Introducing On-Pace Leaderboards!
For your amusement (and your amusement only), we’ve put together two on-pace leaderboards.
As some of the season totals you’ll see there will likely make obvious, these leaderboards are a good illustration of why it isn’t great to draw conclusions from small samples.
There are two varieties of on-pace leaderboards available:
- On-Pace Every Game Played (EGP) projects future playing time as if the player will play in every single remaining game this season. For pitchers, it projects starters to pitch every 4.5 days and relievers to pitch every 2.5 days. This is calculated proportional to their current season games started to games played ratio.
- On-Pace Games Played% (GP%) projects playing time as if the player will play in the same percentage of total future team games as they’ve already played in this season. For instance, if a player has played in five of their team’s 10 total games, we would project them to play in 76 future games.
Needless to say, neither of these attempts to project future playing time is any good, but that’s fine! These aren’t intended to be smart — they’re just dumb on-pace metrics that we should all know have no basis in reality at this point in the season.
If you are interested in forecasting what a player’s actual end of season stats might be, I suggest taking a look at either the Steamer (Update) or ZiPS (Update) projections. These projections add together a player’s existing stats and Rest of Season (RoS) projections for a much more realistic look at what a player’s end of season stats might actually be.
Enjoy!
David Appelman is the creator of FanGraphs.
Excellent addition! Please make sure to add these two selections to the “Projections” hover menu at the top of the page.
I Sooooo disagree. These are a waste of Fangraphs. Big Time waste.
Robert was positively delighted when NotGraphs went by the wayside…
Note that these are not predictions. They represent player statistics for the rest of the season if they play in all remaining matches *. It’s really not how the player will behave until the end of the season and should not be used for anything but your personal entertainment.
*Beginners throw every 4.5 days, and lighter ones throw every 2.5 days.
Big Time Waste!?! These were probably trivial to add relative to the rest of the stuff this site offers.
OMG this is exactly what I needed today.
In case you’re wondering, Danny Jansen is on pace to hit 103 homers and put up 22.1 wins. But Franmil Reyes is on pace to hit 0 homers and put up -8.7 wins. There are players on pace to be worse than Reyes, but if you run Lucius Fox out there for 500 PAs you get what you deserve.
On the pitching side, I am thrilled to report that Nestor Cortes is going to put up 11.4 fWAR but win (and lose) zero games. Spencer Howard is going to put up -10.8 fWAR but lose (and win) zero games.
Also, Tyler Anderson is gonna put up an 8.3 win season, mostly because of the awesome 250 innings he’s going to pitch. Myles Straw is going to put up 11.1 wins, thanks to a back-breaking 792 PAs.
I’m especially appreciative of Jansen’s BB/K ratio. Lookin’ good, Danny!
Counting the first game of today’s doubleheader, Jose Ramirez is now on pace for 308 RBIs, hitting directly in front of Reyes. So much for lineup protection!
He hit a grand slam yesterday and his projection fell.
I love these leader boards.
🙂
792 PAs is “back-breaking”??? Pffffftttt!!!
Thank you Appelman, very cool!
These leaderboards just highlight how absurd some of the actual all-time great seasons were. There’s only a handful of players that are on pace to get into the 12-15 WAR range, and there’s basically no chance that any of them are ever able to sustain it for 10× the amount of games they’ve currently played.
Nice to see Lindor bouncing back with a 12 WAR season.
Where’s all the “it’s a terrible contract” people now? Huh?
Shockingly, Lindor is the only guy on pace for a 40-40 season.
Great Feature.
Would be great to have a way to sort by things like last 30 days. This would allow a window into a set period of time with a compartment of data. Imagine middle of the season and not only include the full season.
Who doesn’t want to see Daz Cameron steal 133 bases in 459 PA with zero base hits?
I’m looking forward to Jason Vosler getting caught 77 times
Vosler is fun, but I want to see Pujols go 0 for 32 in SB attempts.
All for a negative WAR!
Most of these early paces are unsustainable of course…but Joey Gallo’s prorated strikeouts are probably about right!
Eovaldi gonna post a 3.8 RA9-WAR while allowing 74 dingers!
I enjoy Luis Robert’s 36 HR/90 SB season amounting to a whopping 2.5 WAR, thanks to the awful .216 OBP.
I feel for Jake Brentz – a hard-luck 0-36 despite 15 K/9.
(I guess 15 BB/9 doesn’t help matters.)
Meanwhile Adam Cimber’s sterling 44-0 season contributes a grand total of 0.3 WAR. HOW WILL THE CY YOUNG VOTERS HANDLE THIS
Nice to see Albert Pujols back to putting out a high WAR again
Why wouldn’t this be the ultimate way to judge players? 12 games > 162 games
Hey it’s good enough to decide the WS. I don’t see an issue here
I love this because it shows Danny Jansen as the best player in the league and I can never be convinced otherwise again.
Well, I see that everyone’s “Bring Back NotGraphs” comments over the years have finally had a real effect. Bravo.
The kinda weird thing to me is the projected leader for hits is only about 50 ahead of the season record.
Dallas Keuchel is on pace to give up 80 runs today…assuming the Guardians don’t need their last at bats
This is an *amazing* feature! Thanks!
FWIW, I’m dying at the thought of David Fletcher only successfully getting a hit if there’s exactly one runner on, and that hit is always a triple. Never gets a hit otherwise, but somehow only manages to strike out exactly 31 times.
Mike Trout is on pace to have yet another 9-win season (yawwwnnnn…….).
However, he’s only on pace for 53 RBI for the season. Does he stand a chance against Connor Wong and his 152 RBI pace in the race for AL MVP?
Zero hits, zero walks, zero strikeouts, and 152 RBIs. I’m guessing an absolutely wicked number of sac flies.
Don’t forget the -8.8 WAR.
Hey, and his RBI (singular) was the game winning go-ahead run. He’s a lock for the MVP if he can just stay in the lineup and keep that up.
Jazz Chishom is in line for the first ever 40-40-40 season. 40 doubles, 40 triples, and 40 home runs.
(pretty sure that would also set a new record for triples, since the next highest one I could find was Chief Wilson who had 36 in 1912. Since 1951, the highest number was Curtis Granderson with 23 in 2007)
Tell me there’s a video montage of Granderson’s 23 triples.
Not of that season, but if you google Curtis Granderson triples reel, you’ll get something that I think spans his Tigers career.
David Appelman: David Fletcher is on-pace to only get 31 hits this year.
Homer: That’s bad!
David Appelman: But every one of his hits will be a triple.
Homer: That’s good!
David Appelman: None of those triples will result in him scoring a run.
Homer: That’s bad!
David Appelman: He’s also on-pace for 0 caught stealing.
Homer: That’s good!
David Appelman: The 0 caught stealing is due to 0 stolen base attempts because he only got on base 31 times the entire year and each time was a triple where he didn’t score.
Homer:
David Appelman: That’s bad.
Homer: Can I get Notgraphs back now?
Love this! But when I export to Excel, the name column is blank for me. That an error on my end?
Note this article is dated 4/20. “Pretty pretty good.” April 1st would have been too obvious.
Especially since the season had not even started on the 1st.
TJ Friedl on pace for -13.5 WAR. I say he gets there.
I know you say not to treat these as projections, but the prospect of Austin Allen getting hit by 76 pitches this season is enough for me to ignore your advice.
I would rather be able to print out audio chats to read at leisure than this new addition.