Archive for Site News

WAR Graphs Update!

The WAR Graphs section has received an update that now makes it possible to create graphs for as many players as you like, instead of the previous limit of four.


Source: FanGraphsJeff Bagwell, Albert Pujols, Mark Teixeira

In addition, the graphs are now interactive, allowing you to see the numbers behind the graph if you want to scroll over them.

And finally, if you’re a blogger and you’re interested in using WAR Graphs on your site, they can be easily embedded:

The difference between “Embed” and “Embed (Static)” is that if you choose the static option, the data behind the chart will not change. If you choose “Embed”, it will always be updated with the latest data from FanGraphs.


Custom Leaderboards!

This past weekend the leaderboards got a slight overhaul in appearance and bunch of new features. Look below the stats table in the leaderboards for the customization options.

Custom Stat Lists: Choose which stats you want to see in the leaderboards, just like you can in the player pages dashboard.

Custom Players Lists: Choose only the players you want to see and easily compare any stat between a select group of players.

Custom Reports: Save your current leaderboard as a report for quick access to your custom stats lists and stat lists.

League Stats: Easily see league/season totals for every single year in baseball.

Streamlined Leaderboards & Team Pages: The functionality in the team pages is now available to you in the leaderboards section. Filter by team or see team totals by season. Soon the team sections will just take you to the appropriate leaderboard.

Split Teams: Breakout players who played on multiple teams by giving them two (or more) entries instead of grouping their stats together for a single season.


Crowdsourcing: Stadium Shadows

A couple days ago, Tom Tango, did a study to show how hitters produced at different times of the day. One possible problem with the data is that shadows from the stadium could be skewing the data. We would like to know if at any time of the day there is a shadow between the pitcher and the hitter and from what time to what time does the shadow stay between the two combatants. Finally, if any one knows the information on any closed stadium, that information would be helpful.

With this information, it can be seen if the shadow has an effect on the hitter-pitcher match-up. I would expect the number of strikeouts to increase as the batter would have a harder time picking up the ball, but it would be nice to put a number to the theory. Thanks for your time and I am sure someone will jump right in for the data on Tropicana Field.


The Community Blog Lives!

Since its inception in May of 2010, the Community Blog has (a) provided a space for some excellent work by the FanGraphs readership but also (b) occasionally fallen through the editorial cracks (and not in the gross way that you’re imagining).

After some serious-type conversations and more than one fistfight, however, we believe that we’ve established a sustainable way of reviewing submissions in a timely and efficient manner. Today, for example, we’ve published James Lewis’s article proposing a totally creative and equally unlikely solution to the Cardinals’ shortstop hole (again, not disgusting).

Please acquaint yourself with the guidelines for submission if you’re interested. Ready to submit a post? You can do that here with your FanGraphs user name (register here, if you don’t have one yet). Already published an article somewhere? Feel free to cross-post.

We’re looking forward to your submissions.


K% & BB% for Pitchers

K% and BB% for pitchers have been added to the player pages and leaderboards in the “Advanced” sections.

They are both calculated using Total Batters Faced. SO/TBF and BB/TBF.


K% Change

Due to popular demand and to decrease general confusion, K% has been changed from K/AB to K/PA.

On average, you’ll see players’ K% drop about 2% and, at the very most (rare cases like Adam Dunn), about 6%.

This is a site-wide change and impacts stats pages, splits, leaderboards, and graphs that contain K%.


Updated Menu Bar

Last night we rolled out some changes to the menu bar in an attempt to improve navigation on the site:

If there’s something that you would like to have quicker access to, that isn’t already in the menu bar, please let us know!

If you don’t see the menus correctly, please hit refresh on your browser.


FanGraphs T-Shirts for Sale!


The t-shirts actually look like this!

Last year during our very first FanGraphs Event, we gave out FanGraphs t-shirts to everyone who attended and up until this day, those were the only FanGraphs t-shirts that were let loose into the world! Turns out we had some left over, and now we’re selling them for $19.99 each, which includes shipping and handling.

For you t-shirt aficionados, they are Fruit of the Loom brand, 100% cotton, and actually fit quite nice. They come in navy blue, and white. The supply of these is fairly limited, and some of the white ones are out of stock. If there’s demand, maybe we’ll make another batch.

They’re on sale now!


Ultimate Base Running (UBR)

I’m pleased to announce that FanGraphs is now carrying a comprehensive base running stat: Mitchel Lichtman’s Ultimate Base Running (UBR).

UBR is now being included in WAR for years where UBR is available (2002-2011).

Though 95% of all players will have their WAR changed less than .4 wins in any particular season and less than 1.3 wins over their careers, we feel that the inclusion of UBR in WAR will help properly credit/debit players who truly excel or are particularly awful on the base paths.

UBR is available under “Bsr” or “Base Running” in the player pages and leaderboards.

Here’s an excerpt from the UBR primer that we’ll be posting later today:

Base running linear weights or base running runs, or Ultimate Base Running (UBR), is similar to the outfield arm portion of UZR. Whatever credit (positive or negative) is given to an outfielder based on a runner hold, advance, or kill on a batted ball is also given in reverse to the runner (or runners). There are some plays that a runner is given credit (again plus or minus) for that do not involve an outfielder, such as being safe or out going from first to second on a ground ball to the infield, or advancing, remaining, or being thrown out going from second to third on a ground ball to SS or 3B.

Runs are awarded to base runners in the same way they are rewarded to outfielders on “arm” plays. The average run value in terms of the base/out state is subtracted from the actual run value (also in terms of the resultant base/out state) on a particular play where a base runner is involved. The result of the subtraction is the run value awarded to the base runner on that play.


Rookie Leaderboards!

There is now “rookie” filtering in the leaderboards.

The criteria to be a rookie is any season where a player has started the season with fewer than 130 at-bats, and fewer than 50 innings pitched. Roster time is not a factor in these, so there may be the occasional player that show up that is not technically a rookie by MLB standards.

What’s neat is you can combine this with the “Multiple Seasons” feature to get the best rookies of any decade (or any time period really). For instance, here are the top rookie seasons by pitcher WAR since 1980.

And here are the top rookie seasons by batter WAR from 2000 to 2009.

It’s worth noting that if you don’t check the “split season” box, it will combine all a player’s seasons when they were rookie eligible and it will not “split out” the seasons.

Anyway, there’s lots of neat ways to filter this data and please let us know if you run into any bugs.