The Best of FanGraphs: August 18 – August 22, 2014

by
August 23, 2014

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, purple for NotGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community.

MONDAY
Brian McCann Probably Couldn’t Be Given Away For Free, by Mike Petriello
It hasn’t been the best first year in the Bronx for the All-Star catcher.

Mike Trout’s Other Slump, by Drew Fairservice
Drew lays out how Trout has largely been an innocent victim of circumstance.

How Pitchers are Pitching to Javier Baez, by Jeff Sullivan
Something tells me we’re going to be talking about Mr. Baez for quite some time.

Trying to Measure Contact Management, by Brett Talley
Brett applies Tony Blengino’s presentation from Saber Seminar and applies it to fantasy baseball both in this post and in a follow-up post on Wednesday.

TUESDAY
Dazzy Vance, The Ultimate Outlier, by Tony Blengino
A great trip back in time to one of baseball’s most unique pitchers.

Rebus of Death, by Mississippi Matt Smith
I’m not going to lie, I still have no idea what this is, even after reading the comments. But a lot of you did, and it has pretty pictures, so boom.

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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4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
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.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
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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.

WEDNESDAY
Evaluating the Prospects: Texas Rangers, by Kiley McDaniel
Kiley drops his first prospect list — which he previewed/primed on Monday — and my oh my, are we in for a treat with these reports.

I’m Buying Low On Allen Craig, by David Wiers
David makes his case for the new Red Sox corner player getting back to business.

THURSDAY
Jonathan Lucroy, Catcher Framing, and the NL MVP, by Dave Cameron
Dave had defense on the brain this week. On Tuesday, he wrote about Alex Gordon, and in this post he ponders the dilemma defense will pose for him when he votes for the National League Most Valuable Player Award.

Games I Wish To Protest, by Patrick Dubuque
There’s really no other way to put it — Patrick has been killing it lately. I would also like to protest Games One and Four of the 1999 American League Championship Series, because Chuck Knoblauch was gifted two outs he never made.

The most 1776 player of 2014, by Jeremy Blachman
The first of two posts this week about Ben Revere.

Remembering Sandbox.net, by Michael Barr
A great reminder of what could have been, how much fantasy baseball has grown, and how we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously.

FRIDAY
MASH Report – PAIN, HURT and SLOW Reports, by Jeff Zimmerman
Nearly one stop shopping, as Jeff updates his valuable reports.

Dear Cubs Public Relations, by Eno Sarris
KyleZ says it best.

Ben Revere and the Emptiest Batting Average Ever, by Alex Vigderman
And somehow, the second of two posts this week about Ben Revere. I don’t know either.





 

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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