The technical staff at Baseball Prospectus has been hard at work over the last few months introducing new web features and improving existing ones. Below you’ll find information pertaining to each one. We’re always interested in reader feedback, so if you have suggestions for improvements, or if you’d like to see a new feature not listed here, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Statistics
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The newest release in the technical updates to the site, the sortable
stat reports are the result of long hours of work by the Baseball
Prospectus tech team. Of course, the same old reports we’ve always had are
still
available, but the new reports offer improved presentation for
everyone. Additionally, Premium
and Fantasy users have the ability to sort the reports by up to three
statistics, filter reports by primary categories like league, team, and position
(where appropriate), and even provide a minimum playing time filter
(usually PA for hitters and IP for pitchers). These reports are refreshed
daily and include several links to helpful resources on the site.
Player names link to the player search tool, team names link to the team
audit tool, and the column headers all link to the glossary search tool,
allowing you to seamlessly browse the players and team statistics, and
understand what they all mean.
We’re also working on updates and improvements as the new statistical
reports continue to evolve. If you have suggestions for the next
iteration, please feel free to contact me.
Fantasy Tools
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The Baseball Prospectus Player Forecast Manager is the premier draft
tool that will fulfill the needs of every fantasy leaguer. Developed by
Nate Silver, the PFM goes through advanced mathematical formulas to
calculate replacement level at each position for any fantasy league, and
then evaluates each player’s projections in terms of the money available
on draft day, giving a full listing of players, dollar values, and the
PECOTA projections for your specific league. The PFM started out as an
Excel application, but we’ve applied all the same complicated formulas
to translate the PFM to a web version, so that all of the Baseball
Prospectus readers (even those without Excel) can utilize this powerful
tool.
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Team Tracker allows Baseball Prospectus users to define up to 25
fantasy teams and track their progress throughout the year. Team Tracker
rosters are linked to statistical updates that chart player performance
for the past day, week, month, and season to date, and the preseason
PECOTA forecasts. In addition to tracking teams’ progress, the Team Tracker
now
features a Trade Analysis feature, where Team Tracker is integrated
into the web version of the Player Forecast
Manager, and each of your players is evaluated with your league specific
settings and given a dollar value. You can then specify trades between
your team and the rest of your league, helping you decide if you should
let that big slugger go for the parts you need to make a run at the
league title.
Contests
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HACKING MASS is a contest to try and predict the biggest offensive
stiffs in the upcoming season. HACKING MASS is an acronym for Huckabay’s
Annual Call to Keep Immobility Next to Godliness: Maximus Aggregatus
Stiffisimus Sensire. Contestants pick a player from each spot in the
infield, three outfielders, and two pitchers, hoping to pick the players
that will accrue the most stiffness points, which are designed to measure
both poor performance and high playing time. The winner for this
contest is awarded $500 and a mint-condition, signed, framed photo
reproduction of Commissioner of Major League Baseball Bud Selig. For more
information, see the rules for HACKING MASS.
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The Predictatron contest is another new feature at Baseball Prospectus
this year. Contestants submit ballots that include guesses for each
team’s win total for the season, and then predict how the playoffs will
unfold. Similar to HACKING MASS, the winner of Predictatron is awarded
$500 and a mint-condition, signed, framed photo reproduction of
Commissioner of Major League Baseball Bud Selig. For more information, see the
rules for Predictatron, and stay tuned to the site for an upcoming
article summarizing this year’s picks.
Article Resources
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The Baseball Prospectus Library is a brand new section of the site
featuring the most important, influential, and lasting articles to ever
grace the digital pages of Baseball Prospectus. Any articles with lasting
importance or significance have been culled from the archives and
catalogued here in one of many categories and subcategories in which we’ve
conducted research. So, any time you’re looking to find the definitive
study done on a particular phenomenon or the research debunking a
commonly held belief, start your search at the Baseball Prospectus Library.
You can browse the library here.
Other Useful Tools
Mozilla Firefox Search Plugins
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The Mozilla Firefox plugins help Baseball Prospectus readers that use
Mozilla Firefox get to player cards quickly. The newest search plugin
has an automated installation, and within two or three clicks, the
Mozilla Firefox browser will have the Baseball Prospectus search in the
built in search
engines (at the top right section of the browser). We also have several
scripts that you can use in conjunction with the ConQuery plugin, which
allow users to highlight text and directly search the Baseball Prospectus
player cards and article database with the right-click menu. Click here for more
information.
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The Team Audit feature, introduced in the site redesign this past
year, is the central location to learn everything you need to know about
your favorite team. The Team Audit page for each team links to recent
Transaction Analysis articles, recent Prospectus Triple Plays and
Prospectus Notebook articles, and can display the team’s core hitting and pitching statistics in sortable tables. Since these articles and stats come
from elsewhere on the site, we work to pull them all together in one
place for each team, and then link from the Team Audit pages to the
features across the site.
Thank you for reading
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