The Best of FanGraphs: August 4 – August 8, 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
An Attempt to Find the Market Price for Wins in July, by Dave Cameron
It’s hard to have enough data, but Dave has some interesting conclusions nonetheless. If only there were more trades…

Four Widely Available Speedsters For Stretch Run, by Mike Podhorzer
It’s time to start working around the edges.

A Professor and a Protagonist, by Patrick Dubuque
Before there was Jim Bouton, there was Jim Brosnan.

TUESDAY
Yangervis Solarte or Javier Baez?, by Eno Sarris
One of these things is not like the other, but perhaps the one you want on your redraft team is not so obvious.

Three Widely Available Power Sources For Stretch Run, by Mike Podhorzer
Mike also has you covered if you need that late-season power surge.

WEDNESDAY
Adam Dunn as a Pitcher, by August Fagerstrom
There hasn’t been anything this big since Poochie.

A Point in Defense of Tony La Russa, by Jeff Sullivan
The Diamondbacks may not be innocent, but they also may not be the most guilty.

Spam Baseball Cards, by Craig Robinson
I once had dinner with Ricky Wardrobe.

Matt Harvey is Here to Pull You out of Your Funk, by David G. Temple
The elbow IS basically the knee of the arm!

Leadoff Rating 2.0, by Brad Oremland
It’s good to try to look at things in a new light, and Brad has done that here.

THURSDAY
Derek Jeter: A Simple Approach to Hitting, by David Laurila
Keep it simple.

Brandon McCarthy: Tinkering or Regression, by Drew Fairservice
We might not know if Brandon McCarthy got better because he joined the Yankees or not, but we do know that FanGraphs got better when Drew came on board. This was Drew’s debut with the site, and he also had a piece up on Friday about Pablo Sandoval.

Three Hot Outfielders You Might Have Given Up On, by Scott Spratt
Not only is it the time of the season when we need to look for new sources of fantasy production, it’s also time to work back on old sources to see if anything has changed. Because sometimes, things done changed.

How Gambling Could Improve Baseball, by Patrick Dubuque
Let’s make this game really interesting.

FRIDAY
Adam Jones’ Historical Plate Discipline Peers, by Matt Klaassen
It’s not easy to find them, but Matt cobbles together a list.