MLBDaily

Find and download MLB game videos — condensed games or recaps — for any date, using MLB's free public StatsAPI. No login, no subscription.

MLBDaily looks up a day's games and downloads them with ffmpeg, from the command line or a small built-in GUI. Each run answers two questions: which games (all, or just your teams) and what to pull (condensed, recaps, or a curated set). It's built for a daily habit: point it at "yesterday" and get a tidy folder named with the date and standings.

2025‑09‑24 bos(86‑71) @ tor(90‑67) condensed.mp4
2025‑09‑24 mil(95‑63) @ sd(87‑71) condensed.mp4

No spoilers. The W‑L records baked into each filename are the standings entering that game — i.e. from before first pitch — so scanning your folder never gives away who won.

Download (no Python or ffmpeg needed)

Not a developer? Grab the ready-to-run Windows build:

1. Go to the Releases page and download MLBDaily-vX.Y-win64.zip.
2. Unzip it anywhere.
3. Double-click MLBDaily.exe.

ffmpeg is bundled, so there's nothing else to install. On first launch Windows may show a SmartScreen warning for the unsigned app — click More info → Run anyway. Prefer the command line or another OS? Use the Python script (below).

Features

• Three ways to pull — condensed (default), recap, or curated: the record-aware mode that weights toward the better games (see ✨ Curated mode).
• Team scope — --teams atl,nyy to limit any mode to your clubs; leave it off for all 30.
• No-spoiler filenames — records shown are pre-game, so your folder never reveals results.
• Everything is a parameter — every rule is set on the command line, in a JSON config file, or via the GUI.
• Live terminal progress — one in-place progress bar per game, with speed and percent.
• Optional tkinter GUI (--gui) that remembers your settings between runs.
• Self-documenting — --list-teams prints every team abbreviation.

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• pip install -r requirements.txt (just requests)
• ffmpeg and ffprobe on your PATH (download)
• The GUI uses tkinter, which ships with the standard python.org installer.

Quick start

pip install -r requirements.txt

python MLBDaily.py --yesterday                     # all condensed games (default)
python MLBDaily.py --yesterday --pull recap        # all recaps
python MLBDaily.py --yesterday --teams atl,nyy     # condensed, just your teams
python MLBDaily.py --yesterday --pull curated      # ✨ the curated set
python MLBDaily.py --gui                            # graphical front-end

Usage

Every run answers two questions: which games and what to pull.

• --teams LIST — limit to games involving these teams (abbreviations or numeric IDs; run --list-teams). Leave it off for all 30 clubs.
• --pull MODE — one of:
  • condensed (default) — the condensed game for every game
  • recap — the recap for every game
  • curated — decide per game from records (see below)

I want…	Command
All condensed games	(nothing — it's the default)
All recaps	--pull recap
Condensed for just my teams	--teams atl,nyy
Recaps for just my teams	--teams atl,nyy --pull recap
The smart, curated set	--pull curated (or just set any curated knob)

✨ Curated mode

This is the heart of MLBDaily — and the reason it beats grabbing everything. Instead of a pile of blowouts you'll never watch, curated mode weights toward the better games, deciding per game from each team's record entering that day:

Both teams…	You get
winning	the condensed game
one winning, one not	the recap
both losing	nothing (a red "skipped" line, no download)
record unknown	condensed (fail-safe — never miss content)

Three knobs tune it (they apply only in curated mode — pass any one and curated mode turns on automatically):

Flag	Effect	Example
--follow TEAMS	Always pull these teams' game as a condensed game, regardless of record	--follow atl,nyy
--never-losers TEAMS	Treat these teams as always "winning" (never in the both-losing bucket)	--never-losers lad
--losing BAR	Where the winning line sits — whole number = games vs .500 (-3); decimal = win % (0.440). Default -3.	--losing 0.440

# Curated, but always keep the Braves and never count the Dodgers as losers,
# and treat anyone at .440+ as winning:
python MLBDaily.py --yesterday --pull curated --follow atl --never-losers lad --losing 0.440

Config file (set it once)

Repeat/cron users can put their preferences in a JSON file instead of passing flags every run. Copy the example and edit it:

cp mlbdaily.config.example.json mlbdaily.config.json

{
  "pull": "condensed",
  "teams": [],
  "output_dir": "./mlb_videos",
  "max_workers": 3,

  "follow": ["atl"],
  "never_losers": [],
  "losing": -3
}

The follow/never_losers/losing keys are curated-mode only; setting any of them (and no pull) selects curated mode automatically. MLBDaily auto-loads mlbdaily.config.json from the current directory (or next to the script), or use --config path/to/file.json. Precedence: CLI flag > config file > built-in default — so a flag always wins, and the file just changes your defaults. Your personal mlbdaily.config.json is gitignored.

All options

Run python MLBDaily.py --help for the full list. Highlights:

Flag	Description
--date YYYY/MM/DD · --today · --yesterday · --tomorrow	Which day (default: yesterday).
--pull {condensed,recap,curated}	What to download (default: condensed).
--teams LIST	Limit to games involving these teams (default: all).
--output-dir DIR	Where to save (default ./mlb_videos).
--max-workers N	Concurrent downloads (default 3).
--retries N	Retries per failed download (default 2).
--dry-run	Find videos but don't download.
--save-json FILE	Dump the discovered game list to JSON.
--verbose	Detailed logging (shows the active filter rules, skipped games, etc.).
--gui	Launch the tkinter GUI.

Notes

• Only the free public StatsAPI is used — no credentials anywhere.
• Filenames use a non-breaking hyphen (U+2011) so media players like VLC don't mangle the date/record when deriving a title from the filename.
• Postponed games and non-final games are skipped automatically.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.