The Best of FanGraphs: April 3-7, 2017

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.

MONDAY
How Brian Cashman Sold the Yankees’ Rebuild, by Travis Sawchick
I won’t spoil the surprise for you. Great stuff here from Travis, who spoke with Brian Cashman for the piece.

Cleveland’s Next Anonymous and Great Third Baseman, by Carson Cistulli
An injury got him to The Show, but perhaps he’ll be here for good.

The Day That Sustains Us, by Jason Linden
The floor is always Jason’s on Opening Day, and he never disappoints.

TUESDAY
About All These Velocity Spikes, by Dave Cameron
This is something to watch in the early going. Please also see subsequent pieces on the subject written by Tom Tango at his blog, as well as by Dan Brooks and Alan Nathan over at Baseball Prospectus.

Bullpen Report: April 3, 2017, by Alan Harrison
The Bullpen Report is back in business! Alan, Al Melchior and Benjamin will have you covered. Be sure to check it out before making any rash closer decisions! In this specific edition, Alan got you caught up on everything that’s been going on for the past month or so.

Josh Bell is a Hard-Hitting Opposite-Field Machine, by Alex Chamberlain
I was already excited about the Pirates rookie, but after reading this piece I am even more so.

WEDNESDAY
Introducing Baseball’s Next Top Changeup, by Eno Sarris
Eno’s got that hot pitch grips action you know you crave.

Win Probability Added Above Replacement, by Sky Kalkman
Sky believes he has a better way to value relief pitchers.

THURSDAY
Introducing Team Pages!, by Sean Dolinar
Sean put a great deal of work into the Team Pages project, and it is our sincere hope that you enjoy the absolute heck out of them. Let him know in the comments if you see something that looks amiss or something you’d like to see added in the future.

The Possible Extinction of the Early-Career Superstar Extension, by Dave Cameron
Free agency has been comparatively boring in recent years, as there has been a dearth of top-shelf talent available. If Dave is right, that should soon end.

Michael Lorenzen’s Officially a Two-Way Player, by Jeff Sullivan
Exciting times in Cincinnati.

Launch Angle Derived Batted Ball Types, by Andrew Perpetua
Andrew takes Statcast stats and breaks them into six different batted ball types.

Which World Series Winners Give Out the Best Loot?, by Frank Firke
Ever wonder how your team’s giveaways compare to others? Frank figured it out, at least for World Series teams.

FRIDAY
When Statheads Age, by Joe Sheehan
We’re very excited to have Joe with us this month at FanGraphs. Don’t miss this one, which is the first piece in his Residency.

The Jeff Samardzija Experiment by Owen McGrattan
Owen finds that the Giants’ righty started using his splitter a lot more last year, and muses on what that could mean for his 2017 performance.