SaberSphere 3/29: Replacement Level, the next Joey Bats, and hope for the Marlins

• Unifying Replacement Level by Dave Cameron │ Fangraphs

  The biggest news of the day in the Saber community was the announcement that Fangraphs and Baseball Reference have agreed to use a common replacement level going forward. We will have more on this topic later on today, but I couldn't agree with this sentiment more:

  The higher baseline brings our scale down slightly, but we think that change is worth making, as a unified replacement level will allow for comparisons of our apples versus their apples, and will eliminate needless confusion based around an area that didn’t need to cause confusion. These changes weren’t made lightly, and we know that there is always some resistance to any sort of change, but we hope that you see the unification of replacement level between the two sites as a positive overall.

• Why do we need Replacement Level? by Dave Cameron │ Fangraphs

  While we're on the subject of replacement level, Dave Cameron also wrote an article explaining why we use replacement level in the first place.

• 20 ways to improve baseball right now by Jay Jaffe │ Sports Illustrated

  20 practical and dead-on ways to improve the game we love. My three favorites? Stop the war on advanced statistics, enhance the stats on every scoreboard and broadcast, and let Vin Scully call the World Series.

• Save the Date: The 2014 SABR Analytics Conference will be March 13-15, 2014 by SABR

  No thoughts, I just want to make sure everyone gets this on his or her calendar.

Around SB Nation

• FX has decided to add a new network, FXX, targeting me specifically. Well really I guess they're targeting the entire 18-34 demographic, but I am excited either way. The new station will take It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The League and should feature a steady stream of quality entertaining programming.