An Exciting Update to Our Leaderboards

Comfortable new characteristic week, everybody. In simply 24 hours, BP’s participant pages can have gotten a facelift, with some cool new options and visualizations. There aren’t as many colourful graphics within the guts of the machine, however for these desirous about wading into the depths of our sortable leaderboards, there’s a wealth of cool adjustments and new metrics, a few of which you gained’t have the ability to discover anyplace else. You’ll discover all of them below the Statistics tab of the highest header bar. 

Let’s take a fast tour of what’s already there, accessible to everybody, and what’s new.

Filters

Some of the consequential updates to the leaderboards is the growth of our filters. Prior to now you possibly can slice the info a number of methods, proscribing minimal plate appearances, deciding on particular groups and positions and leagues. We’ve expanded that in a number of methods, offering far higher management on the way you divide plate appearances, permitting you to pick your individual minimal and most bands. The identical goes for date ranges: Now you can choose particular months or particular dates, which means that our outdated team-level month-to-month splits at the moment are simply baked into the principle leaderboard moderately than dwelling in their very own little area. 

BP’s leaderboards all the time had minor-league information included, so you possibly can type the perfect hitters and pitchers in Triple-A all the way down to the rookie and winter leagues. However one other enjoyable new characteristic is you can group leaderboards by group and stage, which means it’s very simple to gather the statistics of all of a crew’s minor leaguers in a single listing, utilizing the Dad or mum Org filter. Combining that with the date ranges may give you an immediate have a look at how your crew’s farm has fared previously week, or month. And our leaderboards have all the time included seasonal age, a helpful characteristic, however now come outfitted with an age filter, so you possibly can try how the youngsters are doing, or the 40+ membership. (Not nice, on that final one.)

Hitting Tabs

Proper up entrance, you’ll discover (or chances are you’ll not discover, however recognize) that we’ve cleaned up and reorganized the group of our statistics. That is evident on the abstract tab, the place we’ve divided the essential statistical info for every participant in a readable method. My favourite a part of the abstract tab for hitters is the final 4 columns: DRC+, BRR, DRP, and WARP, which provides up all of the contributions of a participant into their ultimate sum. 

Tucked in the usual tab, which has all the same old counting stats you’d count on, is an outdated chestnut: Guillen Quantity. This one is for the team-level filter, and tells you what number of of a crew’s runs arrived by means of homers. Main the pack final yr, naturally, had been the Oakland Athletics, who scored 49% of their runs on the backs of dingers.

One huge change is that the outdated Deserved tab has been break up into two: Deserved Totals and Deserved Charges. If you happen to ever marvel why a hitter’s DRC+ doesn’t match his OPS+, that is the place to go. Take, for instance, José Caballero, who’s hitting the stuffing out of the ball (150 OPS+), besides that, properly, he isn’t: As an alternative of a .300/.404/.500 line heading into Thursday’s contest, DRC+ charges his efficiency as incomes a .203/.300/.306 slash line. 

This information is mirrored on the participant pages as properly, however now you possibly can see a direct comparability between a participant’s “noticed” output (what they’ve carried out) and what DRC+ believes ought to have been their “deserved” output, primarily based on the facets of their efficiency below their management. Let’s simply say that Caballero’s hit totals embody a pop-fly bunt that landed in no-man’s land, three additional base hits narrowly in honest territory, and a bunch of shallow fly balls that the outfielders gave up on two steps quick, and doubtless shouldn’t have. The Deserved Totals tab provides you the counting stats, whereas the Deserved Charges tab supplies not solely the triple slash however the charges of all the most important outcomes. 

The Plate Self-discipline tab hasn’t modified a lot—it was already one in all our latest information sources, together with not solely the same old batting eye charges but additionally CSAA (the speed of referred to as strikes a batter sees above common) and the helpful whiff price in opposition to pitch teams, so you possibly can see who swings by means of essentially the most fastballs or sliders. However the huge addition, and one that ought to make quite a lot of of us completely happy, is the incorporation of SEAGER, our metric for quantifying swing choices not simply on dangerous pitches, but additionally on the great ones. 

Lastly, the Batted Ball tab will get a bunch of recent columns. A private favourite of mine, SLGCON (slugging proportion on contact) joins BABIP. However most likely essentially the most consideration will go to the inclusion of exit velocity and launch angle, together with the all the time helpful ninetieth percentile EV, which supplies you a clearer indication of how arduous a batter hits it when he hits it properly, by ignoring the fluke max outcome in addition to the plethora of mis-hits that might be outs whether or not they had been going 70 or 85 mph. 

Pitching Tabs

The pitching tabs have seen an equal quantity of cleanup, with one small however priceless addition on the abstract tab within the type of HR% subsequent to Ok% and BB%. It’s an necessary stat and surprisingly tough to trace down, notably on a leaderboard: Don’t settle for HR/9 in its place. ERA, RA9, and DRA are all lined up collectively for straightforward reference, since DRA scales in opposition to RA9 and never ERA, one thing folks are inclined to overlook. DRA- and WARP have been moved to the far proper aspect, the place abstract stats belong. As with the hitters, hurlers’ deserved stats have been damaged out into two tabs and expanded; it’s notably good to see noticed and deserved strikeout and stroll charges aspect by aspect.

The pitch element tab is unquestionably simpler to learn now, with the 4 pitch teams (fastball, slider, changeup, curveball) clearly demarcated. We’ve additionally added the whiff charges for every group subsequent to every pitcher, so you possibly can type by utilization price, velocity, or bat-missing skill. The plate self-discipline tab is basically unaffected, however does embody a stat that’s arduous to search out on most leaderboards in PutAway%, the speed at which a pitcher data strike three after reaching strike two. Exit velocity and common launch angle figures are additionally accessible for pitchers to type. And at last, we’ve added good outdated SLGCON to the batted ball tab for pitchers as properly, as a result of extra folks must be utilizing SLGCON. It’s a great stat.

Fielding Tabs

Let’s face it: the fielding leaderboards don’t get the identical quantity of affection that pitching and hitting do. Fielding stats are sometimes unintuitive, and argue with different fielding stats. We’ve tried to each add new numbers whereas concurrently simplifying the method, by utilizing sections to interrupt defensive worth down into its parts. 

Ranging from the precise, you could have the overall worth stat, DRP. Shifting left you’ll discover the three main branches of defensive worth that move into that ultimate rating: vary (RDA), arm (THR), and catcher protection (CDA). The latter is difficult and will get its personal tab, the identical method catchers get their very own little stat containers within the participant feedback within the Annual. However then transferring farther left you get much more of a breakdown on the primary two. For my functions, RDA, THR and CDA are what I exploit, however you could have the choice to type by whichever you favor. 

The catching tab hasn’t modified a lot, past just a little visible cleanup, nevertheless it’s a great place to see which catchers are good at framing, blocking, and each deterring and throwing out base stealers. 

Baserunning

For years, baserunning metrics got here in two flavors: stolen bases, and caught stealing. That was it, as a result of that was all we may depend. Our new baserunning leaderboard displays that there’s much more that goes into working than stealing, by doing the identical factor with DRB that we do with DRP. Our overarching working metric is break up into two classes: DRBa, which displays the worth of a runner after contact, and DRBn, their worth when there’s no contact, specifically, stealing and advancing on handed balls. Since every participant has their very own variety of alternatives, you possibly can type by complete DRB or per probability: Shohei Ohtani dominated the previous, naturally, along with his 59 stolen bases and 93.7% success price, however on a possibility foundation, it was really David Hamilton who was essentially the most environment friendly basestealer.  

For the traditionalists, there’s excellent news as properly: it turns on the market are a number of extra ground-level numbers to play with. One thing I’ve wished for a very long time is a pickoff column, however for the DRBa crowd we even have a enjoyable new metric within the type of XBT%, or price of additional bases taken. This calculates how usually a runner was in a position to advance no less than a further 90+ toes on a batted ball (first-to-third or second-to-home on singles, first-to-home on doubles) given the variety of instances the lanes had been open to them. The sniff take a look at has already been handed: For 2024, the leaders in that class are Pete Crow-Armstrong, Jon Berti, and our outdated pal José Caballero.

PECOTA

Lastly, there’s the PECOTA tab, which hasn’t modified a lot, however might be simple to overlook, as a result of it’s fairly helpful even after the season is underway. When PECOTA you possibly can verify on our rest-of-season forecasts for every participant, however there’s additionally a few additional filters to play with. One activates or off the DC Flag, which selects whether or not gamers had been assigned projected enjoying time by our depth charts crew. You can even filter by crew, age, and place. There’s additionally yet one more filter that ought to present some leisure: You’ll be able to select which percentile projection to make use of. The default is, naturally, fiftieth percentile, however you possibly can select any tenth, in addition to fifth/ninety fifth and the acute 1st and 99th percentile projections, for whenever you simply wish to see some numbers stretch out on an occasion horizon.

And that’s it! Practically 1,700 phrases of clarification a couple of instrument that ought to provide a wealth of exploration. However you’ll must get them in shortly: We’ll launch the second half of our web site replace shortly, this time specializing in our participant playing cards. Be certain to verify again then. And should you discover any information or presentation points, please tell us at apps@baseballprospectus.com.