MLB Statcast

Get pitch-by-pitch Statcast data, expected stats, pitch arsenals, and advanced metrics for any MLB player, team, or season. Wraps the statcast MCP server (installed via pip install statcast-mcp).

When to use

Use this skill whenever the user asks about:
- An MLB player’s Statcast metrics (exit velocity, barrel rate, launch angle, sprint speed, etc.)
- Expected stats (xBA, xSLG, xwOBA) vs actual performance
- A pitcher’s arsenal (fastball, slider, changeup, etc.) and performance by pitch type
- Matchup analysis (batter vs a specific pitch type)
- League leaderboards (EV, barrel%, sprint speed, OAA)
- MLB standings or team-level season stats
- Defensive metrics (Outs Above Average)

If the question can be answered with traditional box-score stats only, prefer wikipedia or a web search. This skill is for advanced, Statcast-derived numbers.

Quick Usage

# Player ID lookup (always do this first for new players)
mcporter call statcast.player_lookup "player_name=Shohei Ohtani"

# Batter percentile ranks (note: param is `year`, not `season`)
mcporter call statcast.batter_percentile_ranks "player_name=Aaron Judge" "year=2025"

# Pitcher arsenal stats (param is `year`)
mcporter call statcast.statcast_pitcher_arsenal_stats "player_name=Paul Skenes" "year=2025"

# Expected stats for a custom group (param is `year`)
mcporter call statcast.expected_stats_batch "player_names=[\"Judge\",\"Ohtani\",\"Soto\"]" "year=2025"

# Standings (param is `year`)
mcporter call statcast.team_standings "year=2025"

# Pitch-level data for a single game
mcporter call statcast.statcast_search "start_date=2025-06-15" "end_date=2025-06-15" "team=NYY"

Tools (24 total)

Identity

• player_lookup — Look up MLBAM ID + alternate IDs (FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference, Retro) for a player
• team_standings — Current/season MLB division standings

Pitch-level data (date-range)

• statcast_search — All pitches in a date range (optionally filtered by team)
• statcast_batter — All pitches seen by a specific batter
• statcast_pitcher — All pitches thrown by a specific pitcher

Season-level actual stats (FanGraphs)

• season_batting_stats / season_pitching_stats — full-season traditional stats
• batting_stats_date_range / pitching_stats_date_range — same metrics over a custom window
• team_season_batting_stats / team_season_pitching_stats — full-roster team totals

Expected stats (Statcast)

• statcast_batter_expected_stats / statcast_pitcher_expected_stats — xBA, xSLG, xwOBA for a player
• expected_stats_batch — same, but for many players in one call (cheaper)

Pitch arsenals

• statcast_batter_pitch_arsenal — hitter’s outcomes split by incoming pitch type
• statcast_pitcher_pitch_arsenal — all pitchers’ pitch mix + outcomes
• statcast_pitcher_arsenal_stats — performance (BA/SLG/wOBA/Whiff%/K%/Hard-Hit%) by pitch type for one pitcher

Batted-ball quality

• statcast_batter_exitvelo_barrels — hitter EV + barrel% leaderboard
• statcast_pitcher_exitvelo_barrels — pitcher EV-allowed + barrel%-allowed

League leaderboards & percentiles

• batter_percentile_ranks — hitter percentile vs the league (EV, barrel%, xwOBA, sprint speed, etc.) — param: year
• pitcher_percentile_ranks — pitcher percentile vs the league (spin, whiff%, xERA, K%, etc.) — param: year
• sprint_speed_leaderboard — top sprinters (param: year)
• outs_above_average — OAA leaderboard by position (param: year, position)
• outfield_directional_oaa — outfield OAA split by direction

Workflow: how agents should use this

1. Resolve IDs first. For any new player, call player_lookup to get the MLBAM ID. Some downstream tools are stricter about exact names; a player_lookup confirms spelling and years active.
2. Prefer batch tools. expected_stats_batch over multiple statcast_batter_expected_stats calls.
3. Keep date ranges short for statcast_search / statcast_batter / statcast_pitcher. The upstream API is slow on long windows. 1–5 days is ideal; a full month can take 30+ seconds.
4. Use last names with care. Substring matching is loose — player_lookup("Trout") works, but uncommon names may return multiple candidates. Always check the response.
5. Cross-check with Wikipedia for biographical context (career milestones, awards, draft info). The wikipedia MCP is the right companion tool.

Naming & spelling gotchas

• For player_lookup use player_name="Ohtani" (last name only). The matcher is substring + last-name, and full first+last can over-match.
• For downstream tools like batter_percentile_ranks / pitcher_percentile_ranks / statcast_pitcher_arsenal_stats, use the full name ("Aaron Judge", not "Judge") — those tools reject single-name lookups.
• For “Joe Green”-style common names, player_lookup may return multiple candidates — read the response and disambiguate by mlb_played_first / mlb_played_last years.
• Pitcher/hitter ambiguity: if player_lookup returns a pitcher when you wanted a hitter (or vice versa), pass the full name in Last, First form to disambiguate.

Installation (Universal)

1. Install the MCP server

pip install statcast-mcp

This gives you the statcast-mcp command. The server uses pybaseball under the hood (no API key needed — it pulls from public Baseball Savant / FanGraphs endpoints).

2. Register the server with mcporter

Add to your mcporter.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "statcast": {
      "command": "statcast-mcp"
    }
  }
}

3. Verify

mcporter call statcast.player_lookup "player_name=Aaron Judge"

You should see Judge’s MLBAM ID (592450) and active years.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• pip install statcast-mcp (pulls in lxml, mcp, pandas, pybaseball, tabulate)

Data sources

All data comes from public Baseball Savant (Statcast) and FanGraphs endpoints via pybaseball. No API keys, no rate-limit auth — but please be polite with call volume.

What this skill does NOT do

• Live game scores / play-by-play (use mlb-daily-scores ClawHub skill or a sports-odds MCP)
• Odds, props, betting lines (use a sportsbook or odds API)
• Minor league or college baseball (Statcast coverage is MLB-only)
• Historical seasons before 2008 (Statcast launched in 2008)

Example questions this answers

• “What was Aaron Judge’s 95th-percentile exit velocity in 2025?”
• “Show me Paul Skenes’ whiff% by pitch type.”
• “Which pitchers had the lowest barrel% allowed last season?”
• “Is Shohei Ohtani outperforming his expected stats?”
• “Who are the top 10 sprinters in baseball right now?”
• “Where did the Yankees rank in barrel% last year?”