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| Baseball Savant | |
|---|---|
| Name | Baseball Savant |
| Type | Sports analytics platform |
| Owner | Major League Baseball |
| Launched | 2015 |
| Url | [official site] |
Baseball Savant
Baseball Savant is an online platform operated by Major League Baseball that provides advanced baseball statistics, visualizations, and play-by-play data derived from high-resolution tracking systems and traditional event feeds. It aggregates and presents metrics used across Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball, and international competitions, supporting stakeholders such as New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants, Houston Astros, Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays, Philadelphia Phillies, Cleveland Guardians, Seattle Mariners, Oakland Athletics, Toronto Blue Jays, Pittsburgh Pirates, Milwaukee Brewers, Kansas City Royals, Detroit Tigers, Texas Rangers, Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Washington Nationals, Miami Marlins, San Diego Padres, Cincinnati Reds, Minnesota Twins, Los Angeles Angels, Baltimore Orioles, Chicago White Sox, New York Mets, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants and researchers from institutions such as Brooklyn Cyclones, Princeton University, Columbia University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Baseball Savant compiles pitch- and batted-ball-level data, integrating inputs from systems used in venues like Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Dodger Stadium, Yankee Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, Petco Park, Coors Field, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, T-Mobile Park, Kauffman Stadium, Progressive Field, Target Field, PNC Park, Globe Life Field and international events such as the World Baseball Classic. The platform surfaced metrics including exit velocity, launch angle, spin rate, pitch movement, and expected statistics that are widely cited by analysts covering events like the World Series, All-Star Game, American League Championship Series, and National League Championship Series.
The site's evolution followed the deployment of optical and radar systems by companies such as Statcast, Hawk-Eye Innovations, and TrackMan across MLB ballparks during the 2010s, paralleling analytic advances popularized by teams like the Oakland Athletics and public figures such as Bill James, Theo Epstein, Billy Beane, Statcast creators, Tom Tango, Voros McCracken, Ben Lindbergh, and Mitchell Lichtman. Initially launched as a centralized visualization and query tool, it expanded with APIs and downloads to serve media outlets including ESPN, The Athletic, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, CBS Sports, and research groups at University of Massachusetts Amherst and University of Michigan.
Baseball Savant ingests tracking data from ballpark-installed systems and combines that with event logs from official scorers maintained by Major League Baseball Advanced Media and feed partners. Processing pipelines reconcile inputs to derive measures like expected batting average and expected slugging used by commentators during Fox Sports broadcasts and in analyses by writers at The Ringer and Baseball Prospectus. Methodological foundations build on probabilistic models and physics-informed computations used in studies at Carnegie Mellon University, University of California, Berkeley, and Penn State University.
The site offers searchable leaderboards, pitch and batted-ball galleries, player pages, and an API that powers dashboards used by teams such as the Tampa Bay Rays and outlets like Baseball America. Tools include visualization of pitch tunnels referenced by scouts for prospects in leagues like Triple-A, Double-A, Arizona Fall League, and college events such as the College World Series. It also provides spray charts, zone profiles, and metric filters employed by analysts at FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, Rotowire, and independent analysts like Jeff Sullivan, Eno Sarris, Kiley McDaniel, and Darren Brown.
Baseball Savant accelerated adoption of spin rate and exit velocity in player evaluation processes used by front offices including the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers and informed roster decisions discussed on programs hosted by personalities such as Joe Buck and Bob Costas. Its public availability democratized access to data previously reserved for franchises, influencing prospect grading at events like the MLB Draft and contract negotiations involving agents and teams such as Scott Boras. Academics have cited Sabermetric measures from the platform in papers presented at conferences like the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
Critics note that metrics derived from tracking are sensitive to calibration differences among venues like Coors Field and to sample-size issues for players with limited plate appearances, concerns raised by analysts at FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus. Some front offices caution against overreliance on isolated metrics such as spin rate without biomechanical context studied at labs like Auburn University and University of Tennessee. Legal and privacy debates have involved stakeholders including Major League Baseball Players Association regarding commercial use of player performance data.
Prominent milestones include release of the public API, incorporation of Statcast-era metrics into award deliberations for honors like the Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player Award, and high-profile media visualizations during World Series coverage. Analysts used Baseball Savant data to highlight changes in pitch design for pitchers like Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Clayton Kershaw, Yu Darvish, Luis Severino, Blake Snell, Stephen Strasburg, Chris Sale, Zack Greinke, Corey Kluber, Noah Syndergaard, Marcus Stroman, Cole Hamels, Madison Bumgarner, Felix Hernandez, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martínez, Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Greg Maddux, Tom Seaver, Ryne Sandberg, Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper, Shohei Ohtani, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Anthony Rizzo, Freddie Freeman, Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols, Ken Griffey Jr., Ichiro Suzuki, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Luis Aparicio, Ozzie Smith, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Relief Pitcher Award and organizational analytics teams across MLB.
Category:Major League Baseball statistics