Our boxscores just got a major overhaul after being neglected for several years! Here’s what’s new:

– The Game Graphs, Play Log, and Box Score sections were merged into one single page.

– Almost every FanGraphs stat is available in the boxscore both on the individual player level and team total level. Every stat comes in its own familiar section, just as they’re laid out on the player pages and leaderboards.

– Each section is fully sortable with much improved sorting performance.

– Each stat can be hovered over for a tooltip style quick definition.

– Stars of the Game voting and viewing can be conducted on the boxscore page. Please remember to vote!

All the new boxscores are available for both live games and any game dating back to 1974.

Big thanks to Amazin’ Avenue for thoroughly trashing our previous boxscore layout.

It seems like everything is working properly with the 2011 stats, with the exception of a lot of negative FIP values. That’s what happens when you only have six MLB games and the FIP constant is 1.72. If you see anything else that doesn’t look right, please let me know!

Daily data loads from here on out should be complete by 5am every morning.

Last night I rolled out ERA-, FIP-, and xFIP- to the site. These are all park and league adjusted and basically your pitching equivalent of wRC+, except that lower is better, with 100 still being average.

You can read more about ERA- (or as it’s called in the article, aERA) here.

These are now available in all the player pages and leaderboards.

One other quick addition was adding Shutdowns (SD) and Meltdowns (MD) to the player pages.

I made a change last night to xFIP that adjusts the major league HR/FB rate on a seasonal basis. Previously, the average was set at 10.5%. In recent years the average HR/FB has been somewhat lower than 10.5%, which is what prompted the change.

2007 – 9.7%
2008 – 10.1%
2009 – 10.1%
2010 – 9.4%

Overall a player’s 2010 xFIP will tend to be a little bit lower, at most around 0.20 runs, but generally more in the 0.05 to 0.10 range.

This year’s latest ZiPS projections, courtesy of Dan Szymborski of Baseball Think Factory are now live in the player pages (you’re welcome, Carson) and the sortable projection sections.

If you’d prefer them in excel format you can download the full spreadsheet here.

We’ll be updating these every day of the 2011 season, as usual!

I’ve added a place on the player pages where you can leave a comment or have a threaded discussion about a particular player. You can log in using pretty much whichever service you want (twitter, facebook, google, etc…), or continue to comment anonymously.

We tried something like this a couple years ago for a short amount of time and it didn’t work out too well, but I think it’s worth trying again.

The comments section is at the very bottom of the page (with a link at the top of the page showing how many comments there are) so it doesn’t get in the way of your stats browsing.

These days it’s common place to look at multiple defensive metrics to try and get a good grasp of a player’s defensive value. On FanGraphs we even carry four different defensive metrics that include Mitchel Lichtman’s UZR, Sean Smith’s Total Zone (with Location), John Dewan’s DRS, and Tangotiger’s Fan’s Scouting Report.

All of them have different methodologies and the four rely on three different data sources.

To make comparing the four easier, there is now a new stats table on the player pages called “Aggregate Defensive Ratings” (ADR), where the UZR, DRS, TZL, and FSR are given a weighted average and there’s even a standard deviation and standard error given for the sample of four defensive metrics.

The general weighting is 1/3/3/3 for FSR/UZR/TZL/DRS. For years where FSR is not available, UZR, DRS, and TZL are weighted evenly. Only players with more than 50 innings played at a position are included in ADR.

ADR stats are available in all the player pages and will be making their way to the leaderboards soon.

I’m pleased to announce that the 2011 Second Opinion is now available for purchase!

The product is now available both as a PDF with additional online integration!

Here’s the rundown:

Player Profiles – Almost 600 (598) in-depth player profiles written by the FanGraphs and RotoGraphs contributors you’re already familiar with.

Articles – Closer situations, players coming back from injuries, sophomore players to watch, 2011 fantasy prospects, impact trades, the big questions for 2011, and Carson’s non-prospect rookie picks!.

Quick Opinions – New for this year’s Second Opinion is a short one to two sentence profile that give you the bottom line about a player. These are also integrated into our various projection pages so you can quickly get more information about a player.

Player Page Integration – Each player’s profiles is integrated into his player page so you can easily read about the player as you’re browsing his stats.

Bonus Material – FanGraphs has partnerned with ESPN Insider this season and if you purchase the Second Opinion, you’ll have access to anything we write for ESPN Insider right here on FanGraphs.com up until March 1st, 2012.

2010 Second Opinion – In addition to all that, regardless if you bought the 2010 Second Opinion, you still get access to the now obsolete 2010 Second Opinion’s content in the player pages and in the bonus blog.

One of the coolest things about ottoneu Fantasy Baseball is that it is a game that runs all year.  Plenty of other fantasy baseball league sites will shut down once the MLB regular season is over, but at ottoneu that is where the fun begins.

Arbitration

As soon as the MLB regular season is over and a league winner is crowned, owners have to begin evaluating rosters for next season.  The first step is to send players to arbitration, a unique ottoneu experience that helps both long-term competitive balance and represents player interests.  Each owner can vote to determine who they believe is the lowest paid, highest production player on each team.  These players by definition are being paid too little, and deserve the opportunity to go back to auction to receive a more fair salary. 

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m very pleased to announce that FanGraphs has partnered with ottoneu, Inc. to bring you an auction-based, dynasty league, fantasy game.

Our fantasy game is not your standard customizable commissioner service, but is a very specific game, where you manage a roster of 40 Major and Minor League players with a budget of $400 against 11 other teams. There are currently three different scoring options: 4×4, 5×5, and points-based. You can read more about the specific rules here.

One of the exciting things about bringing a fantasy game to FanGraphs is integration. Have you ever wanted to find free agents in your league using the FanGraphs leaderboards? Now you can.

Information about your fantasy leagues will be available in the FanGraphs player cards and elsewhere on the site, making your fantasy baseball research easier and more in depth than ever.

This season, up until March 1st, each team is discounted to $9.99 from the regular price of $19.99. The first 100 people to sign up will get one free team for the 2011 season, with their money refunded to them in 48 hours.

Signups are available now. Just click here and create/join a league.

We’re very excited about this fantasy game and think that once you start playing, you’ll understand why. Niv Shah, the creator of the game, will be sharing his experiences with the game format later today.