhaps this was the wrong place to espouse the benefits of eschewing such a paradigm, but if you are interested in why we are doing so, you can read more about it here:

https://baseball44.com/our-mission

[Brock Beauchamp]

4 hours ago, Baseball44 said:

Hmm, how to respond?  First, thank you for the compliment about the lay out.  It is appreciated!  Second, not to quibble, but I am not lying.  I am an honest person.  So maybe the attack was a bit harsh?  That said, it is a fair critique based on what I posted.  I think the issue is that I was not clear on what I was referring to when I said "without ads".  What I meant is that there are no intrusive ads (ads in the page gutters, in the header, sticky ads, etc), no ads served from ad networks that slow the site down, no ads that clutter the user interface.  You are correct that there are page sponsorships.  These are text-only messages, served up with the page, take up very little bandwidth, and are hidden away for those who are not interested.  Additionally, the idea behind the Adopt a Page program is that they are not geared toward companies that want to advertise, but rather, are geared toward individuals who may want to sponsor their favorite player's page, a ballgame they attended with a loved one, an 'on this day' page that honors someone's birthday, etc.  That said, companies may sponsor a page, but they must do so using the same clean, uncluttered, hidden away, Adopt a Page interface.

I hope that clarifies my original post.  I know this site uses ad networks, so perhaps this was the wrong place to espouse the benefits of eschewing such a paradigm, but if you are interested in why we are doing so, you can read more about it here:

https://baseball44.com/our-mission

You're fine, I personally approved your first post and looked at the site. Thank you for sharing it here.

[Baseball44]

Thank you Brock, I appreciate it!