Use Our Playoff Odds Pages Like a Pro

The FanGraphs Newsletter, March 22, 2024 [READ IN BROWSER]( March 22, 2024 Over the next month, we at FanGraphs will be highlighting a number of site features and showing you how we use them. The goal is to make your visit to the website more enjoyable, and to help you get the most out of the features we’ve added over the years. Today, we're going to walk through the various ways we deploy projections to make predictions about the future. Let’s start with the nerve center of our predictions, the page that shows everything that feeds into our [much-discussed]( playoff odds: the Projected Standings. You can find them using the navigation bar at the top of the site: There are so many numbers here that it can feel overwhelming, so let’s walk through each part in turn. First, this page displays each team’s season-to-date record, along with the run-level components of it. It’s pretty standard stuff, but look at it in conjunction with the next column: projected rest-of-season record. You can see how many runs we project each team to score and allow, and how that translates into both run differential and winning percentage. Comparing those rest-of-season numbers to what’s already been accumulated can give a good sense of which parts of a team are doing better or worse than the projections would imply. [Learn More]( 2024 Positional Rankings Welcome to the 2024 positional power rankings! As is tradition, over the next week and a half, we’ll be ranking every team by position as we inch closer to Opening Day next Thursday. This is always something of a funny exercise. You read FanGraphs regularly, after all — a fact for which we are [very grateful]( — and are well-versed in the various signings and trades that occurred over the offseason. You know that [Shohei Ohtani]( is now a Dodger, just as you’re aware that [Juan Soto]( is a Yankee and [Dylan Cease]( a very recent Padre. And yet, you’re still keen to know more about the game and what it might look like between now and October. The positional power rankings are our answer to that impulse. [2024 Positional Power Rankings: Introduction]( - [Catcher]( - [First Base]( - [Second Base]( - [Shortstop]( - [Third Base]( - [Left Field]( - [Center Field]( - [Right Field]( Latest Analysis [Everything's Bigger in Texas, Except Michael Lorenzen's Contract]( The 2023 All-Star was left standing when the music stopped, and the Rangers ended up with a massive free agent bargain. | by Michael Baumann [Down With the King]( Mike Trout’s decade-long reign as our top projected center fielder is over. As we coronate a new no. 1, let’s commemorate the Angels star’s greatness. | by Davy Andrews [Let’s Throw a Logan Gilbert-For-Cy Young Prediction at the Wall and See if It Sticks]( Teams already value the hoss more than the glass cannon. Voters are going to come around eventually. | by Michael Baumann [A Visual Scouting Primer: Hitting, Part Three]( Top hands, bottom hands, grooved swings, and more. | by Tess Taruskin [The Marlins Have One of the Best Rotations in Baseball. They Just Can't Use It Right Now]( Eury Pérez is just the latest in a troubling line of injuries to the team’s starting pitchers. As a former Miami manager would say, it’s not what you want. | by Michael Baumann 🎧 [Effectively Wild Episode 2140: Don't Bet on It]( [DOWNLOAD THE FANGRAPHS APP]( [FanGraphs & Effectively Wild Merch Is Now Available at BreakingT!]( [ORDER HERE]( [Breaking down the Shohei Ohtani-Ippei Mizuhara story]( by Craig Calcaterra, Cup of Coffee [How Mexico's Diablos Rojos got 'dream' series with Yankees]( via ESPN [All the voices in a modern MLB player’s head: What to do about the explosion in coaching]( by Eno Sarris, The Athletic ($) [Which 2024 Extensions are Worth the Price?]( by Josh Shaw, Pitcher List [@fangraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [RSS]( [FORWARD]( [SUBSCRIBE]( Copyright © 2024 FanGraphs Inc, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the FanGraphs Newsletter. Our mailing address is: FanGraphs Inc 3017 N Underwood StArlington, VA 22213 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](