With Opening Day around the corner, I wanted to update our readers on the current state of the site and make a few Membership announcements. This time last year, we weren’t sure if FanGraphs was going to last another two months, let alone survive long enough to see the start of the 2021 season. The pandemic fast-tracked what was supposed to be a much slower shift in our business model from advertising to Membership, and because of this, we are more reliant on your support than ever. So first things first: thank you! I can say with complete certainty that we would not be here without you; our readers and members literally make FanGraphs possible.

And your support hasn’t just kept us afloat; it’s helped us build a better FanGraphs. Over the past year, we’ve added a lot of new content and features to the site. We’ve incorporated Statcast stats into our player pages and leaderboards and new game and season stat aggregation capabilities to our player page dashboards. We now have KBO stats on the site, an offering we plan to expand this season. We’ve updated our auction calculator and implemented new RosterResource features. We’ve invested in behind-the-scenes improvements to make site features better and easier to use. Today, we announced a number of new contributor voices at FanGraphs and will do so at RotoGraphs soon. And as an exclusive benefit for our Members, you can now view the site in Dark mode and Classic mode.

Tuesday is the start of what is now a very important month for the site. On March 30, 2020, we asked for your help in weathering the pandemic. As such, a significant portion of our Membership base is up for renewal in the coming weeks. If you’re an existing Member and have stuck with us through the last year, we hope that you will continue to support what we do here at FanGraphs. If you’re not a Member, we hope you’ll become one. It’s the best way to support all of the content and tools you rely on to help you enjoy the baseball season, and ensure we can keep improving the site. Read the rest of this entry »

The latest addition to our RosterResource collection at FanGraphs is the Closer Depth Chart. While it is not quite the finished product yet — we will be adding filters and sorting capability in the near future and also welcome any feedback or suggestions you have — this version has plenty of relevant information on one page.

What information is included?

Many teams either use a closer committee or do not name a closer, leaving us to make assumptions about who their closer is. As such, there are as many as six pitchers listed for each team, as well as any notable relievers on the Injured List or Restricted List. With the information provided, we can make an educated guess about who could get a save chance on a particular day. On the report, you’ll see the following:

• THR: Left (L) or Right (R) handed.
• Projected Role: Closer, Closer Committee, Co-Closer, Setup Man, Middle Reliever, Injured List, Restricted List.
• Pitcher Usage: Last six days of usage, including pitch count, save (Sv), hold (H), blown save (BS), win (W), loss (L), Injured List (IL), Injured/Active (Inj), and Alternate Site/Minors (AAA).
• 2021 Stats: vFA (fastball velocity), vSI (sinker or cutter velocity), appearances, innings pitched, ERA, saves, holds, K/9, and K%.
• Tags (listed next to the player’s name): Unavailable (black square), High Usage Alert (blue square), On The Hot Seat (red square), Reliever On The Rise (green upward pointing arrow).

“Unavailable” means that a pitcher has officially been ruled out of pitching out of the bullpen on that day due to injury, workload, or being named as the “opener” or spot starter.

“High Usage Alert” means that a reliever is coming off a 20-plus pitch day, or pitching on at least two consecutive days or three out of four days. It doesn’t mean that a pitcher has been ruled out for that particular day.

“On The Hot Seat” means that a closer or high-profile setup man could be in danger of being demoted from their current role due to poor performance.

“Reliever On The Rise” means that a pitcher is performing at a high level and is likely moving up the bullpen hierarchy.

How often is the closer depth chart updated?

Updates on projected roles are often made in real-time while games are still in progress. Others are made after an injury or a bullpen-related comment by a manager.

Tags and bullpen usage are updated each morning before any games are played.

What Additions Will Be Made?

Filters and sorting capability are the main features we plan to add in the near future. This will allow readers to view only closers or “Relievers On The Rise,” for example, or remove all closers with a “High Usage Alert.” We will also be adding an extra column with each team’s opponent for that day.

Anything else we add or change will be a result of reader feedback and suggestions. Please use the comment section to let us know what you like or dislike about the Closer Depth Chart, and what other information you’d like to see.

Over the past week, we’ve added xBA, xSLG, xwOBA and xERA to our player pages. Now these Statcast stats are on the leaderboards, too!

One important thing to note is that these stats are only available as full-season for the time being. That means there are a number of instances where they will be blank to avoid presenting inaccurate data. Here are the main cases for which these stats will not display:

• If a player changes teams mid-season, and you want to see these stats for his time with only one of his teams.
• If a pitchers pitches as both a starter and reliever, and you want to see these stats for his innings or games in only one of those roles.
• Anything that isn’t player-specific, such as team totals or league totals.
• Multi-season aggregates.

We’ve added Statcast’s xERA to our player pages, in the same way we added xwOBA, xBA, and xSLG last week!

xERA uses exit velocity, launch angle, and sprint speed on “topped” or “weakly hit” balls to model what a player’s ERA would look like based on the underlying characteristics of the balls in play.

Additionally, xERA has been added to the player page dashboard, and EV has been replaced with average fastball velocity (vFA).

In January, we put out an open call for contributing writers. The response we received was overwhelming. We are very grateful that so many smart, passionate baseball writers wanted to be a part of what we do here. It made for some really difficult decisions (and a rather long hiring process), but we are very excited to welcome some talented new voices to our ranks.

A quick note to those who applied but weren’t hired: please keep writing. A number of people who have worked for the site weren’t hired on their first go, but kept getting reps elsewhere on their way to making us regret having passed them by initially. Just because there wasn’t a home for you at FanGraphs this time around doesn’t mean that there won’t be one later, and in the meantime, public baseball analysis will be made better by your good words and good work.

And so, without further ado, allow me to introduce the writers whose work will soon be debuting here at the site. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve added a handful of new stats to the site. These include the following Statcast stats, which can be found in the Statcast section of the player pages:

• xwOBA: Expected weighted on-base average
• xBA: Expected batting average
• xSLG: Expected slugging percentage

You can read all about the Statcast “x stats” in the MLB glossary: xwOBA, xBA, xSLG.

These all take exit velocity, launch angle, and sprint speed on “topped” or “weakly hit” balls to model what a player’s corresponding wOBA, AVG, or SLG would look like based on the underlying characteristics of the balls in play. Read the rest of this entry »

There have been a few updates in our ZiPS projections section.

First, we have updated the ZiPS projections for the roughly 300 players in the minor leagues who are in different organizations now than they were when the first run of ZiPS projections went live about six weeks ago. Free agents are still projected as if they were on their most recent team.

Second, the ZiPS three-year projections are now live for everyone in baseball. As usual, these are playing-time agnostic projections; I’m far more interested in a complex set of algorithms estimating a player’s performance than I am in team usage. A projection for a career minor-leaguer of .000/.000/.000 conveys little useful information. I find knowing how a player may perform for a team to have greater utility than a model predicting who front offices and managers will like. ZiPS assumes offensive levels similar to those of the last four years with the most recent years weighted more heavily, and is using the same estimated level of offense for 2022 and 2023 that it does for 2021. It’d be nice to know what effects changes in the ball will have, but as that’s mostly guesswork, ZiPS takes a neutral stance.

The full-season ZiPS comes in two flavors. New this year arethe ZiPS DC projections, which are ZiPS projections already pro-rated for the playing time used in our Depth Charts. Many of you were already manually adjusting ZiPS in this manner, but now it will be done automatically, which should aid in using ZiPS for fantasy purposes.

There are more ZiPS developments in the works. Let us know in the comments what things you’d like to see that I haven’t talked about yet! Our readers frequently have ideas I never thought to do myself and ZiPS has a great deal of flexibility in what it can be manipulated into doing.

FanGraphs Members (both regular and Ad-Free) are now able to toggle between different color themes for the website, allowing us to introduce an official dark mode for the first time!

Read the rest of this entry »

Barring a last-minute decision to push back the start of the 2021 season, we are less than two weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training. And while there are still several notable free agents who have yet to sign and a long list of currently unemployed players who will end up competing for a job in major league camp, we’re close enough that FanGraphs’ Opening Day Roster Tracker could already be quite useful.

Here’s a quick primer on who will be in major league camp, what happens as rosters are pared down to 26 players, and how our tracker can help you keep up between now and Opening Day.

Who Is in Major League Camp?

The full squad is comprised of each team’s full 40-man roster and a group of non-roster invitees (NRI). A non-roster invitee must be added to the 40-man roster if they break camp with the major league club.

What Happens When a Player Is Officially Out of the Running for an Opening Day Roster Spot?

If a player on the 40-man roster does not make the team, they are optioned to the minors; non-roster invitees are reassigned. They will continue to prepare for the upcoming season in minor league camp. This does not, however, completely rule them out from making the Opening Day roster. Circumstances can change, usually because of injuries, and a player can be brought back after being sent down. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s your chance to vote for the 2021 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, and the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America.

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

Read the rest of this entry »