Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the giant and large 2015-16 free-agent market.

Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, including four notable second basemen and then David Freese.

Other Players: Alex Avila / Chris Davis / Stephen Drew / Chris Iannetta / Kelly Johnson / Justin Morneau / Mike Napoli / Dioner Navarro / Geovany Soto / Matt Wieters.

Howie Kendrick (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Kendrick:

• Has averaged 561 PA and 3.1 WAR over last three seasons.
• Has averaged 3.4 WAR per 600 PA* over last three seasons.
• Recorded a 2.1 WAR in 495 PA in 2015.
• Is projected to record 2.3 WAR per 600 PA**.
• Is entering his age-32 season.
• Made $9.5M in 2015, as part of deal signed in January 2012.

*That is, a roughly average number of plate appearances for a starting player.
**Prorated version of final updated 2015 Steamer projections available here.

Click here to estimate years and dollars for Kendrick.

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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the giant and large 2015-16 free-agent market.

Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, including all the notable first basemen and some less impressive — but not entirely irrelevant — second basemen, too.

Other Players: Alex Avila / Chris Iannetta / Dioner Navarro / Geovany Soto / Matt Wieters.

Chris Davis (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Davis:

• Has averaged 623 PA and 4.5 WAR over last three seasons.
• Has averaged 4.3 WAR per 600 PA* over last three seasons.
• Recorded a 5.6 WAR in 670 PA in 2015.
• Is projected to record 2.6 WAR per 600 PA**.
• Is entering his age-30 season.
• Made $12.0M in 2015, as part of deal signed in January 2015.

*That is, a roughly average number of plate appearances for a starting player.
**Prorated version of final updated 2015 Steamer projections available here.

Click here to estimate years and dollars for Davis.

Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the giant and large 2015-16 free-agent market.

Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, all of them catchers.

Alex Avila (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Avila:

• Has averaged 352 PA and 1.0 WAR over last three seasons.
• Has averaged 1.3 WAR per 450 PA* over last three seasons.
• Recorded a 0.3 WAR in 219 PA in 2015.
• Is projected to record 2.3 WAR per 450 PA**.
• Is entering his age-29 season.
• Made $5.4M in 2015, as part of deal signed in January of 2014.

*That is, a roughly average number of plate appearances for a starting catcher.
**Prorated version of final updated 2015 Steamer projections available here.

Click here to estimate years and dollars for Avila.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Episode 602
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio, during which edition he discusses the National League Wild Card game and the American League Wild Card games and basically nothing else.

This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 43 min play time.)

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Episode 601
Kiley McDaniel is both (a) the lead prospect analyst for FanGraphs and also (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he builds off a thread from his most recent appearance and discusses the real-live duties attached to the various job titles in a major-league front office.

This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 17 min play time.)

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Episode 600
Dayn Perry is a contributor to CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball and the author of three books — one of them not very miserable. He’s also the guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 57 min play time.)

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Los Angeles AL (Richards) at Texas (Hamels) | 15:05 ET
Houston (McCullers) at Arizona (Ray) | 15:10 ET
Three clubs enter the season’s final day with uncertain prospects regarding their postseason lot. A Rangers victory would both (a) secure their place atop the American League’s westernmost division and also (b) eliminate the Angels at the same time, automatically granting the second wild-card spot to the Astros. A Rangers loss, meanwhile, would engender disorder not unlike the sort found during France’s Reign of Terror. How many noblemen and -women will be executed? Only time will tell. And furthermore, as Ben Lerner has observed, only time will tell if time will tell.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas Radio and Houston Television.

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Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.

MONDAY
Adrian Beltre on Hitting, by Eno Sarris
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string,” Beltre says without saying it.

On Ad-Driven Revenue and Tools of the Sports Fan, by David Temple
By clicking this link, FanGraphs earns probably $0.002.

Putting the Nationals Disappointment In Context, By Jeff Sullivan
Washington’s season was a huge bummer, but how huge of a bummer was it?

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Los Angeles at Texas | 13:05 ET
Santiago (176.2 IP, 124 xFIP-) vs. Lewis (200.2 IP, 115 xFIP-)
Because of the proximity of the season’s end, today’s game NERD scores are informed almost entirely now by the team NERD scores one finds below, which themselves are informed (again, owing to this time of year) almost entirely by the proximity of each club’s postseason odds to 50% (where closer to 50% is better). As a result, only three clubs — all of them members of the American League’s westernmost division — differentiate themselves in any way. And, indeed, even the Rangers’ slight advantage is negated by rounding. The matchup between Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey leads one to ask a philosophical question of sorts: “Would you prefer to observe two excellent pitchers in a meaningless game, or two lesser ones in a game of some consequence?” The answer is one of personal taste — and like all personal thoughts, ought best be hidden deep inside of you lest it’s trampled by a cruel, indifferent world.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas Radio.

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