MLB Bullets wants to save FanGraphs

EDITOR’S NOTE: With Josh’s (hopefully temporary) departure from BCB, please welcome Ashley MacLennan as the new proprietor for MLB Bullets. You’re likely familiar with her history pieces here, and she’s well-versed in baseball in general as well as the Cubs. She’ll also be helping me out with some editing duties.

If you are at all interested in baseball statistics, prospects, or the deeper workings of baseball, you have probably found yourself on FanGraphs at some point in your life. The free website offers baseball fans a massive resource of statistics and incredible writing.

With the changing environment of professional sports, websites that depend on traffic for to keep themselves running are struggling. FanGraphs is one of them. We here at BCB are frequent users of the FanGraphs resource and statistics libraries, and love all the hard work they do.

If you’re at all in a financial position to help the site, follow the link below and get a paid membership.

• FanGraphs is appealing to its users to consider a paid subscription as site traffic is dwindling due to the delayed season start.
• Similarly, noted FanGraphs editorial site The Hardball Times (where I, myself, have had the pleasure of being published) is shuttering its digital doors for the foreseeable future. Editor Racheal McDaniel explains the reasons.
• On a lighter note, The Athletic’s Andy McCullough has broken down the best players by jersey number, though we have a bit of a complaint about #26. (The Athletic subscription required)
• Adam McCalvy explores the birth of the Brewers.
• Ben Clemens of FanGraphs tried to imagine what socially distanced baseball might look like.
• For the Washington Post, Thomas Boswell takes an existential view regarding the real importance of sports in our lives (as we live without them).
• Over at SI.com Emma Baccellieri talks to medical ethicists about whether or not it’s right to get Tommy John surgery in such complicated times.
• Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle speaks to a pro scout about his near-death experience.
• Former Cub Justin Grimm might not make the Brewers this season, but in speaking with Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he has a positive outlook about social distancing.
• Howard Fendrich shares the health worries of professional baseball players with the Associated Press.
• In the Denver Post, Mike Singer takes a look at how the Premier League model could work for NBA (and we think it could work for MLB as well).
• Evan Gattis has officially retired from baseball.
• Andy McCullough asks “What would happen if a player got coronavirus?” for The Athletic. (The Athletic subscription required)
• Toronto has banned public gatherings until June 30 and Steve Adams at MLB Trade Rumors explores what that might mean for baseball.
• Lastly, you definitely need some Trea Turner doing the Juan Soto shuffle:

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.