Here’s your chance to vote for the 2020 SABR Analytics Conference Research Award 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 Hardball Times, and Beyond the Box Score.

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

Contemporary Baseball Analysis

• Robert Arthur, “The Baseball is Juiced (Again),” Baseball Prospectus, April 5, 2019.
• Craig Edwards, “Baseball’s Competitive Balance Problem,” FanGraphs, November 18, 2019.
• Sam Miller, “How is WAR Calculated, Really? Breaking Down a Single Play to Find Out,” ESPN.com, December 5, 2019.
• Jason Themanson, “Psychology of Walks and Singles,” The Hardball Times, June 19, 2019.
• Meredith Wills, “Yes, the Baseball is Different — Again. An Astrophysicist Examines This Year’s Baseballs and Breaks Down the Changes,” The Athletic, June 25, 2019.

Contemporary Baseball Commentary

• Daniel R. Epstein, “Don’t Let MLB Insult You,” Beyond the Box Score, December 23, 2019.
• Craig Goldstein, “Deep, But Playable: The Moral Hazard of Playing it Safe,” Baseball Prospectus, August 6, 2019.
• David Roth, “The Smartest Guys in the Clubhouse,” The New Republic, December 3, 2019.
• Shakeia Taylor, “Loss, For Words,” Baseball Prospectus, April 24, 2019.
• Emily Waldon, “I Can’t Afford to Play This Game: Minor Leaguers Open Up About the Realities of Their Pay and the Impact on Their Lives,” The Athletic, March 15, 2019.

Historical Baseball Analysis/Commentary

• R.J. Anderson, “The Business Behind MLB Expansion: Portland, Montreal and Raleigh Taking Different Approaches to Landing a Team,” CBS Sports, July 17, 2019.
• Jay Jaffe, “Pitcher, Author, Everyman, Hero: Jim Bouton (1939-2019),” FanGraphs, July 11, 2019.
• Herm Krabbenhoft, “How Many Hits Did Ty Cobb Make in His Major League Career? What Is His Lifetime Batting Average?” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2019.
• Rachael McDaniel, “The Meaning of Ichiro,” FanGraphs, March 21, 2019.
• Marc Normandin, “MLB’s Luxury Tax Became A Salary Cap Because Of Decades Of Failures,” Deadspin, January 31, 2019.

Voting will be open through 11:59 p.m. MST on Monday, February 10, 2020. Details and criteria for each category can be found here. Only one work per author was considered as a finalist.

Create your own user feedback survey

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Results will be announced and presented at the ninth annual SABR Analytics Conference, March 13-15, 2020, at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more or register for the conference at SABR.org/analytics.

You might have noticed the URL structure for our player pages changed during the Winter Meetings. We are in the process of updating these pages, and that was our first step. We are planning on making more changes as the winter continues.

Some of these upcoming changes will alter the underlying HTML structure of the page, which could affect data analysis tools you might have built or use. We are creating a legacy version of the pages, so the player pages can be accessed from a direct URL (but not through normal navigation) in their current form for the near future.

To access the legacy version of the pages you will have to add -legacy to the old URL structure. So the statss.aspx becomes statss-legacy.aspx. This will circumvent the redirects to any updates we make to the pages. Below are a list of legacy player page URLs.

Notes

• This is different but related to the URL redirects we did during the Winter Meetings. Using the -legacy URL will circumvent the redirects.
• This isn’t designed to allow for normal browsing on these pages, so no site links will ever point to them. You can only access the legacy pages through the direct URL with the proper query string.
• Some of the controls on these pages might not work. The URL parameters will still work, though.
• We won’t add new features to the legacy pages.
• After we launch the new player pages, the legacy pages might not last forever, but they will give you time to transition to the new pages.

In our ongoing quest to make it easier for our readers to keep up with all of the activity around the league, FanGraphs has launched a new Offseason Transaction Tracker.

While our long-term vision includes a greater integration of stats and historical data, this initial rollout gives readers the ability to answer the simple questions, such as: What roster moves did I miss? Which players has each team added? Which players has each team lost?

The link to the tracker can be found at the top of any RosterResource page, where you can quickly toggle between the Depth Charts, Payroll, Offseason Tracker, and Free Agent Tracker pages for each team. To view a full transaction list for the entire league, click on “Show All MLB Teams” on the left underneath the team abbreviations:

Read the rest of this entry »

Our 2020 Free Agent Tracker is now live! There are currently over 200 players on the list, and several more will be added over the next few weeks as teams continue to clear space on their 40-man rosters. The tracker will be regularly updated throughout the offseason as qualifying offers are made, accepted, and rejected, and free agents find their new homes.

You can sort by a player’s handedness, either batting or throwing, age, 2019 WAR, and projected WAR for the upcoming season, as well as our crowdsourcing results, which include median contract total, years, and average annual value. You can also filter by status (signed/unsigned), previous team, position, and signing team, and export the data for your own analysis.

The Tracker can always be found in the RosterResource section of the site drop-down menu or within the RosterResource Depth Charts and Payroll pages, as seen at the top of the image below.

As always, we appreciate your feedback. If there are features you’d like to suggest for future versions of the tracker, feel free to drop them in the comments here.

The another season has come and gone, but our readers’ appetite for baseball and its attendant prognostication remains.

To that end, and to give us all something to get us through the lean months ahead, today FanGraphs released for your enjoyment the 2020 Steamer projections.
The work of Jared Cross, Steamer represents the first opportunity of the offseason to peer into the gauzy mists of the future. The prorated version of the forecasts (known as Steamer 600) is useful, too, as a sort of quick estimate of true talent.

What does one find in the numbers? Mike Trout is once again projected to be the best player in baseball, putting a comfortable distance between himself and the next-closest position player, Mookie Betts. Anthony Rendon, who ranks second on our Top 50 Free Agent list, forecasts to be the sixth best position player in the game, bested only by Trout, Betts, Alex Bregman, Francisco Lindor, and Christian Yelich, and by those last two only barely. Meanwhile, Gerrit Cole, the No. 1 free agent available per our list, looks to be the best pitcher going into 2020.

What other revelations wait? Dive in and find out.

After 11 offseasons of organizing and updating the depth charts at Roster Resource (formerly known as MLBDepthCharts), this will be my first at FanGraphs. In case you’re not familiar with how I cover the offseason, here’s a rundown of how the depth charts and payroll pages work.

These features are now in offseason mode, meaning that all free agents have been removed from their 2019 teams and a projected Opening Day 26-man roster is displayed. As roster moves occur and news is reported, these projections will be updated almost immediately and announced on my Twitter account.

If you find yourself scratching your head about a particular projection — the World Champion Nationals, for example, begin with Jake Noll and Wilmer Difo as their starting first and second baseman, respectively — it’s very likely because you’ve discovered a team need. If you disagree with a projection, we might just have differing opinions. It’s also possible that I’m overlooking something and would greatly appreciate hearing your opinion on the matter. Twitter is the easiest way to make a suggestion or report an error.

It’s important to note that these are Opening Day roster projections. Once we incorporate 2020 stats projections in the depth charts, you will notice that certain players listed in the Minor League section are expected to play an integral role for the upcoming season.

Since offseason moves do not become official right away, I use my best judgement to decide when a free agent signing or trade will be reflected on the site. There have been a few occasions over the years when I have had to “undo” a reported move (i.e. Dexter Fowler agreed to a contract with the Orioles on February 23, 2016 before re-signing with Cubs on February 25, 2016 ). For the most part, a roster move will be reflected on a depth chart once enough credible reporters have confirmed it to consider it a done deal.

Options remaining, major league service time, and Rule 5 eligibility have all been updated through the 2019 season. These are unofficial and based on my own count. Certain players can be granted a fourth option, which is usually not widely reported.

If a player has “R5” in the “Options or R5 status” column, they are eligible for next month’s Rule 5 draft. Players not on the 40-man roster who show that they have options remaining because of previous major league experience are also eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Teams have until November 20 to add players to their 40-man roster, which would protect those players who are eligible from the Rule 5 draft.

Below the 26-man roster projection is the “Minor Leaguers You Should Know” section, sorted by primary position. The purpose of this section is to identify players who are moving up the ladder toward the major leagues. Once I determine that a player is no longer making progress, I remove them from the list. Here is an overview of the criteria I use to determine whether a players is notable enough to be included.

Players are automatically included if they meet any of the following criteria:

• On the 40-man roster
• Non-Roster Invitee (not on 40-man roster; invited to major league camp during 2020 Spring Training)
• Invited to the 2019 Arizona Fall League (while AFL participants are not always top prospects, players chosen by their organization are typically in the upper minors and expected to reach the majors within a year or two).
• Top 30 prospect in the organization, per the most recent rankings from FanGraphs
• Drafted in the first 10 rounds of 2019 Amateur Draft

Players are also included if they’ve met some combination of the following criteria:

• Productive 2019 season:
• Typically a .700+ OPS or better for position players; could be slightly lower for catchers, second basemen, shortstops and center fielders if speed, on-base ability, and/or defense are strong attributes.
• Typically a sub-4.00 ERA with average BB/9 rate (4.0 and under) and above-average K/9 rate (8.0 and over), with the caveat that relievers in the low minors must do significantly better to be recognized.
• If a player did not meet the criteria based on statistical production, other factors such as ceiling, position, age, and level are taken into account.

Payroll pages are explained in depth here. During the offseason, the salary breakdown for a new contract is spread evenly as an “estimated salary” until official numbers are reported. Estimated salaries are displayed in italics. Projected salaries for arbitration-eligible players, courtesy of MLB Trade Rumors, are displayed in italics with a light green background.

We’ll be adding 2020 projections to the depth charts in the near future. Feel free to let us know what other information you’d like see while viewing the depth charts in the comments below.

For your prognosticating convenience, we’ve created a new, live section of the playoff odds page to house the ZiPS projections for each game of the postseason. These projections are a supplement to the normal FanGraphs Playoff Odds. They are not a replacement for the existing ones, which combine ZiPS and Steamer. These projections are arrived at similarly to how ZiPS does the roster strength projections during the regular season, only with roster constructions that reflect the very different way players are used during the playoffs. Unlike the regular season model, ZiPS uses projected starters in order to make a more accurate, game-by-game projection; during the regular season, ZiPS uses the actual schedule, but without knowledge of which player will start each game.

To aid in modeling these probabilities, the full model of ZiPS is used, which includes updated split projections in order to (hopefully!) enhance the projections’ accuracy. There’s obviously a great deal of speculation as to who will start these games; these odds will be updated continually as we get closer to first pitch. Projections for the Division Series that will be played against the respective Wild Card winners will populate after the Wild Card games have concluded. For the moment, you’ll see their tabs grayed out. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in July, we launched the RosterResource depth charts, the first of several features moving over to FanGraphs. Today, we have added RosterResource’s payroll pages.

As is the case with the depth charts, these are a near-replica of the RosterResource version. The loading time is faster, however, and player names link to the corresponding FanGraphs player page.  These can currently be accessed by clicking on “Payroll” at the top of the RosterResource pages and then clicking on the team.

Here is most of what you can learn by visiting a RosterResource payroll page.

Player Info

• Contract details (years, total, options, and opt-outs)
• Year-by-year salary breakdown
• Major league Service Time (updated at the conclusion of each season)
• Arbitration eligibility and Free Agency years
• AAV (average annual value of contract)

Team Info

• Estimated Payroll for each year that includes at least one guaranteed contract.
• Estimated Payroll at the end of previous season.
• Estimated Luxury Tax Payroll.
• Dollars due to players no longer with organization.
• Dollars owed by another team.

Players included on each payroll page are separated into three sections:

• Players With Guaranteed Salaries
• Players Eligible For Arbitration
• Notable Players Not Yet Eligible For Arbitration

The Notable Players Not Yet Eligible For Arbitration group has simple criteria: that the player is likely in the major leagues for good, and won’t have their service time interrupted by a demotion to the minor leagues. Players will be added or removed during the season, however, if a situation changes.

For players without a guaranteed contract, we display an estimated salary during the offseason until they have officially agreed to terms. For free agent signings, the annual salary will be broken down evenly across the years of the deal until official numbers are reported. For example, a two-year, $20MM contract will be displayed as $10 million in 2020 and $10 million in 2021. We will update it once the official breakdown is reported. All estimated values will be displayed in italics.

The payroll pages will be updated immediately following the 2019 season to reflect the 2020 through 2026 seasons. If you find anything that’s incorrect, or something that’s not working, please let us know in the comments.

You are now able to add stat (and age!) filters to the Minor League Leaderboards. They work in a similar manner to our splits tools and leaderboards.

The filters are downstream from the main data query, so if your leaderboard stretches across multiple seasons, it will filter out players based on the stat value returned for that time span. For example, with a leaderboard spanning 2018-2019, you can filter for players with 300 or more hits, and it will yield Gavin Lux.

A much-requested feature was the ability to filter by age. Currently, you can filter age on single season leaderboards based on the age-season value, since there’s no single age value for a multi-season span.

Stat Filter Bar Details

• Adding more filters can only narrow the pool of players, because the logical operator between filter is AND.
• The filters operate after the data query; it’s the same as the HAVING statement in SQL.
• This isn’t yet available on the combined Scouting + Stats! board.
• You are able to save your stat filters with your custom reports.
• The playing time query is still handled in the main controls, and not with this filter.
• The player ages used are the age-season values we use on player pages and other leaderboards. These can different from the board and RosterResource, which denote the current age of the player to one decimal place.

At long last, FanGraphs Hoodies are back in stock!

Frequently referred to as the “Mike Trout of Hoodies,” the FanGraphs Hoodie features a 52/48-poly/cotton blend and a drawstring that has never gotten lost in my hood.

Get them while you still can.