I’m pleased to announce that UZR (ultimate zone ratings) stats are now available on FanGraphs!

This would of course not be possible without MGL (Mitchel Lichtman), and I’m extremely grateful that he allowed us to use his fielding model. He’s put in a tremendous amount of work getting the stats ready for use on FanGraphs and I really can’t thank him enough.

Unlike other versions of UZR, the ones that appear on FanGraphs use Baseball Info Solutions location data instead of STATS location data. Also, this UZR data does not currently include outfield arms and double plays are treated as regular outs. Here are the definitions for all the UZR stats available:

DG (defensive games): The number of outs made by an average fielder at his position given the exact distribution of balls in play for that player divided by the number of outs an average player at that position makes per game.

exO (expected outs): The number of outs plus reached base errors that would be made by an average fielder given the distribution of balls in play while that fielder was on the field.

RngR (range runs): The number of runs above or below average a fielder is, determined by how the fielder is able to get to balls hit in his vicinity.

ErrR (error runs): The number of runs above or below average a fielder is, determined by the number of errors he makes as compared to an average fielder at that position given the same distribution of balls in play.

UZR (ultimate zone rating): The number of runs above or below average a fielder is in both range runs and error runs combined.

UZR/150 (ultimate zone rate per 150 games): The number of runs above or below average a fielder is, per 150 defensive games.

The UZR stats can be found in the fielding section on the player pages or in the fielding section on the leaderboards. Later this week I’ll have them integrated into the team sections. Additionally, the plan is to update these stats at least weekly during the 2009 season.

Update: The team pages now have fielding data too!

Our search bar at the top has changed a little bit. You now have the option to search all the blog entries written by our writers! Here’s an example search for Carlos Beltran. Searching players is still the default.

Also RotoGraphs, our fantasy baseball blog has been integrated into the blog page which lists all the blog entries by day. You can see still see only the FanGraphs blog or the RotoGraphs blog if you wanted.

The statistic wOBA (weight on base average) is now available in the player pages, leaderboards, team pages, my team pages, and the projections.

wOBA, created by Tom Tango, is a version of linear weights that has been weighted to fit an OBP scale. The weights have been properly adjusted by season and for the minor leagues by season and by league. For more information about wOBA, check out the links below:

Weighted On Base Average or wOBA
wOBA year-by-year calculations
Getting to Know wOBA

The new My Team feature now lets you view your team’s projections. Just click on the “My Projections” link right next to the “My Team” link when you’re logged in and you’ll see the 2009 projections for any player that is on your team, assuming the projection is available.

Just like the My Team feature, you can share your My Team projections with anyone you like by just giving them the web address. For example: Here are the 2009 projections for my fantasy team last year.

To get a customized projection list all you need to do is register and start adding players!

Tom Tango has released the official 2009 Marcel the Monkey projections. They’re available here on FanGraphs in both the sortable variety and in all the player pages too!

Here’s exactly what they are:

“[Marcels] is the most basic forecasting system you can have, that uses as little intelligence as possible. So, that’s the allusion to the monkey. It uses 3 years of MLB data, with the most recent data weighted heavier. It regresses towards the mean. And it has an age factor.”

For those of you who missed last week’s post, or have not yet voted, Dave Cameron is up for a $10,000 college scholarship because of the fine work he’s done blogging over at U.S.S. Mariner. He is currently in 2nd place, down by approximately 700 votes, with voting open through Thursday night.

Dave has consistently done exemplary work here at FanGraphs, providing you with what I believe is some of the best baseball analysis on the web. If you’ve read Dave’s work even once this season, or even if you haven’t and just visit FanGraphs for the stats, please go and vote.

It only takes 3 mouse clicks, and I’m certain that if everyone who visits FanGraphs votes, we’ll be able to help award Dave this much deserved scholarship.

I’m doing a preview for an undetermined amount of time (maybe permanent depending on the reception) of the new My Team feature.

There are a few minor changes to the site:

1. You’ll notice there is a login bar right below the navigation bar on the site. If you have already signed up for the forums, there is no need to re-register. Just enter in your forum username and password. If you have not signed up for the forums, you’ll need to register to create your own team. Nothing else has changed. You do not need to register or log in to access any of the other FanGraphs features.

2. Once you log in you’ll notice that you can go to “My Team”, which is essentially a customized leaderboard for only the players you select. There won’t be any players in it, but you can add players from that page. You can also add players from their individual pages by clicking on the “Add Player” button which will appear if you are logged in.

3. You can share your team page with anyone by just giving them the web address. Only you will be able to alter your team page, but no team page can currently be made private. For instance, here’s my fantasy team from last season.

4. This is really just a first step in customization for FanGraphs. The way the system is set up should let us do some pretty cool things in the future.

I think that’s it. If you notice serious errors or minor glitches, please let me know. If you have suggestions, we’re taking those too and we’d really appreciate them.

Update: Things seem to be running smoothly enough that this probably won’t be a preview and I’ll just add features and correct bugs as we go. So feel free to use the new My Team feature to your hearts content. However, it should still be considered in beta.

O-Swing% (outside swing percentage): The percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike zone.

Why you should care: When a batter swings at a pitch thrown outside the strike zone his chances of success are severely decreased. The ability of a batter to differentiate pitches inside or outside the strike zone is often referred to as plate discipline and O-Swing% is a good measure of true plate discipline. Likewise, pitchers try to get batters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone and O-Swing% for pitchers shows how adept a pitcher is at tricking batters to swing at pitches outside the strike zone.

Current Baselines: The major league average O-Swing% changes slightly from year to year. The chart below shows the major league averages from 2005-2008 for both batters and pitchers.

2002          18.1%
2003          22.2%
2004          16.6%
2005          20.3%
2006          23.5%
2007          25.0%
2008          25.4%

Batters: A lower O-Swing% is preferable for batters.
Pitchers: A higher O-Swing% is preferable for pitchers.

Links and Resources:
Dissecting Plate Discipline: Part 1
Dissecting Plate Discipline: Part 2
More on Plate Discipline
Pitchers, Pitch by Pitch
Expanding the Strike Zone

F-Strike% (first pitch strike percentage): The percentage of plate appearances (for batters) or batters faced (for pitchers) that the first pitch was a strike. This includes anytime that the count after the first pitch was 0-1, or anytime the ball was put into play on the first pitch of a plate appearance.

Why you should care: Getting the first strike on a batter significantly decreases the batter’s chance of success and likewise increases a pitcher’s chance of success.

Current Baselines: The major league average F-Strike% for all players from 2005-2008 is 59%. There is very little variation in the major league average from year to year.

Batters: A lower F-Strike% is preferable for batters.
Pitchers: A higher F-Strike% is preferable for pitchers.

Links and Resources:
Hardball Times: The Importance Of Strike One (Part One)
Hardball Times: The Importance Of Strike One (Part Two)

They’re here!

The 2009 Bill James Handbook projections are now available on FanGraphs in the individual player pages. Big thanks to Baseball Info Solutions for letting us run these for the 3rd year in a row! If you want the sortable stats version and are not content with seeing one player at a time, you will have to purchase a copy directly from them.