The Best of FanGraphs: April 4-8, 2016

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April 9, 2016

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, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.

MONDAY
Five Things I Believe About the 2016 Season, by Dave Cameron
Hopefully we learn multiple very cool things from StatCast.

You Never Know, by Jason Linden
Jason’s annual Opening Day rumination on life and baseball touches on theoretical physics, a Cardinals-Reds game from May 2009, and a Robert Penn Warren novel.

TUESDAY
The Change: Officially Worried About Madison Bumgarner, by Eno Sarris
Landing on razor blades sounds like something I wouldn’t want to do even one time, nevermind 100-plus times every five days.

WEDNESDAY
Jose Bautista and the New Slide Rule, by Craig Edwards
“Baseball has a lot of rules and sometimes games hinge on interpretations of those rules.”

Carlos Rodon Is Going to Break Out, or Already Has, by Eno Sarris
Either way, Eno is bullish on the Rodon Detector.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
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6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
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We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

Guidelines to Platooning, by Joe Douglas
I think that intuitively we all would come to most or all of these conclusions, but it is still very helpful to have them all down in one place for future reference.

Going Deep on Goin’ Deep, by Alan Nathan
Among other things, Alan quantifies just how different fly balls are in Denver.

With Twitter/NFL Deal, It’s All About Execution, by David G. Temple
Come for the excellent analysis, stay for the lavish visual aids.

THURSDAY
Shift Data!, by David Appelman
This is one of those heartwarming posts that reaffirms your belief in mankind. Also, last weekend, David had a refresher on our game-time features.

Mookie Betts Is Dustin Pedroia All Over Again, by August Fagerstrom
Being able to do damage to the pull side without needing to always hit to the pull side is an especially dangerous combination.

Let’s Get Irresponsibly Excited About Trevor Story, by Jeff Sullivan
Jeff made some very good points here. I offered some counterpoints on Friday, just for balance.

FRIDAY
Luke Gregerson on His Slider, by David Laurila
I found it interesting that Luke Gregerson changes his arm angle rather than his grip when he wants to throw a different kind of slider. That’s probably disappointing to Eno.

Am I the Only One That Feels This Way?, by Tanner Bell
I definitely went through a period like this a few years back, but I trained myself to not hold to values when it’s one of “my guys.”

Psychological Safety and the Adam LaRoche Saga, by Bret Levine
Before this situation fades into the background, Bret has some advice on how to defuse such situations in the future.





 

Paul Swydan used to be the managing editor of The Hardball Times, a writer and editor for FanGraphs and a writer for Boston.com and The Boston Globe. Now, he owns The Silver Unicorn Bookstore, an independent bookstore in Acton, Mass. Follow him on Twitter @Swydan. Follow the store @SilUnicornActon.

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