Writing a book is a Herculean task to begin with, and in my inimitable way, I made it even harder when writing my 2017 book on the Hall of Fame, The Cooperstown Casebook, by challenging myself to compose concise 200–250 word summaries of the 220 major league players who were enshrined at that point as well as a few dozen past, present, and future candidates. My goal in doing so was to give the reader a thumbnail guide to these players’ careers while shining some fresh light on even the most familiar ones using advanced statistics. I had no shortage of options, but even so, I wish I had all the tools then that I do now. Here I’d like to highlight one of them as part of our series on useful site features you’ll find at FanGraphs.

Consider the case of Dazzy Vance, a colorful and dominant right-hander who made his name with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1920s and ’30s. Vance was 24 years old when he debuted with the Pirates in 1915, but a variety of arm troubles limited him to just 33 major innings through his age-30 season. Finally pain free after elbow surgery (probably to remove bone chips), he resurfaced with Brooklyn in 1922, and on the strength of his combination of a blazing fastball and a sharp overhand curve “with a sweep that would shame a windmill,” as one writer described it, he led the NL with 134 strikeouts that season, and proceeded to repeat the feat in each of the next six seasons as well. His 262 strikeouts in 1924 was the highest total by any NL pitcher besides Christy Mathewson in the 1901–1960 span, and the highest by any pitcher in either league between the start of the Live Ball era (1920) and the United States’ entry into World War II (1941).

While I had enough confidence in my research to lead Vance’s Casebook capsule with, “Relative to his league, Vance struck out batters at a higher rate than [Nolan] Ryan, [Roger] Clemens, [Pedro] Martinez — any of them…” I worried that by explicitly quantifying his skill in this area that I’d either open myself to error or make even more work for myself, since the temptation was to go into further detail on the subject and perhaps calculate such data for every enshrined pitcher. Little did I know that within a year of the book’s publication that I would not only join the staff of FanGraphs but propose the creation of a leaderboard to tackle such questions with a few easy clicks. Read the rest of this entry »

As David Appelman mentioned in yesterday’s State of the Union, over the next month we’re going to be highlighting some of FanGraphs’ features, sometimes off the beaten path, that can help you have a more productive, entertaining visit to our fair website. Today, I want to highlight some of our custom data options.

There are lots of ways to use FanGraphs, but as an individual of rather numerate inclination, I tend to get a lot of data from the site. I did that back when I was blogging at Baseball Think Factory and writing for ESPN, and I certainly haven’t curtailed that impulse as an employee of FanGraphs. Quite often, it’s simply easier for me to get things directly from the site than to go through my massive hoard of invariably unhelpfully named spreadsheets and databases. And one thing that I use a lot is the custom reports feature. We have so much data all over the site that it’s no simple matter to just get one massive export to rule them all, and in the Dark Mode, bind them. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi everyone!

It’s been almost two years since we talked about how FanGraphs is doing, and with Opening Day fast approaching, I thought it would be a good time to give you an update on where the site stands now. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s your chance to vote for the 2024 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

• R.J. Anderson, “Why Baseball’s Next Unionization Effort Could Come From MLB Front Offices,” CBS Sports, May 1, 2023
• David J. Gordon, “Balancing Starter and Bullpen Workloads in a Seven-Game Postseason Series,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2023
• Hannah Keyser and Zach Crizer, “How the Not-So-Subtle Art of Chucking it Right Down the Middle is Helping MLB Pitchers Get Ahead,” Yahoo! Sports, April 4, 2023
• Eric Longenhagen, “Let’s Get Small: Hundreds of Minor Leaguers Have Shrunk,” FanGraphs, September 29, 2023
• Robert Orr, “Quantifying the Corey Seager Approach,” Baseball Prospectus, November 8, 2023

Contemporary Baseball Commentary

• Michael Baumann, “I Was Supposed to Write About Elly De La Cruz Today,” FanGraphs, June 16, 2023
• Michael Clair, “In the Mountains of the World’s Most Remote Country, Baseball Takes Hold,” MLB.com, August 3, 2023
• Evan Drellich, “MLB’s Billionaire Owners Leaning on Public for Wave of New Ballparks,” The Athletic, September 12, 2023
• Esteban Rivera, “Shohei Ohtani’s Deal With New Balance Has Immense Potential,” FanGraphs, March 13, 2023
• Ginny Searle, “The Wrong Lessons Learned,” Baseball Prospectus, June 16, 2023

Historical Baseball Analysis/Commentary

• Russell A. Carleton, “Is WAR Still Stuck in the 20th Century?” Baseball Prospectus, February 8, 2023
• Stephen Dame, “Softball and Swastikas: The Riot at Toronto’s Christie Pits,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Fall 2023
• Patrick Dubuque, “The Other Aging Curve,” Baseball Prospectus, January 31, 2023
• Sam Miller, “Based On A True Story: The Game’s Most Preposterous Fun Fact,” Pebble Hunting, June 6, 2023
• Dayn Perry, “Old Yankee Stadium’s Rise And Fall: Complete Story of ‘The House That Ruth Built’ 100 Years After Its Opening,” CBS Sports, April 18, 2023

John Dewan Defensive Analytics Award

• Robert Arthur, “The End of the Shift Helped Left-Handed Line Drive Hitters the Most,” Baseball Prospectus, November 7, 2023
• Alex Eisert, “Breaking Down the Kansas Kids’ Gold Glove Snub,” FanGraphs, October 31, 2023
• Jonathan Judge, “Introducing RDA,” Baseball Prospectus, February 8, 2023
• Rob Mains, “Fielding, It Turns Out, Does Slump,” Baseball Prospectus, August 29, 2023
• Mark Simon, “What Has 20 Years of Defensive Runs Saved Data Meant to Baseball?” Sports Info Solutions, February 7, 2023

Voting will be open through 11:59 p.m. MST on Friday, February 9, 2024.

Mobile or Safari users, click here to access the survey

Results will be announced and presented at the SABR Analytics Conference, March 8-10, 2024, in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more or register for the conference at SABR.org/analytics.

The application period for this position is now closed. Thank you for your interest.

FanGraphs is now accepting applications to join our staff as a full-time associate editor.

The associate editor will work with the managing editor and the FanGraphs staff to publish daily baseball analysis and help shape the site’s editorial strategy. From free agent signings to statistical analysis, baseball’s top prospects to in-game strategy, we endeavor to present a holistic view of today’s game to our readers. Familiarity and comfort with advanced statistics is a requirement, as is a firm understanding of the current public research landscape. Just as importantly, we’re looking for an editor who displays good editorial judgment, as well as a talent for helping writers sharpen their ideas and hone their authorial voice. The associate editor will also manage FanGraphs’ social media accounts, and will have the opportunity to contribute written work of their own. Read the rest of this entry »

Postseason stats are now available in our leaderboards!

The leaderboards can be accessed in the Leaders navigation bar, or by using the “Season Type” filter in the leaderboards themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

Our 2024 Free Agent Tracker is now live! There are currently close to 200 players on the list; more will be added following the postseason as decisions are made on 2024 options and teams begin to clear space on their 40-man rosters. The tracker will be regularly updated throughout the offseason as qualifying offers are made and accepted or rejected, and as free agents find their new homes.

You can filter by status (signed/unsigned), previous team, and signing team, and export the data for your own analysis. You can also sort by a player’s handedness, age, and 2023 WAR. Shortly after the postseason ends, projected 2024 WAR will be available, as well as the results of our annual contract crowdsourcing project, which include median contract total, years, and average annual value. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve added a new tool that allows you to see who is projected to win the Cy Young Award.

These Cy Young Projections utilize a simple model created by Tangotiger. The original Cy Young Points model has predicted the top two vote getters with high accuracy through 2020. The FIP Adjusted model may be a better predictor of more recent voting behavior.

Along with current season stats (featuring FIP, WAR, and RA9-WAR), you can also use the top nav bar to toggle over to any of the in-season projection systems we carry to show a player’s projected end-of-season stats.

New data tools and the entire site are supported by our Members. Please consider becoming a FanGraphs Member if you enjoy our work!

Two weeks ago, we updated our Major League Leaderboards. We appreciated all the feedback and feature requests. One of those requests was to add a way to filter by the handedness of the player, and we’ve done just that!

The filter looks at whether the batter is right-handed, left-handed or a switch hitter, and filters on that value. It works the same for pitchers. We even have a switch pitcher filter, although it’s functional for just one player.

Similar to the position player filter, the handedness filter will not create a subset of data. For example, if you select switch-hitters, it will show you their stats from all their plate appearances, regardless of the side of the plate they batted from.

We still have the handedness splits in the “Split” menu, and these splits can be combined with the handedness filter. So you could look at all right-handed pitchers (Handedness Filter) while facing right-handed hitters (Split):

As always if you encounter any issues or bugs, please contact us at support@fangraphs.com.

We just updated the interface for our Major League Leaderboards, enhancing the user experience while retaining the core functionalities.

This updates includes the following refinements:

• Streamlined Control Panel: We’ve reorganized and consolidated common items within the control panel, creating a more intuitive and efficient user interface.
• Leagues Menu Enhancement: Our leagues menu now allows simultaneous filtering across multiple leagues.
• Primary Position Filtering: We’ve taken special care to clarify our position filtering options. The “Primary Position,” exclusively for batters, is determined based on playing time. If a player spends 25% or more of their time at a specific position, they qualify for that position. This encompasses all plate appearances, regardless of the player’s position during the game.
• Positional Splits: Our positional split feature, available for both batters and pitchers, has been refined for seamless usability. This plate appearance-level split function has been repositioned into a more accessible location, improving overall navigation and understandability.
• Modal-Based Custom Reports: We’ve moved the custom reports functionality into user-friendly popup modals. This enhancement ensures a smoother experience when generating custom reports, eliminating the need to navigate to the bottom of the data grid.
• Enhanced Performance: Our commitment to delivering an optimal experience extends to performance enhancements. Page loading times have been optimized for swifter access to data, contributing to a more efficient user journey.
• More Consistent Control Options: We’ve made a decision not to hide unavailable options for different eras and categories. This ensures a more user-friendly interface by minimizing confusion stemming from disappearing choices.

Additionally, we’ve made some quality-of-life features exclusive to FanGraphs Membership:

• CSV Report Downloads: The ability to download reports in CSV format, facilitating seamless data integration with external tools, will continue to be available only to members.
• Custom Stat Headers: For enhanced report customization, members can create a data grid with as many stat headers they want. Non-members are now limited to 10 stat headers.
• Custom Player List: This member-exclusive feature permits access to data for more than 10 players. Non-members are now limited to 10 stat headers.
• Custom Report Saving: Saving the custom reports created from custom stat headers and custom player lists is now a member-exclusive feature.

Regardless of membership status, your older reports made on the previous leaderboards will remain accessible and compatible with the revamped interface. Additionally, for users with specific needs or dependencies on the legacy version, we’ve retained an older version of our leaderboards. You can find more information here. The legacy version of the leadersboards will be maintained until at least the conclusion of the 2023 season.

Thank you for being a part of this exciting evolution in our leaderboards experience. If you encounter any issues or bugs, please contact us at support@fangraphs.com. Your valued feedback and continued support drive us to deliver the best possible tools for your analytical needs.