Your 2009 baseball guide: 30 sites
Want to know anything and everything about baseball? We have 30 sites for you to check out.
Baseball season is finally here, so it's time we take a look at some of the best baseball resources across the Web. Whether it's fantasy sports, news, or statistics, you'll find all the best right here.
Fantasy baseball
BenchCoach: After you sign up for BenchCoach, it imports your fantasy baseball team and analyzes your roster. Once complete, it offers advice on how to improve the team. It even projects your success.
CBS Sports: CBS Sports' free Fantasy Baseball league provides real-time scoring and live chat. Its player news and stats features help you pick the right players for your team. It's highly-recommended if you want a full-featured, yet intuitive fantasy baseball league. Disclosure: CBS Sports and CNET are both owned by parent company CBS.
DraftHelp: DraftHelp gives you team depth charts to help you pick the right players in your fantasy draft. But its most useful feature is its "projected stats" tool, which tells you how well a player should perform for the year.
ESPN Fantasy Baseball: ESPN Fantasy Baseball Leagues are free. Users can create a public or private league. The tool's player news and stats come straight from ESPN.com. But beware: ESPN charges a fee for access to its in-depth news articles.
FantasyBaseballChamp: FantasyBaseballChamp provides users with real-time player rankings. Those rankings are based on how they're performing so far this year and how they should perform going forward. The site also has advice columns offering tips on who to add to your fantasy team. That said, don't consider it an ideal resource. It's a backup.
MLB.com: Major League Baseball's free fantasy baseball service is one of the simplest in this roundup. It boasts team management, stat tracking, and a league message board so team owners can communicate. That's about it.
ProFantasyBaseball: ProFantasyBaseball helps you pick the right players for your fantasy baseball team. Its "sleepers" section gives you information on players who might be off your radar but worth adding to your team. All the information is free.
RotoAuthority: RotoAuthority tells you who the top players are this year, based on current and projected performance. The site's blog is updated daily, providing guidance on who you should add to or drop from your team.
TG Fantasy Baseball: TG Fantasy Baseball offers basic player reports and depth charts. The site's Dollar Values tool tells you how many players at each position you should have on your roster. Its Projections tool gives you information on how well your players should perform during the season.
Yahoo Sports: Yahoo's fantasy baseball leagues are free, player information is always up-to-date, and the service's stat tracking is outstanding. But if you want a draft kit or scouting reports, you'll need to pay $9.99 and $14.99, respectively. Even though you'll have to pay for that information, Yahoo's fantasy baseball league is great. It's worth trying out.
News
Baseball America: Since there's more to Major League Baseball than the "bigs", Baseball America provides news on the minor leagues. The site offers stats, news, and star player information. It also tells you when players are being called up to the Major Leagues. Highly recommended as a source for baseball news.
BaseballNewsCentral: BaseballNewsCentral separates news by team. Each time the Associated Press releases a story about something related to baseball, BaseballNewsCentral immediately catalogs it under the appropriate team.
CBSSports: CBS Sports does more than just provide you with fantasy baseball services. If you want MLB news, standings, stats, or insight into the teams and players, you can find it all on the site.
ESPN: ESPN is another great resource for finding important topics on Major League Baseball. Since it's such a powerful brand in sports, it often breaks stories before other publications, making it a fine source for baseball news.
Fox Sports: Fox Sports' MLB page is designed well and provides all the headlines from the world of baseball. It has stats, standings, and more.
RotoTimes: RotoTimes has basic stats and statistical news on major league ballplayers. RotoTimes stories report on the news, but at the end of each article, they provide a "fantasy league" section, letting you know how the particular story impacts your fantasy players.
SandlotShrink: SandlotShrink requires you to pay $89 for a one-year subscription to its articles, but it's worth it. The site's content comes from some of the top sports journalists in the U.S. It boasts in-depth player projections, sports columns, and much more. It might be costly, but it's worth every penny.
Sports Illustrated: Sports Illustrated is synonymous with sports news. And its coverage of baseball, the players, and the teams is worth checking out each day. It might not provide the kind of depth you get from ESPN, but it's still a fine source for baseball information.
SportingNews: SportingNews categorizes its baseball news by team, player, or injuries. It also provides updates on a major league team's status. All of the stories are well-researched.
Yahoo Sports: Yahoo's MLB page features scores, news, depth charts, injury reports, standings, and much more. Its news is always up-to-date. Its score tracker is a great tool to use when you can't sit in front of a TV to watch a game.
Scores and stats
At Bat 2009: Developed by Major League Baseball for the iPhone and iPod Touch, At Bat 2009 gives you real-time updates on what's going on in a game. But it provides that information in a video game-like interface, showing a pitcher throwing the ball towards the batter. The $10 app updates with the speed of the pitch, location, type, and play result. I highly recommend it if you don't mind buying the software.
BaseballHQ: BaseballHQ boasts some of the best stats of any site in this roundup. The site includes player projections, depth charts, and draft guides.
Baseball Monster: Baseball Monster allows you to find players by any stat. Want to know who leads the league in on-base percentage? Baseball Monster will tell you. Want to find out which first baseman has the best average with hitters in scoring position over the past three days for an American League East team? Baseball Monster will deliver that answer, too. Its stat-tracking is second to none. Check it out.
Baseball Prospectus: Baseball Prospectus gives you projections for the future of your favorite team or players. It analyzes teams, delivers their projected performance, and gives you insight into how players will perform throughout the year.
Baseball Reference: Baseball Reference, from the Sports Reference family of sites, boasts exhaustive research on every known baseball player from the minor leagues to the majors. It gives you the result of every play in every game dating back decades. But it's that complexity that might scare some off. Use Baseball Reference only if you want to be drowned in numbers.
Box Score: If you don't want to pay for At Bat, Box Score will provide you with real-time updates on your iPhone and iPod Touch about what's going on in every game around the league. It's an ugly app, but it's free.
FanBook: A Facebook app designed by Major League Baseball, FanBook displays real-time scores on all the day's games. It also provides you with player stats, team schedules, and more.
FanGraphs: FanGraphs lets you search for any player or team and project their future success based on prior performances. The site graphs statistical data and helps you see, visually, how your team should perform going forward. Think of it as a financial graph for baseball.
MLB.com: MLB.com has up-to-date scores and stats on every player in the league. It even has the player's career stats and personal information.
USA Today: USA Today has real-time score updates on its Web site. With each pitch, the box score is updated. The information is readily available any time of the day.