FanGraphs Power Rankings: Opening Day 2024

The FanGraphs Newsletter, March 28, 2024 [READ IN BROWSER]( March 28, 2024 Welcome back baseball! This offseason was excruciatingly slow, but we’ve finally made it to Opening Day. This year, we’re introducing a complete revamp of how these power rankings work. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined during the season. Instead, we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using a modified [ELO rating system](. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s [defunct sports section]( you’ll know that ELO is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance. To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw ELO rank using our coinflip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw ELO ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%). As the best and worst teams sort themselves out throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings while still being reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps. The Braves haven’t budged from the top of these rankings thanks to their deep and talented roster. They made it through spring training without any major injury scares, and even added a bit of depth to their outfield by reuniting with Adam Duvall just in case Jarred Kelenic doesn’t pan out. Chris Sale has looked healthy and strong this spring, and Spencer Strider added an exciting new pitch to his already dominant repertoire. This team is ready to compete from day one and anything less than a championship at the end of the season will be a disappointment. [Read More]( [Why I've Always Loved Baseball]( A love letter to the sport I've always loved most, and to the people who got me into it. | by Ben Clemens [FanGraphs 2024 Staff Predictions]( Allow us to make a series of informed and possibly incorrect predictions about the 2024 season. | by Meg Rowley [Logan Webb Talks Pitching]( The San Francisco Giants right-hander and worm-killing workhorse is one of the best pitchers in baseball. | by David Laurila [An Opening Day Slate Short of Familiar Names, but Hardly Without Promise]( Injuries and prolonged free agencies have caused unprecedented turnover among the season's lid-lifters. | by Jay Jaffe [Jordan Montgomery Finally Has a Job]( If you can't beat him, get him to join you. | by Michael Baumann 🎧 [Effectively Wild Episode 2144: Season Preview Series: Dodgers and Rockies]( [DOWNLOAD THE FANGRAPHS APP]( [FanGraphs & Effectively Wild Merch Is Now Available at BreakingT!]( [ORDER HERE]( [Has Juan Soto finally found a home with New York Yankees?]( by Alden Gonzalez, ESPN [The ultimate guide to every Opening Day matchup]( via MLB [Logan Gilbert’s Breakout Is Overdue]( by Jack Foley, Pitcher List [MLB in 2024: 25 numbers that define baseball and set the stage for this season]( by Jayson Stark, The Athletic ($) [@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](