A few weeks ago, you may have seen this tweet:

In today’s Crazy Big Nerd News, FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference.com have agreed to standardize Replacement Level. #SABRanalytics

— robneyer (@robneyer) March 8, 2013

Today, we’ve rolled out those changes, and some other ones!

Here are the details:

– Replacement level is now set at an even 1,000 WAR per 2,430 game season. Batters are given 57% of all total WAR with pitchers receiving the remaining 43%. This will cause players to drop in WAR by about 0.3 WAR per recent season.

– The leagues for batters are now zeroed out in terms of runs above average. Most of this adjustment is done in Batting, while the final league adjustment is done behind the scenes. We will soon have a “League Adjustment” stat which shows exactly what the league adjustment is for each player. On a seasonal level, AL position players will see about a 0.2 decrease, with NL position players receiving about a 0.4 decrease in WAR.

– Infield fly balls are now part of our pitcher WAR calculation. They are counted the same as a strikeout in the FIP calculation (though generic FIP on the site has not changed). You can see Dave Cameron’s original post to find out more about this change.

– UZR has been given a minor update. There was a small issue with calculating the foul line and this has now been corrected. Also, the 2012 park factors were updated. Players may have had their UZR values changed by a run or two at most.

Dave Cameron will have another post up in about 15 minutes going into more detail on the replacement level changes.

At FanGraphs we talk a lot about contracts, but we’ve never had contract data on our player pages or in an easily exportable form.

We’ve already got the ball rolling by entering about 300 contracts, but there’s still a lot of work to do. Our staff will of course continue to enter in contract data, but if you want to speed up the project you can help us by entering in missing contract data.

Any contract data you enter will be sent for approval to an editor.  Assuming the contract data is correct and mostly complete with proper attribution, it will shortly appear on the player pages along with attribution to your FanGraphs username.

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Title: Executive Development Fellow (EDF), Baseball Analytics

The Executive Development Fellow (EDF) for Baseball Analytics will be exposed to all facets of the Indians baseball operations during this intensive, structured 12-month immersion into the organization. The EDF will participate in a comprehensive orientation program, regular feedback meetings and a cross-functional mentorship program to facilitate enhanced organizational and career development.

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2013 ZiPS Projections, courtesy of Dan Szymborski, are now available in the projections pages in the player pages!

Please note that WAR as calculated on the projection pages and the player pages will differ from the original 30 reports. The projection and player pages use our in-house WAR calculations, where the original reports included Dan Szymborski original WAR projections.

The Steamer projections courtesy of steamerprojections.com are now available in the projections section and in the player pages.

The Steamer projections on FanGraphs use the playing time projections from the FAN projections.

Huge thanks to Jared Cross, Dash Davidson, and Peter Rosenbloom; the team behind the Steamer projections.

Update: FIP, HR, and BABIP columns should now be corrected. There was some bad data cached.

A Major League team is seeking a full-time intern for the 2013 season with a focus on analytics. The position is a paid internship and runs from the middle of February through the end of November.  It requires relocation and candidates must be prepared to work long hours as well as nights and weekends.

The internship will provide exposure to all departments within baseball operations. Responsibilities include overseeing updates to our baseball databases, monitoring the import of data feeds, assisting with general baseball ops related administrative tasks, maintaining databases and spreadsheets, staying current on external research, as well as supporting the department in other ways as directed.

Candidates must be passionate about baseball and be able to communicate effectively in an office environment.  A familiarity with current baseball research and analytics is required and experience with Microsoft SQL Server is preferred.  Demonstrated analytic skills, experience in statistical analysis software packages and knowledge of a scripting language are all pluses.

If you are interested, please forward your resume and cover letter to baseballintern2013@gmail.com.

Director of Research & Development – Baseball Operations

Location: Chicago, IL

Description: This role will be responsible for developing and overseeing the research and analytics function within Baseball Operations, reporting to the Assistant GM.

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Web Developer – New York Yankees (Bronx, NY)

Description:
The New York Yankees organization is accepting applications for an entry to mid-level web developer in their Baseball Operations department. Candidate should have development experience with the .NET framework, C#, JavaScript, and Microsoft SQL Server.

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Our splits sections now include double splits for Home / Away and Handedness so you can can now see how a player did against righties at home vs righties away, and the same for lefties.

We’ve also added 1st half & 2nd half splits, with the cutoff date being the All-Star game for each season.

These are currently available in the player splits pages for both batters and pitchers.

Update: 1st and 2nd half splits are now available in the leaderboards.

The 2013 FAN Projection ballots are now open!

Before you can project any players, you’ll have to select the team you follow most closely towards the top of the screen. If you really don’t follow a team, just pick one. You’ll only have to do this once.

After you’ve selected a team, there are 9 categories for pitchers and 10 categories for position players. Pick the values in the drop-down boxes closest to what you think the player will do in 2013, hit the submit button and you’re done! If you made a mistake, you can always go back and change your selection at any time.

Please note that everything this year is a rate stat. You’re projecting 2B+3B, HR, SB, and Fielding as a measure of 150 games (basically a full season). The player’s previous stats are shown per 150 games in the projection ballot too. This will make changing playing time projections much easier as you’ll only have to change the games played portion.

That’s really all there is to it. You can filter players by team, or if you go to the player pages, you can project players individually. If you want to see all the players you’ve projected, you can click on the “My Rankings” button which will show you only what you specifically projected a player to do.

Fan Projections will show up on the player pages after there have been 15 ballots submitted.

If you do notice any issues, please let us know.