Baseball Reference API
The definitive source for MLB historical statistics
Overview
Baseball Reference is the premier source for historical baseball statistics, providing comprehensive data on every Major League Baseball player, team, and game since 1871. Part of the Sports Reference family, it offers career stats, season splits, game logs, advanced metrics (WAR, OPS+, ERA+), batting and pitching splits, fielding stats, and historical box scores. The data is accessible through the `baseball-reference` Python package and web scraping, making it invaluable for sabermetrics research and baseball analytics.
Pros
- Most comprehensive MLB historical data
- Data going back to 1871
- Advanced metrics (WAR, OPS+, ERA+)
- Minor league and international data
- Split statistics
- Play Index for custom queries
Cons
- No official public REST API
- Data access primarily via scraping
- No commercial use without license
- No real-time or live data
- Scraping may violate ToS
- No WebSocket streaming
Best For
Not Ideal For
Specifications
SDKs
Leagues
Our Verdict
Baseball Reference API is a top-tier sports API that excels in sabermetrics research and baseball history projects. With an overall score of 8.8/10, it stands out for its most comprehensive mlb historical data and data going back to 1871.
Coverage
Sports Supported
Leagues & Competitions
8 leagues and competitions covered
Developer Experience
API Paradigms
SDKs
Documentation
Commercial Terms
Pricing Plans
Free Web Access
N/A
- All stat tables
- Player pages
- Team pages
- Season and career stats
Stathead Baseball
Unlimited queries
- Play Index
- Game finders
- Player finders
- Split finders
- Custom queries
Stathead Annual
Unlimited queries
- All Stathead features
- Priority support
- Savings over monthly
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