Baseball Prospectus

Baseball Prospectus is a baseball media company founded in 1996 and devoted to the sabermetrical analysis of baseball. The venture started with an annual baseball guide, which was rather primitive at first, but gained popularity through its website, BaseballProspectus.com, launched in 1997. It also issues its own ranking of top prospects.

The site is considered a leader in the new generation of internet-based sports media and was among the first to have some of its writers receive accreditation from the Baseball Writers Association of America when it started to open its membership to writers for publications other than traditional newspapers.

Nate Silver, who was later to gain national fame as a political analyst, began his career writing for Baseball Prospectus. Other early writers included site founder Gary Huckabay, Joe Sheehan, an expert on the economics of baseball and Christina Kahrl, who made transaction analysis her specialty. Jonah Keri and Will Carroll, whose specialty is player injuries, later joined the site and became widely known in baseball circles as a result.

As a measure of the site's success in popularizing sabermetrics, a number of its writers were hired by major league teams, starting with Voros McCracken, whose pioneering work on Defense-Independent Pitching Statistics (DIPS) first appeared on the site and who was hired by the Boston Red Sox. Others who followed that path include Keith Law (hired by the Toronto Blue Jays), Keith Woolner (Cleveland Indians), Mike Fast (Houston Astros), etc.

Starting in 2003, a portion of the website moved behind a subscription-only paywall.

Related Sites

• Official site