We talk about a handful of complicated metrics and pull data from a myriad of different places. One of the first things about diving into the world of Sabermetrics is knowing where to look for information for your own analysis. I included a list of my most favorite places for your perusal.
JD Drew's 2009 Homerun Scatter Plot
Fan Graphs
Slowly turning into the defacto SABR campsite, Fan Graphs gives you all the benefits of any normal statistical aggregator site, while also adding the more useful new metrics to every player page. Need to quickly find a player’s xFIP, WAR, and specific batted ball data? Fan Graphs is the quickest way to get it.
HitTracker
Hit Tracker provides you with a great solution to track and analyze homeruns (and they grace their front page with the “Red Seat Homerun” Their classifications of “Just Enough”, “Plently”, and “No Doubt” homeruns help you determine possible power breakouts, and provideds excellent academic opportunities to see the differences between parks as well.
Texas Leaguers
Texas Leaguers has one of the best do-it-yourself PitchF/X databases for you to perform your own custom queries. While I have my own automated system for quick aggregation into charts and graphs, Texas Leaguers is a great solution for a one-off study, or if you just want to get your feet wet in the PitchFX system.
Tom Tango
This is where my education started, and where yours should too. Tom Tango is one of the co-authors of “The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball”, and “The Book” is the best way for new sabermatricians to start out.
Why? Anyone can just throw a random number or metric at you, without much context. The Book makes sure you understand why a metric is used and what its real-world application in the game is. The Book helped me think about baseball differently, and made it very simple to quantify each part of the game into something you can critique and analysis. Personally, the most fascinating part of The Book for me is the concept of a “Base State” and how teams can judge strategies based off the current base state, inning, opposing hitter/pitcher, and score.