Are some people so turned off by the content of the articles, that they can’t get past that, and go straight to their stats pages?

Yes. Anything with Dave Cameron's name on it is a total boner-killer for me.

I find baseball-reference easier to navigate. On the other hand fangraphs seems to provide easier access to more obscure stuff.

I use bb-ref 95% of the time, and fangraphs when I want to know how fast someone's fastball is or something like that.

Yes. Anything with Dave Cameron's name on it is a total boner-killer for me.

Well, I guess thats better than anything with his name on it giving you a boner.

Well, I guess thats better than anything with his name on it giving you a boner.

That's more of a David Cameron thing.

I find baseball-reference easier to navigate. On the other hand fangraphs seems to provide easier access to more obscure stuff.

I use bb-ref 95% of the time, and fangraphs when I want to know how fast someone's fastball is or something like that.

This is pretty much where I come down. I find the FG articles are usually interesting enough that they often send me hunting for information. I don't get too bothered if I disagree with them. The comments sections are usually painful though.

Well, I guess thats better than anything with his name on it giving you a boner.

I actually think this is way out of line and appears (on the assumption that most readers here are male) to be homophobic.

the dave cameron podcast is pretty interesting save for when castulli insists on trying to be funny.

what a goofball

1. The content of a bunch of Fangraphs articles is impossibly specific. They seem to be, take a player, take some of his data, and write about it. It's not research, it's not (really) statistics, it's just an info dump. Right now, for example, there are articles on the year of Ryan Ludwick and the weekend of Jake McGee (full of annoying GIFs).

2. I've never read the Daily Notes before, but I just clicked on the newest one. I made it about halfway down the page before there were three paragraphs about why the writer is calling the Yankees "Yankers".

3. Their comment section is awful. Full of people who will attack anyone who disagrees with the author. And they downvote people's comments; which is about the worst thing a forum can have.

4. I still use their stats whenever BBRef doesn't have what I'm looking for.

I actually think this is way out of line and appears (on the assumption that most readers here are male) to be homophobic.

Oh yeah, that is way over the BTF line. He should have his kids taken away and given to a gay couple to raise.

It seems I helped touch off quite a debate... there are a LOT of comments on Tango's post. I wrote a lengthy response there, but I'll just post a short version here. I said that the statistics pages are really good, significantly better IMO than B-R as long as you don't despise pitcher fWAR and don't spend most of your database-querying time doing historical comparisons. The quality of the writing has also taken a significant step forward in the past year or so. While somewhere around 30-60% of the content is filler, that represents an improvement over the previous state of affairs, and the non-filler content (e.g. Sullivan, Petti, Laurila, Remington, Thurm, and the occasional Swartz and Wolfersberger, plus Cistulli if you like his style) is now very, very good. That said, some weaknesses remain readily apparent: there's still a desperate shortage of genuine analytical research, for example, and you should almost never read the comments on any article.

This community seems to have experienced some groupthink with respect to the quality of the site. If you're used to B-R, you probably will find aspects of the FanGraphs appearance and interface quite disagreeable, but there are numerous uses for which FG's statistics pages are inarguably superior. And if you come in with the preconception that the writing is worthless, it's very easy to find evidence that supports your viewpoint. That's exacerbated by the fact that Dave Cameron is both the most visible and the most polarizing staff member, which I think causes some people to unfairly project his attitude onto the other FG writers. But if you can train yourself to look at their content with fresh eyes, there's a good chance you'll find a portion of it that you'll like.

Fangraphs may have Dave Cameron, but it also now has Jeff Sullivan writing regularly. There are very, very, very few baseball writers that I enjoy reading more -- just for the pleasure of their funny, unique prose style -- than Sullivan.

It's a major get for Fangraphs, as I had pretty much written off the rest of the writing staff there. But I will make it a point to read his articles.

I agree that the comment section is truly terrible, though. Bunch of zombies congratulating one another on being 'enlightened' about sabermetrics and engaging in weird Kos-style groupthink behavior.

I use Fangraphs more than BR, but I think as Austin referred to up there, BR seems to be used more by people looking to make historical comparisons. I use Fangraphs more because I am looking at stats that can tell me what a player is more likely to do in the future. I don't read many of the articles though because I have found the editing of them to be quite poor. Shoddy grammar, weak spelling, poor sentence structure, and repetitive ideas stated over and over in different ways. Some of the articles themselves are pretty crappy, but an equal number are quite good. Most fall somewhere in the middle with them highlighting some random stat about some player "Player X has the highest swinging strike percentage outside the strike zone against left-handed pitching!"

Either way, I love Fangraphs and it is my go-to site for all my stat needs. Rarely do I go anywhere else, unless I am on ESPN.com checking box scores and just want to click on a player's name for quick and dirty stats.

B-ref v. FG: They're both great. All things equal, I tend toward b-ref, because of habit and the far cleaner presentation - but it really depends on what I'm trying to look for. Historical questions, almost always use b-ref. For projection questions, I tend to search FG (and not just because they've got projections on site).

The writing:
Cameron: I'm turned off by his self-assurance, but that's a stylistic preference on my part, not a dig against him. (I like wordy, mealy mouth types - understandably not everyone's druthers.)
Sullivan's great, one of the treasures of the internet. Cistulli is funny, when I'm not too lost in what he's doing. They've got some other solid dudes too (many already mentioned).
That said, there's enough filler / info dumps that I go there less often than I otherwise might. Not really a feature or a flaw, it just is.

Oh yeah, that is way over the BTF line. He should have his kids taken away and given to a gay couple to raise.

If they'll pay for college for my last one, I'm all in.

Oh yeah, that is way over the BTF line. He should have his kids taken away and given to a gay couple to raise.

People who overreact should be stabbed in the neck.

With the exception of three writers, I find the writing on Fangraphs to be weak pretty much across-the-board: poor choice of topic, poor analysis, poor writing, and poor editing.

Cistulli definitely offers something different, but I completely don’t get it. Whatever it is, it just does not appeal to my sense of humor at all.

Cameron is far-and-away the best writer on the site, but his ego often leads him astray.

I have enjoyed Sullivan’s writing elsewhere, but the few articles I’ve read on Fangraphs so far haven’t been his best stuff.

So, I use Fangraphs mostly for their stats. They offer quite a bit that BB-Ref doesn’t offer, and it’s presented very well. For stats, I’m probably about 60/40 BB-Ref/Fangraphs, and my choice depends on what I want to look up.

I find baseball-reference easier to navigate. On the other hand fangraphs seems to provide easier access to more obscure stuff.

I use bb-ref 95% of the time, and fangraphs when I want to know how fast someone's fastball is or something like that.

This. I prefer Fangraph's WAR too.

The only articles I read at Fangraphs are ones by a few friends of mine that write there.

But I'm certainly glad both exist.

the dave cameron podcast is pretty interesting save for when castulli insists on trying to be funny.

Harvey, you must just not Carson's Wisconsin sense of humor.

Dayn Perry is very good. But all the rest of those guys are all wankers. (Oops, meant "yankers." Oh dear, there's no getting out of this one alive.)

I actually subscribe to the Fangraphs feed on my RSS reader, so I've read or at least seen every single article of theirs for the last five months ago.

Cistulli: Is worthless. It's this same overly cute, pretending to be stupid style. He also introduces a ton of shitty stats. Like, in his notes column for today, he introduces some stat called SCOUT + or SCOUT -. I frequently simply skip his articles when I see his byline, as I've yet to read anything worthwhile from him.

Cameron: Can occasionally be interesting, but is generally such a contrarian he can be hard to read. If it's about the Mariners, I just skip.

The Q&A's are interesting, and they get good responses from MLBers. Not sure if those are their own interviews, or if they're compilations. If they're not their own interviews, then I feel they're slightly unethical, as they never indicate that it's a compilation.

Everyone else: sort of bland. I generally read around half the article until I see where it's going and then I just skip. Lower than ESPN levels of insight in general. Dayn Perry was good for the brief period he was writing for them. I read all of Dayn's stuff. Don't notice a difference between the other guys.

Stats pages: I don't like their L&F, but the info is legitimately great, especially for pitchers. Frequently, I've been looking up a guy on both places and I wonder to myself why I use BBREF, because Fangraphs has better info. It comes back to design and accessibility. BBREF has a search plugin for Chrome, which is really nice.

Dayn's still there - isn't he? I feel like I read one of his notgraphs bits not long ago. (I like your stuff, Dayn - if you're lurking. Or if you're not.)

The stats on Fangraphs' are fine. The look and feel and functionality of the stat pages are terrible. Just awful, especially in comparison to BB-Ref. And the Fangraphs pages are still slow as #### to load, even though they are very basic pages with little functionality. I avoid them solely because of that.

The writing on Fangraphs...well, the less said the better. There is some good stuff there, but a whole lot of garbage as well.

Do you like Fangraphs?

"Check yes or no and pass this note back to me."

I noticed over the past year that sites like Fangraphs are getting way too micro for me. Hey, Bryce Harper went 4-4 over the weekend, here is every other teenager who went 4-4. Hey, pitcher X just struck out ten guys in a row, here is every other pitcher who did that. Basically if something barely-notable happens someone will write about it. We have gone from a 5 second mention on SportCenter to a full written review.

For me it's too much. I have become very selective in which of their articles that come through my feed that I read.

I seldom use Fangraphs stats. A couple of years ago I loved the articles. The subjects have become more obscure and, to me, less informative. Their annual player review, forget the title, also seems to be more filler. I will give it one more chance, I think. At least its cheap.

One of FG's problems is that its writers (with the exception of Dayn Perry) aren't particularly good at writing. It's not necessarily that these people write poorly; it's that their writing is not compelling. Their voices (with the exception of Cistulli, who doesn't really offer anything of substance) are pretty indistinguishable. There's no writer there that I really want to read -- not even Dave Cameron. This is a bad contrast with BPro, whose quality has gotten both better and more interesting. When you're reading something by Sam Miller or Jason Parks, for instance, you know you're reading something by Sam Miller or Jason Parks.

(I realize that FG and BPro aren't precisely comparable, given BPro is a subscription site -- I don't subscribe, but I've reconsidered the idea lately.)

I'd just like to point out that if Tango were in this thread, he'd be screaming "summary opinion with no evidence" in response to a lot of these comments.

I'd just like to point out that if Tango were in this thread, he'd be screaming "summary opinion with no evidence" in response to a lot of these comments.

If I wanted to give a good, close textual criticism it would:
a. take more of my time than I care to spend
b. not be very interesting to most of the posters on this board
c. be comprised of cherry-picked examples to make Fangraphs look bad because that's my original opinion

When talking about something subjective, specific and pointed feedback is not really necessary unless you're working for Fangraphs.

I'd just like to point out that if Tango were in this thread, he'd be screaming "summary opinion with no evidence" in response to a lot of these comments.

He's coming down quite hard on the issue of absent proofreading/copyediting. I don't get why anyone would defend sloppiness that much.

Yes. Anything with Dave Cameron's name on it is a total boner-killer for me.

Well, I guess thats better than anything with his name on it giving you a boner.

I actually think this is way out of line and appears (on the assumption that most readers here are male) to be homophobic.

Actually, it's an attack on anyone who is aroused by the written word.

It's lexophiliaphobic!

I very much like the live-updated win expectancy graph scoreboard on Fangraphs. That's the only thing that I use it for, though.

Their voices ... are pretty indistinguishable.

The truth is that since Baseball Prospectus went behind the pay wall, I have not regularly read any stathead baseball blogs, and I was slowing down even then. 80% of what I come across is, well, something that I (or most anyone from this site) could have produced given the time and inclination. Part of it is the same issue that we have with the baseball columnists that we hate: it just isn't easy to produce vital content so frequently.

Cistulli: Is worthless. It's this same overly cute, pretending to be stupid style. He also introduces a ton of shitty stats. Like, in his notes column for today, he introduces some stat called SCOUT + or SCOUT -. I frequently simply skip his articles when I see his byline, as I've yet to read anything worthwhile from him.

Cistulli is basically the McSweeney's brand of humor brought to the stathead world, right?

He's coming down quite hard on the issue of absent proofreading/copyediting. I don't get why anyone would defend sloppiness that much.

He doesn't care about typos or grammatical errors, so damn it no one else should either.

I use bb-ref 90% of the time, but find Fangraphs very useful for fantasy purposes. Fangraphs shows, minor- and major-league stats, ZIPS, and some luck stats (like FIP, xFIP, etc.) all on the same page.

I haven't read it much lately, but Alex Remington's stuff was good when I read it. I'm more of a Notgraphs guy, or Dayn Perry guy; esp when he'd insert Dick Allen's name into various works of literature. Back in 2009 and 2010 when I was blogging regularly, I thought that my stuff might fit in a Notgraphs, but it didn't happen. C'est la vie. I've been more interested in US history and theology lately thanks to the Red Sox return to the Butch Hobson Era of Excellence.

On an unrelated note, in the Book thread fols say that Fangraphs takes longer for them to load than bbref. I have the opposite problem. I use an old second iBook as my main computer and it takes forever for bbref's pages to load unless I go to their mobile site.

Is Szym going to be writing there now that he's not with BTF? ZIPS are there and he does chats but he doesn't write for them.

Szym is at ESPN. Dunno if they let their guys write elsewhere.

Is Szym going to be writing there now that he's not with BTF?

Wait. What?

I don't really care one way or the other about Fangraphs. Some of the stat pages are very nice, but the BBref pages are so much cleaner that it's my go-to site.

What does kind of piss me off (and for some reason I associate it with Fangraphs) is the tendency to replace all sabermetric insight or thinking with a simpleminded reference to WAR. More WAR good. Less WAR bad. Defensive WAR! WAR to three decimal places! All hail Fangraphs, god of WAR!

It's only a matter of time before WAR breaks into drivetime sports talk shows. It's the RBI of the new generation.

Wait. What?

You must have missed the infamous Dan S meltdown and denunciation of BBTF.

Tango seems angry that people are complaining about a free site. And that doesn't seem fair, since he asked people for their opinions. I'm not crazy about Fangraphs, but I don't go around complaining about it; I just don't go there. But if someone comes up to me and solicits my thoughts, I'm going to provide them, you know?

The look and feel and functionality of the stat pages are terrible. Just awful, especially in comparison to BB-Ref. And the Fangraphs pages are still slow as #### to load, even though they are very basic pages with little functionality. I avoid them solely because of that.

This is exactly opposite from my experience.

On an unrelated note, in the Book thread fols say that Fangraphs takes longer for them to load than bbref. I have the opposite problem. I use an old second iBook as my main computer and it takes forever for bbref's pages to load unless I go to their mobile site.

This is more like it. Occasionally, I'll get a script for an ad that will take forever to load. This happens both at work and at home. Honestly, I'm very close to the point of using fangraphs as the go-to site for stats because of it, even though I think bbref is easier to read and usually has more of the type of stats I'm looking for.

Szym is at ESPN. Dunno if they let their guys write elsewhere.

Technically speaking, I'm not exclusive, but ESPN gets first dibs on my time and energy. So in the end, it comes out as being mostly exclusive, I enjoy working for ESPN and they let me get my fingers in all sorts of pies.

(puts DKDC on his list, underlines the name)
***
Which site is faster depends on the machine I'm on / browser I use. Just tried in IE through my employer - b-ref won, 8 sec to 13.

Yes. Anything with Dave Cameron's name on it is a total boner-killer for me.

Agreed. And I like FanGraphs. It's gotten so I just skip anything with Cameron's byline. I find the dogmatic, holier-than-thou, narcissistic air of superiority tiresome and aggravating.

I'd just like to point out that if Tango were in this thread, he'd be screaming "summary opinion with no evidence" in response to a lot of these comments.

Good lord. That only reinforces my opinion that Tango is more insufferable than MGL ever was.

It's gotten so I just skip anything with Cameron's byline. I find the dogmatic, holier-than-thou, narcissistic air of superiority tiresome and aggravating.

Ahh, how far saber has come. It seems like only yesterday that these were the absolutely essential traits for writing on any saber-related site.

seems like a lively discussion to me

i like both sites.

my only quibble with tango is the statement that because the site is free the writer is free of any obligation to use good grammar. that's silly. if you are communicating you should work to communicate effectively. poor grammar can and often does confuse the message. and that leads to misunderstandings. which could have been avoided via good grammar

this post is free so i am allowed to write, 'ryan braun good player he is'?

no.

Good lord. That only reinforces my opinion that Tango is more insufferable than MGL ever was

Big fan of Tango, but that second link/comment was on par with some of the stupider things ever said on the internet(ok, not nearly as stupid as someone claiming leaving Chris Carpenter to pitch the ninth is an example of the worse managing in history, but nearly that bad).

Why we as readers would “demand” something since we don’t pay anything is silly.

Beyond stupid comment. Readers not only should demand something, it's expected that they demand something. It's supply and demand in every sense of the expression.

Which is funny because later in the same thread Tango says

Criticizing BR.com for this can lead to a simple change on the site owner. It doesn’t require extra effort on some little-to-no-paid writer.

I don't know if he realizes the hypocrisy of those two statements, or if he thinks that criticizing with the hope of getting something added, is more than semantically different than "demanding" for something.

this post is free so i am allowed to write, 'ryan braun good player he is'?

no.

Yes, that seems to be one of his points...because he's edited in the past and it's a headache, so expecting other sites to have some semblance of competent editing is asking to much from a free site. Just ask them to run it through word spell check at least before submitting the article.

My problem with the articles at fangraphs is its top-to-bottom mediocre. I don't think it's editing or sloppiness, but just, these are guys who are not very good writers and don't have much to say. Theyre no different from you or I in that regard, but we're not holding ourselves out as baseball writers.

I find the stats pages slower and less well-designed than bbref; that gap has closed over recent years as bbref has begun to, how to say, fully monetize the eyeballs. There is some info fangraphs has that is nowhere else - I use it for that.