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Retrosheet Review

Worth it

Should I use Retrosheet?

[Home](https://www.retrosheet.org/) - retrosheet.org

· 3 days ago

Sabermetricians, historians, and developers who parse raw data buy this; it is the gold standard archive for historical MLB play-by-play. Casual fans who want a point-and-click stats site skip it and use Baseball-Reference instead.

Confidence

Medium. Based on 30+ public sources. Pricing reflects public knowledge: Retrosheet is a free volunteer nonprofit with no paid tiers.

Ratings

  • Value for money
  • Ease of use
  • Feature depth
  • Support quality
  • Security posture

Pricing

Free

All data

ModelNot disclosed
Monthly feesNot disclosed
HardwareNot disclosed
Free tierYes

Best for

  • Sabermetricians who code
  • Baseball historians and authors
  • Researchers building game databases
  • Game and simulation developers

Not for

  • Casual fans wanting a point-and-click stats site
  • Teams needing real-time current-season feeds
  • Buyers demanding support SLAs or vendor contracts
  • Non-technical users unwilling to parse raw files

Gotchas - check before you buy

medium

Event files need heavy parsing; expect real setup work before analysis.

medium

Current-season data arrives late in periodic releases, not live.

medium

Some users report the site serves insecure HTTP connections.

low

No support SLA; answers depend on volunteer community goodwill.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Full MLB play-by-play archive back to 1915.
  • Data proofs closely against official records.
  • MLB media guides and the official historian cite it.
  • Published academic research uses its data.
  • Active community answers questions on RetroList and forums.

Cons

  • Raw event files demand parsing before any analysis.
  • No real-time feed; data ships in periodic releases.
  • No official API; third parties build scrapers.
  • Old-school website; users report insecure HTTP connections.
  • Volunteers run it; no support guarantees.

Sources & method

- 12 sources - No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

official x4review x5security x2news x1

Key stats

  • Value for money: 5/5

    Rating

  • Free

    Starting price

  • 12

    Sources

  • Analyzed

  • Value for money: 5/5. Free access to the full historical archive.
  • Ease of use: 2/5. Raw event files need parsing and setup.
  • Feature depth: 5/5. Play-by-play, box scores, game logs since 1915.
  • Support quality: 3/5. Volunteer help via RetroList mailing list.
  • Security posture: 2/5. No security page; user reports of insecure HTTP.
  • Free Starting price Nonprofit volunteer project
  • Yes Free tier All data, no paid tiers
  • 1915 Data coverage Play-by-play per third-party source
  • 1989 Founded Volunteer effort per published account

Pricing

All data

Free

  • Play-by-play event files
  • Game logs and box scores

Security

No known vulnerabilities found in the sources reviewed.

What users say

Users praise the depth and reliability of the data but note it works best once loaded into a database.

“I find Retrosheet data most useful in a database.”
Reddit, r/Sabermetrics
“It's great to have site”
Baseball Fever forum

Companies that use it

  • MLB (club media guides)⁸
  • FanGraphs
  • SABR
  • Baseball-Reference

Companies that could

  • Apify customers¹ Uses Apify MLB Play-by-Play scraper instead
  • Kaggle data buyers Uses Kaggle Retrosheet events dataset, 1970 to 2015 instead
  • Current-season stat apps (Guess: MLB Stats API users)⁷ Uses MLB Stats API instead
Full analysis

Based on 30+ public sources. Pricing reflects public knowledge: Retrosheet is a free volunteer nonprofit with no paid tiers.

Free, gold-standard MLB play-by-play archive back to 1915. Buy it if you code; skip it if you want a polished stats site.

Methodology

Based on 30+ public sources. Pricing reflects public knowledge: Retrosheet is a free volunteer nonprofit with no paid tiers.

Read how a report is made.

Sources

  1. MLB Play-by-Play, Every Pitch Since 1915 (Apify scraper)apify.com
    review
  2. Retrosheet: Play-By-Play Data At Your Fingertips (PitcherList)pitcherlist.com
    review
  3. Using Retrosheet on Mac (Reddit)reddit.com
    review
  4. Building a Retrosheet database, part 3 (SABR)sabr.org
    official
  5. Fall 2023 Release (Retrosheet)retrosheet.org
    official
  6. chadwickbureau/retrosplits (GitHub)github.com
    official
  7. Current season play-by-play data thread (Reddit)reddit.com
    review
  8. 2023 MLB media guide citing Retrosheetimg.mlbstatic.com
    official
  9. Attendance study using Retrosheet data (ScienceDirect)sciencedirect.com
    news
  10. Retrosheet security page (404)retrosheet.org
    security
  11. Insecure connection report (Reddit wget)reddit.com
    security
  12. RetroList mailing listgroups.io
    review

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