RotoGraphs This Season
The upcoming season will be pretty exciting at RotoGraphs. We’re bringing on some new faces to mesh with the old and expanding our coverage. This post, however, is about what YOU want.
So, please use the comments section to tell us what you’d like to see more of at RotoGraphs. More in-depth pieces about single players? More rankings information? More mailbags? More work on leagues with different settings? More pro and con?
Less of any of this?
Let us know. We aim to please.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
More deep league and leagues with different settings, less mailbag (the chats seems great for that)
Completely disagree Mailbags are awesome and something that sets rotographs apart from the minnows
only if the mailbags are about our players. at least a chat is a format that can cover more ground.
i find mailbags to be much more interesting when they cover general topics. for specificity, chats are the best imo.
More long term keeper/dynasty stuff would be great. I feel like the type of people who enjoy those types of leagues also generally tend to enjoy the things you do at fan/rotographs.
I vote for more on leagues with different settings. Keeper and large format, especially.
I really liked the regular in season pieces on FA pickups. As others have said, these are usually most helpful when focused on guys that won’t necessarily be owned in deeper leagues.
I want to know more about the callups during the year that might make an impact. Fangraphs already has all of the prospect lists….now lets put them to work.
Also I think a profile on some lesser known starters 2 times a weeks would be helpful. ( like the Jason Hammels, James MacDonalds, Chris Volstad, Travis Wood etc.)
I agree with the Dynasty league sentiment. That format can use more quality coverage.
Keeper leagues, dynasty leagues, crazy deep….. What ever you want to call them.
more info and more rankings based on long term value.
players at the low end of 10-12 team NL or AL only leagues.
for instance, we have 336 players that will be picked from one league on draft day. Which of those selected among the bottom 50-100 players will have the breakout potential
I’ll second the calls for more keeper league info, especially in terms of drafting rankings. Also maybe some more auction draft stuff, though I realize there can be wide variation depending on the league format.
I’d love to see some sort of analysis comparing ADPs in mocks and relative values of players using an average of the various projection systems. That would be a great draft tool.
I would love to see more in-depth and multiple season player analysis as well as a larger focus on OBP and OPS leagues. More pieces involving keeper strategy for the short and long term would be nice too. I can’t get enough chats, either. Thanks!
Plus-one on the chats.
+1 on chats as well
Good $1 investments in deep leagues.
Auction, Auction, Auction.
More comparison articles like the Coke / Wilson piece. Very informative.
More players discussed. I’d rather see 1-2 paragraphs about several players than 15 paragraphs about one guy.
I have always wanted to see some sort of comparison of Stars to Minor Leaguers. For instance, what minor leaguers have skill sets that are similar to major league players? Comparing players like Ike Davis and Jon Olerud, for example
i vote for in depth analysis on players!
I really like analysis of higher rated players, because finding value in not just FA is how I do well in leagues. e.g. trading for rios before his value was completely apparent last yr.
I love analysis on streaming options for starting pitchers for the next week.
I would love a RotoGraphs sponsored fantasy league. I would love to be the first competitor. I wouldn’t mind being the commissioner if I had to be. Please reply. RotoGraphs would also be able to give in season updates. Just to mix things up. Analyze the league and such.
Please?
I’m sure we all would love to be the commish.
There is only one Batman.
If, for whatever reason, Eno & team don’t set up a sponsored league, please feel free to join one of ours over at Razzball (http://razzball.com/2011-razzball-commenter-leagues/).
The leagues are competitive and we were able to do some cool analysis off last year’s 21 leagues (http://razzball.com/what-can-we-learn-from-2010-razzball-commenter-league-results/).
Let’s just say I think y’all will be happy with the direction we’ve been heading. There’s a lot here we’ll add in, and it sounds like we are of the same mind. Keep em coming, we’re definitely listening!
It might be a bigger project than what you have in mind with these suggestions, but I’d like to see some sort of rankings with the player’s value based on how many standard deviations they are above the mean in each category, using say a 250 player pool (10 teams x 25 players a team).
Let me just second (or twentysecond) the opinion for more coverage of alternate category formats (including OBP, SLG) and especially the coverage of the deeper end of the player pool.
I’m in a league where between 300-400 players will be utilized in a year. While top-10 lists and discussion of whether Jose Reyes is a second-tier shortstop or not is reasonably useful, but there seems to be a good amount of consensus the top 100 players.
I am much more interested in the analysis of the guys who would be the 150th-350th picks, who will make up the bulk of our rosters.
Fantasy coverage of the top 50/100 player is most useful when it exposes lurking flaws. A column that debunks the “consensus” top 100/150 players could be called something like “The Contrarian.”
Heavier focus on dynasty leagues covering players potential, and some (although difficult) rankings to help determine a players future value
Have a link directory consisting of links to all of the fantasy resource sites you guys mention in your articles e.g mockdraftcentral, lastplayerpicked, razzball, etc
I second Seth’s suggestion.
Didn’t read all the posts but how about a feature each week on guys who had MONSTER weeks “Pick up or ignore” where you statistically infer if this guy is just hot for a week or has underlying numbers which suggest this hot week could be maintained.
-Discussions of how to develop values for players. i.e. how to create something like Z-scores and how to use those to effectively build a team.
-How to develop values for positional differences and multiple positions.
-How to quantitatively assess a trade.
-The development of a sleeper scale. Sure he may be a sleeper, but is he a 10th round sleeper, a final few rounds sleeper, or a FA watch sleeper.
Just a further discussion of how to do things and giving people the tools to develop new ways to do so.
A RotoGraphs player page (like a FanGraphs player page) but with only stats that are that fantasy formats use for standings. (Ex. S*2+H, QS, HLD, OBP)
And also, an update for FanGraphs iApp that allows RotoGraphs functionality would be the AWEsome.
Also, RotoGraph podcasts would be delightful. Especially with the upcoming season underway.
CBS and ESPN are nice, but I would rather zone out or play TF2 to RG chatter.
Seconding (or thirding, fourthing, etc) the suggestion for alternate format leagues – especially analysis on H2H/points leagues.
I think a lot of these suggestions can be summed up as “more levels of player analysis.”
“How much is (top-10 player) worth?” isn’t that useful during draft time, but if it’s mid-May, and I’m looking to trade (or trade for) Pujols, I’d love to get a better idea of what a good offer is.
While the Waiver Wire pieces are great, I played in a 16-team, 400-player league last year, and there seemed to be a gap in coverage between the WW articles, which were generally players available in 12-team leagues (but were long gone in mine), and the Deep League analysis, which were geared towards even larger leagues (in which minor leaguers were viable options).
I realize we’re starting to get into some pretty small niches as far as analysis goes, but even if I’m not playing in a 14-team dynasty league with SLG and FAAB, I can still mine some information from that analysis, and it’s fun to read anyway.
For draft season – articles analyzing why certain players will perform better or worse than their mainstream fantasy stats (BA, HR, RBI, ERA, WHIP) from last year. It’s helpful to know players who should see a change in mainstream performance due to regression.
The FIP or XFIP – ERA articles are always great. Something along the same lines for hitters would be nice.
when talking about minor league prospect rankings, pls include any prospects that are currently in the recent draft. For instance, when I have my minor league draft, I need to know if I should draft Anthony Rendon over Manny Machado.
you should… btw.
Is there going to be a “Second Opinion” like last year?
Coming out shortly.
Also, I want xBABIP somewhere. Tell me this is coming, make me happy.
Yeah, xBABIP would be really nice
keeper, dynasty rankings
auction values
more chats (at least 2 a week?) for the player/league specific stuff
articles that help us focus on the key stats to be successful in a wide variety of leagues
thanks for all the good work you do!
Along the lines of alt leagues and stats, but Sim League articles. In particular Scoresheet.
I’d like to see JEH’s projections added to the site.
Some articles about strategy – not just player A or B vs C – would be very informative and could definitely spark some good discussion.
Articles could discuss different drafting styles, approaches to roster management, what to look for on the waiver wire, and other general topics like that.
Also, a review of different fantasy sites and providers would be neat, some of us have been stuck (for better or worse) with the same companies for years.
Most importantly, just keep doing the good work that you’re all doing
I’d love in-season overall rankings or some sort of trade/free agent analyzer. I feel like the majority of decisions most people need help with in season relate to evaluating trade value (making sure its at least relatively even, not necessarily a “win/loss” mentality) and evaluating potential value on the waiver wire as compared to the rest of the roster.
I feel like it’s relatively easy to spot 3-4 great players on the waiver wire. It’s much harder to gauge their relative value compared to the back end of my roster (and, accordingly who I should drop/add).
That kind of analysis can be useful across the board for deep leagues, AL and NL only leagues, assuming enough players are analyzed. For clarity, I care more about players 150-250 though.
Agree with the sentiment about auctions. Think you guys should have dollar values, sleepers, and more umbrella-ed pieces. Also, NL-Only and I guess AL-Only focus would be nice as well.
Love what you guys are doing, though.
How about a prospect maven big board?