There’s a new section in the batting player pages which does the job of calculating a player’s runs over replacement and wins over replacement. Major thanks goes to Dave Cameron, Sean Smith, and Tangotiger for instructing me on the best way to do this.

Under each “Value” section you’ll find:

Batting – wRAA (Runs Above Average) with a park adjustment.
Fielding – The sum of a player’s UZR.
Replacement – The replacement level adjustment set at 20 Runs / 600 PA.
Positional – The positional adjustment set using Tangotiger’s values (see this link)
Value Runs – The sum of Batting, Fielding, Replacement, and Positional.
Value Wins – Value Runs converted to a wins scale.
Dollars – Value Wins converted to the following dollar scale:

2002 – $2.6m / win
2003 – $2.8m / win
2004 – $3.1m / win
2005 – $3.4m / win
2006 – $3.7m / win
2007 – $4.1m / win
2008 – $4.5m / win

This will all eventually be in the leaderboards and team pages, probably later this week.

We will occasionally be making some updates to the UZR data on FanGraphs over the next couple months thanks to some improvements in methodology that Mitchel Lichtman (mgl) has been working on!

While there will be no drastic changes in the UZR data, just wanted to make it clear to everyone that the numbers won’t be completely finalized until just before the start of next season.

We will of course keep you informed when the updates do occur.

There’s been a bunch of requests for a Firefox search plugin so here it is!

FanGraphs Search Plugin for Firefox and IE7

Just go to the link, click on “FanGraphs Player Search” and you’ll now have an option in your search box to search for FanGraphs players right in your browser.

Another useful tool for writers that I haven’t mentioned in a while and incidentally has no link anywhere on the site is the FanGraphs Player Linker. Just copy and paste the text of your post into the linker, hit the “Link Players Now!” button, and all player names will be linked. Players with the same name won’t link but other than that it will link both major and minor league players.

Tonight we’ve completed the phasing out of Runs Created (RC) and Runs Created per 27 Outs (RC/27). In their place you will find two run stats based off wOBA, which is a sounder metric than the previously used Runs Created.

Big thanks to Tangotiger for both creating the stats and walking me through how to calculate them correctly!

wRC – This is total runs created based of wOBA. It is calculated as (((wOBA – lgwOBA) / wOBAScale) + (lgR/PA)) * PA

wRAA – This is the number of runs above average based off wOBA. It is calculated as (wOBA – lgwOBA) / wOBAScale * PA

wOBAScale is typically around 1.15, but changes slightly from year to year depending on the weights used in wOBA.

Also, the previously named BRAA has been renamed to RE24 to clarify that it is based off the 24 base/out states.

I’m pleased to announce that UZR (ultimate zone ratings) stats are now available on FanGraphs!

This would of course not be possible without MGL (Mitchel Lichtman), and I’m extremely grateful that he allowed us to use his fielding model. He’s put in a tremendous amount of work getting the stats ready for use on FanGraphs and I really can’t thank him enough.

Unlike other versions of UZR, the ones that appear on FanGraphs use Baseball Info Solutions location data instead of STATS location data. Also, this UZR data does not currently include outfield arms and double plays are treated as regular outs. Here are the definitions for all the UZR stats available:

DG (defensive games): The number of outs made by an average fielder at his position given the exact distribution of balls in play for that player divided by the number of outs an average player at that position makes per game.

exO (expected outs): The number of outs plus reached base errors that would be made by an average fielder given the distribution of balls in play while that fielder was on the field.

RngR (range runs): The number of runs above or below average a fielder is, determined by how the fielder is able to get to balls hit in his vicinity.

ErrR (error runs): The number of runs above or below average a fielder is, determined by the number of errors he makes as compared to an average fielder at that position given the same distribution of balls in play.

UZR (ultimate zone rating): The number of runs above or below average a fielder is in both range runs and error runs combined.

UZR/150 (ultimate zone rate per 150 games): The number of runs above or below average a fielder is, per 150 defensive games.

The UZR stats can be found in the fielding section on the player pages or in the fielding section on the leaderboards. Later this week I’ll have them integrated into the team sections. Additionally, the plan is to update these stats at least weekly during the 2009 season.

Update: The team pages now have fielding data too!

Our search bar at the top has changed a little bit. You now have the option to search all the blog entries written by our writers! Here’s an example search for Carlos Beltran. Searching players is still the default.

Also RotoGraphs, our fantasy baseball blog has been integrated into the blog page which lists all the blog entries by day. You can see still see only the FanGraphs blog or the RotoGraphs blog if you wanted.

The statistic wOBA (weight on base average) is now available in the player pages, leaderboards, team pages, my team pages, and the projections.

wOBA, created by Tom Tango, is a version of linear weights that has been weighted to fit an OBP scale. The weights have been properly adjusted by season and for the minor leagues by season and by league. For more information about wOBA, check out the links below:

Weighted On Base Average or wOBA
wOBA year-by-year calculations
Getting to Know wOBA

The new My Team feature now lets you view your team’s projections. Just click on the “My Projections” link right next to the “My Team” link when you’re logged in and you’ll see the 2009 projections for any player that is on your team, assuming the projection is available.

Just like the My Team feature, you can share your My Team projections with anyone you like by just giving them the web address. For example: Here are the 2009 projections for my fantasy team last year.

To get a customized projection list all you need to do is register and start adding players!

I promise, you won’t hear about this again.

I’ve been nominated for a $10,000 scholarship thanks to the writing I’ve done over at USSMariner.com, which is strangely decided by popular vote. I’m in second place, about 700 votes behind the leader, who has leaned heavily on Daily Kos for his votes. The fact that I’m still without shouting distance after their full court press for him is pretty remarkable.

Anyway, voting closes tonight at 3 AM EST, so if you’re so inclined to vote for me, you can do so now. I probably need 3,000 to 4,000 votes today to overtake the current leader, so every vote counts.

Thanks for your support.

Tom Tango has released the official 2009 Marcel the Monkey projections. They’re available here on FanGraphs in both the sortable variety and in all the player pages too!

Here’s exactly what they are:

“[Marcels] is the most basic forecasting system you can have, that uses as little intelligence as possible. So, that’s the allusion to the monkey. It uses 3 years of MLB data, with the most recent data weighted heavier. It regresses towards the mean. And it has an age factor.”