The Best of FanGraphs: August 22-26, 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 and blue for Community Research.

MONDAY
How to Solve a Problem Like the Diamondbacks, by Dave Cameron
It’s probably not the same way you solve a problem like Maria…

The First Great Season by a Rockies Pitcher, by Demetrius Bell
This piece, on Marvin Freeman, is Demetrius’ first piece for THT. Welcome, Demetrius!

The Twins Gave Up on Pitching to Contact Before We Did, by anelso13
As the author reveals, it’s difficult to execute a pitch-to-contact strategy when your defense is terrible.

TUESDAY
Robbie Ray: A Diamondback Discusses His Arsenal, by David Laurila
In a bit of unplanned synergy, Alex Chamberlain also wrote about the interesting Robbie Ray on Tuesday.

WEDNESDAY
Manny Machado Is Looking for His Cookie, by Eno Sarris
Maybe the duckling has it…

THURSDAY
Yu Darvish’s Night at the Plate, by Corinne Landrey
Our foremost expert on pitchers’ hitting delves into the details of a pitcher’s first home run.

Joey Votto’s Most Joey Votto Game, by August Fagerstrom
Oh what a night it was, but it wasn’t late December back in ’63. It was this year.

The Next Stage of Nolan Arenado, by Jeff Sullivan
Well, he’s definitely past the stage where you hit up down up down left right left right B A start, because that happens right at the beginning of the game.

Marcus Stroman, Best Pitcher in Baseball?, by Mike Podhorzer
Despite what Mike postulates in the opening, it probably is an outlandish question to ask, but he asked it anyway. Click through to find out his answer.

Power and Strikeouts, by Micah Daley-Harris
Micah attacks the same question from a myriad of angles.

FRIDAY
The One Problem With Kris Bryant’s MVP Case, by Jeff Sullivan
The knock on Alex Rodriguez was that he could never come through when it mattered. Is the same going to be said about Kris Bryant?

Why Did the Dodgers Trade A.J. Ellis?, by Dave Cameron
Rarely do you see this much gnashing of teeth over a player who has only one more season with a positive WAR than he does with a negative WAR.

FanGraphs Audio: Sam Miller, by Carson Cistulli
Carson posted this late on a Friday, so you might have missed it. Definitely don’t miss it.

Field of Streams Live Broadcast and Chat: Episode 226, by Dylan Higgins
Every now and then, the Field of Streams podcast goes live. It’s a beautiful thing.

MASH Report: Hitter Injuries & Exit Velocity, by Jeff Zimmerman
As Jeff says in the intro, this is an experiment. But if it succeeds, it could be very meaningful.