Major League Baseball

MLB.com has a trove of information on MLB history, including historical stats, year-by-year reviews, team histories and a “This Week in Baseball History” features. It also includes detailed descriptions of great games with original television or radio broadcasts available to subscribers.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum features pictures and brief bios of every player, manager, executive, and broadcaster enshrined in the Hall. You can also find details of the museum, upcoming events, and a handy guide to help plan your visit to the museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Baseball Almanac features a large collection of player biographies, team histories, statistics and various quotes and anecdotes. It also includes a year-by-year review of every season in National League and American League history, containing a summary of the season, standings, league leaders and a description of American society.

The Baseball Biography Project is a venture of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) that features detailed biographies of many baseball greats. New biographies are added to the site almost daily.

MLB.com contains the official MLB rulebooks in PDF documents. It also contains explanations of baseball basics, such as positions, stats, lingo and keeping score.

Baseball Almanac features the Knickerbocker Rules of 1845 and a timeline of rule changes from 1857 to the present day.

MLB.com has at least one writer for every team in the Major Leagues, and provides thorough coverage of the sport at the professional level.

Sports Illustrated is home to Tom Verducci and Jon Heyman, whose “Daily Scoop” provides notes from around the league. The “Truth & Rumors” section links to rumors from papers and Web sites.

ESPN has nationally known voices such as Jayson Stark, Buster Olney, Rob Neyer, and Hall of Fame honoree Peter Gammons. It also includes video clips from Sportscenter and Baseball Tonight.

Fox Sports features articles from Ken Rosenthal, who you may recognize as the field reporter for the MLB on Fox broadcasts, and Dayn Perry.

Yahoo has a good selection of baseball writers, including Jeff Passan, Tim Brown and Gordon Edes.

Baseball Prospectus is a pioneer in the rise of sabermetrics, responsible for the creation of many respected formulas and theories. Their site includes BP-created statistics, columns, blogs, and podcasts. It features both free and paid content, which costs $39.95 a year to access.

The Hardball Times has a collection of writers posting multiple articles day, featuring commentary and analysis of the current season, MLB history, the minor leagues, and fantasy baseball. Founded by followers of Bill James, the site has sabermetric stats available for free.

Baseball America focuses on the future of MLB, covering prospects playing in the minor leagues. Working closely with MLB scouts, it ranks the top prospects using traditional scouting measures—speed, power, arm strength, etc.—more so than with statistical measures. Lists and overviews are available for free, but in-depth analysis requires a paid subscription.

Baseball Analysts has a collection of six regular writers, plus dozens of guest writers. It features coverage of MLB and the minor leagues with a sabermetric bent, with most articles featuring statistical analysis of some kind.

MLB Trade Rumors offers daily updates regarding trade and free agent rumors. Its archive is organized by date and team, with a search feature that allows you to search for rumors about a specific player.

Baseball Think Factory has a a fairly large selection of blogs, a newsstand with links to articles from around the baseball world, and forums where fans can discuss that day's games.

Major League Baseball Blogs offers an index of blogs covering MLB, organized by the most recently updated or by team. The quality of writing differs from blog to blog, of course, but in general they are well written and updated regularly.

Baseball Reference has used the data compiled by Retrosheet to create a user-friendly database of baseball stats. It has stats for every player and team in MLB history, with game logs and box scores since 1957. It also includes the entire history of draft picks and awards, as well as minor league stats since 1992. An interesting feature is the “Similar Players” chart, which provides comparisons between players at similar places in their careers.

Retrosheet has compiled box scores for every game since 1957, and all game scores since 1871. The site is a favorite of sabermetricians, many of whom have posted articles in the “Research” section.

Baseball Prospectus is the best source for sabermetric statistics, with many nontraditional stats created by Baseball Prospectus members themselves, such as VORP (value over replacement player) and PECOTA (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm). A full list of a statistical category is free to access, but the ability to sort and filter stats requires a subscription. For stat definitions and formulas, visit their glossary on the top right-hand corner.

The Baseball Cube not only has MLB stats, but also minor league statistics dating back to 1996 and Division I college statistics going back to 2002. It also allows you to search high schools for a list of alumni who have played professionally.

MLB.com links to each team’s official box office where you can purchase season tickets, game packages or single game tickets.

StubHub is the “Official Fan to Fan Ticket Marketplace of MLB.com.” It allows you to buy or sell tickets for any MLB team online. Buyers pay a 10 percent fee plus a delivery charge, while sellers pay a 15 percent commission.

Baseball Docs has some of the best draft help on the Web. Players are ranked by position, but the user can narrow that down to list American League players, National League players, or all players. The site has color-coded rankings that break players down into different levels for easier recognition at the draft table.

Fantasy Baseball Cafe attempts to help fantasy managers with the ongoing process of running a team. There are sections that analyze player performances, and will offer analysis on whether a player will have a good or bad second-half performance. The list of player rankings is fairly thorough, though taking a look back can reveal some embarrassing errors in judgment.

ESPN features in-depth statistical analysis and player news. It has a solid group of fantasy columnists, including Eric Karabell and Matthew Berry, also known as the Talented Mr. Roto.

The Sporting News has solid information that is just the tip of the iceberg. The only problem is that the rest of the iceberg will cost you. The site's "Fantasy Source Baseball" features columns by informed writers, and has information that will help your team win. It will cost $19.99 for a year's subscription that also includes one year of the Sporting News magazine.