Welcome to the 2023 positional power rankings! As is tradition, over the next week and a half, we’ll be ranking every team by position as we inch closer to Opening Day. This is always something of a funny exercise. You read FanGraphs regularly, after all — a fact for which we are very grateful — and are well-versed in the goings on of the offseason. You know that Carlos Correa was a Giant before becoming a Met before winding up a Twin again, just as you’re aware that Carlos Rodón now pitches for the Yankees and Sean Murphy now catches for the Braves. And yet, you’re still keen to know more about the game and what it might look like between now and October. The positional power rankings are our answer to that impulse.

This post serves as an explainer for our approach to the rankings. If you’re new to the exercise, I hope it helps to clarify how they are compiled and what you might expect from them. If you’re a FanGraphs stalwart, I hope it is a useful reminder of what we’re up to. If you have a bit of time, here is the introduction to last year’s series. You can use the navigation widget at the top of that post to get a sense of where things stood before Opening Day 2022, a spring that saw a burst of trades and signings as the sport emerged from the lockout.

Unlike a lot of sites’ season previews, we don’t arrange ours by team or division. That is a perfectly good way to organize a season preview, but we see a few advantages to the way we do it. First, ranking teams by position allows us to cover a team’s roster from top to bottom. Stars, everyday contributors, and role players alike receive some amount of examination, and those players (and the teams they play for) are placed in their proper league-wide context. By doing it this way, you can more easily see how teams stack up against each other, get a sense of the overall strength of a position across the game, and spot places where a well-constructed platoon may end up having a bigger impact than an everyday regular who is merely good. We think all of that context helps to create a richer understanding of the state of things and a clearer picture of the season ahead. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s your chance to vote for the 2023 SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards winners.

The SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards will recognize baseball researchers who have completed the best work of original analysis or commentary during the preceding calendar year. Nominations were solicited by representatives from SABR, Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs, the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, and Sports Info Solutions.

To read any of the finalists, click on the link below. Scroll down to cast your vote.

Contemporary Baseball Analysis

• Lindsey Adler, “Why the Yankees pitching staff is embracing a new slider and how the ‘whirly’ is different from a traditional slider,” The Athletic, April 4, 2022.
• Michael Ajeto, “We’re Talking About Seam-Shifted Wake Wrong,” Baseball Prospectus, May 17, 2022.
• Davy Andrews, “Steven Kwan, Geraldo Perdomo, and The Victor Robles Problem,” FanGraphs, December 19, 2022.
• Ben Clemens, “How Good Are Those Probabilities on the Apple TV+ Broadcasts?” FanGraphs, May 26, 2022.
• Ethan Rendon, Elijah Emery, Will Sugar and Tieran Alexander, “The Mystic Art of Pitch Tunneling,” Prospects Live, August 23, 2022.

Contemporary Baseball Commentary

• Michael Baumann, “The Playoffs Aren’t Too Big. The League Is Way Too Small,” FanGraphs, October 4, 2022.
• Zach Crizer, “The Phillies are Dave Dombrowski’s 5th World Series Team. Should More Teams Play His Version of Moneyball?” Yahoo! Sports, October 31, 2022.
• Patrick Dubuque, “One Step Behind,” Baseball Prospectus, October 3, 2022.
• Hannah Keyser, “MLB lockout: There’s no way to force team owners to put wins over dollars,” Yahoo! Sports, February 16, 2022.
• Ginny Searle, “So Do Not Become Proud, But Fear,” Baseball Prospectus, June 7, 2022.

Historical Baseball Analysis/Commentary

• Donna L. Halper, “Marvels or Menaces: How the Press Covered ‘The Lady Baseballists,’ 1865-1915,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2022.
• Jerry Nechal, “Were Pitchers More Likely to Throw at Black Batters? 1947–66,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2022.
• Marc Normandin, “1994 Explains What ‘Labor Peace’ Never Could,” Baseball Prospectus, February 28, 2022.
• Mike Petriello, “How many games would Springfield’s ringers win?” MLB.com, February 19, 2022.
• Leander Schaerlaeckens, “The Forgotten Men Behind The Ideas That Changed Baseball,” Defector, November 14, 2022.

John Dewan Defensive Analytics Award

• Russell A. Carleton, “So You’ve Decided to Ban the Shift,” Baseball Prospectus, March 9, 2022.
• Justin Choi, “The Blue Jays Make A Big Shift In Making Big Shifts,” FanGraphs, May 11, 2022.
• Alex Eisert, “More Than a Putout Puzzle: Revisiting the Problem of Outfield Alignment,” FanGraphs, December 5, 2022.

Voting will be open through 11:59 p.m. MST on Friday, February 10, 2023.

Create your own user feedback survey

Mobile or Safari users, click here to access the survey

Results will be announced and presented at the SABR Analytics Conference, March 10-12, 2023, in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more or register for the conference at SABR.org/analytics.

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2022-23 free-agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. And new this year, if there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2023 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for 10 of this year’s free agents — in this case, another group of starting pitchers. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2022-23 free-agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. And new this year, if there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2023 Steamer600 projections with the exception of Koudai Senga’s, which comes courtesy of ZiPS.

Below are ballots for 10 of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of starting pitchers. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2022-23 free-agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. And new this year, if there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2023 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for 12 of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of relievers. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2022-23 free-agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. And new this year, if there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2023 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for five of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of pitchers with options or opt outs in their current contracts. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2022-23 free-agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. And new this year, if there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2023 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for six of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of pitchers with options or opt outs in their current contracts. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2022-23 free-agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. And new this year, if there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2023 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for six of this year’s free agents — in this case, another group of position players with options or opt outs in their current contracts. Read the rest of this entry »

Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2022-23 free-agent market.

In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. And new this year, if there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2023 Steamer600 projections.

Below are ballots for seven of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of position players with options or opt outs in their current contracts. Read the rest of this entry »