About RotoRanker

This started as a means for me to quickly compare starting pitchers in a vacuum using multiple pieces of data. The great Eno Sarris has said Baseball Savant's xWOBA is not useful for evaluating pitchers, but I wanted to see what would happen if it's combined with more data (such as strikeout rate), and I started finding the results to be interesting. The most recent addition has been innings per game, which may seem like a flawed statistic, but I think it actually packages some good information, such as durability, efficiency, team trust/methodology, and of course, simply being able to pitch deep into games. Advantages in K% are negated a bit if a starter only averages 4 innings per game, of course.

Originally, I just auto-generated text files each day to easily consume on my phone. They look a little something like this:

That's rank, IP, name, SwStr%, GB%, and fastball velocity, if you're curious. I may incorporate this sort of output into the site in the future. It also supports custom player sets for easily tracking how things look for different fantasy teams.

So, the formula for the rankings were previously more complicated, but I've settled on a simpler method of ordering each player by certain statistics, and then averaging the rank. The inaugural formula is (xERA rank among position + K% rank among position + IP/g rank among position) / 3.

* _{^{IP/g only used for starters}}

The hitter formula came next and has been refined a bit, but I've settled on averaging the ranks among eligible hitters for barrel rate per plate appearance, sprint speed, wRC+, and K%. Sprint speed is nice because it adds a pure athleticism component that enhances defense, which generally leads to more playing time, and also helps identify players who have the potential to steal more bases. wRC+ has a strong correlation to playing time since it's a more "real-life" hitter metric. I opted for barrel rate "per plate appearance" rather than the more common "per batted ball event" because walks and strikeouts are already heavily accounted for and I wanted to use a pure power rate stat.