Author Archive

2010 ZiPS!

The 2010 ZiPS projections courtesy of Dan Szymborski of Baseball Think Factory are now available in the player pages and sortable formats.

This wraps up the projections we’ll be carrying on FanGraphs this year and ZiPS, just like last year, will be updated daily all season long.


Spring Training Tests

We’ll be conducting some live data tests over the next couple weeks, so if you own the iPhone app, you may see a few spring training games show up here and there. I think we’re only testing a few Grapefruit League games each day.

Same goes for our live scoreboard.

On the iPhone app this year, we also have the complete schedule for the year, instead of just the current days games.


RotoGraphs Job Openings: Fantasy Writers

RotoGraphs is now accepting applications for fantasy baseball writers. These are paid, part-time positions that require a commitment of five posts per week. We are specifically looking for writers with knowledge of multiple fantasy formats, who are comfortable with writing strategy-based articles.

Writers may be asked to tackle specific topics as assigned, but a big part of the job is to independently develop interesting topics and ideas on a regular basis. Strong writing skills and the ability to write clean copy are important along with a familiarity of the statistics found on FanGraphs.

To apply, please send us email with your background and why you’d like to write for us. Please include anything you think will be helpful in evaluating your application such as: writing samples, links to current blogs, fantasy experience, resume, etc….

Interested writers can contact us (David Appelman and Marc Hulet) at wanted+rotographs@fangraphs.com with the heading RotoGraphs Application 2010.


Quick FAN Standings

I was having some fun with the FAN projections and thought it might be neat to attempt to see where the visitors here at FanGraphs have collectively ranked the teams based on the individual player projections.

Just some quick notes:

– Everything had to be scaled back considerably and evened up for playing time. Pitchers as a whole are projected at about 4 wins too high per team and batters are projected at about 6 wins too high per team. Fielding stats were the most realistic and were only about 1 win too high.

– These standings are also simply based on wins above average (calculated FanGraphs WAR style) and for the most part use the entire projected player pool. Some players with well below 0 WAR were left out and players needed at least 5 ballots to be included.

– I should also note, that I’m posting these as a launching off point for discussion and not much more.

Team       Wins
Yankees      98
Red Sox      94
Rays         92
Orioles      78
Blue Jays    71

Twins        82
White Sox    79
Tigers       78
Indians      76
Royals       73

Rangers      84
Mariners     83
Athletics    81
Angels       80

Braves       89
Phillies     84
Marlins      80
Mets         78
Nationals    72

Cardinals    88
Cubs         78
Brewers      78
Reds         77
Astros       72
Pirates      68

Rockies      87
Diamondbacks 87
Dodgers      84
Giants       80
Padres       79

And there you have it.

If anyone wants to give these a go, you can always export the FAN Projections and try it out yourself.


FanGraphs Timeline

Here’s a timeline of FanGraphs I put together for the Second Opinion intro, but just didn’t make it in there. I had totally forgotten that when the site first launched it didn’t even have BABIP (I think it might have been there under a different name: H%).


(click for full size image)


Poll: Best and Worst 3 Year Contracts

Tangotiger’s poll from insidethebook.com on which 3 year contracts were the best and worst from a team perspective:


FanGraphs Audio on iTunes

FanGraphs Audio is now available on iTunes! You can either search for it and it will show up under podcasts, or you can just follow this link.


Positional Adjustment

I just implemented a very slight change to how we calculate the positional adjustment for WAR. Previously we were calculating it based on full games played at a position. Now it is being calculated by innings played, which is a bit more precise.

This may shift a player’s positional adjustment up or down a run at the most, and will mainly impact multi-position players, but that’s about it.


Projection Fixes

It’s come to my attention that the Fielding component for the CHONE projections is per 150 games and not a raw total for the season that I, for some reason, thought it to be. The Fielding projections have now been properly adjusted based on projected games.

I’ve also made a few slight changes to the Fan Projections that adjusted some extremely unrealistic ballots, mostly pertaining to players with zero playing time, but who were projected to hit over zero home runs and extra base hits.


This Week in FanGraphs – 2/13/2010

There’s a lot going on at FanGraphs each week. This week alone we had 43 posts, rolled out two new features, and made a book announcement. So in case you missed something, here were the highlights:

Splits! – Finally, FanGraphs now has splits data dating back to 2002. They include platoon, home/away, monthly, leverage, batted ball, and spray splits.

2010 Second Opinion – By the end of the month we’ll be releasing our first electronic publication, The FanGraphs Second Opinion: 2010 Fantasy Baseball Companion

FanGraphs Audio – Carson Cistulli hosts our very first podcast where we go roundtabling with Dave Cameron, Matt Klaassen, and Erik Manning.

New Contributors – Joe Pawlikowski checks out why teams are avoiding Jermaine Dye and Alex Remington looks at why signing early is what gets you the big bucks.

Split Analysis GaloreIntro | Mauer | Platoon | Weaver | Gagne | Bonds | Hill | Howard | The Minors | Looper

And on the RotoGraphs Fantasy side of things:

OBP or AVG – Zach Sanders delves into the merits and difficulties of adding On-Base Percentage to your league’s scoring categories.

ADP Values: Center Field Edition – Eno Sarris identifies some of the values to be had at the center field position.

Rzepczynski – David Golebiewski takes a hard look at Marc Rzepczynski and concludes he’s someone to target late in fantasy drafts.