The Best of FanGraphs: February 20-24, 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
The Worst Transactions of the 2017 Offseason, by Dave Cameron
That “next” transaction after the signing of Ian Desmond never really came. It’ll be fun to see how it all plays out, but Dave certainly isn’t optimistic.

Is This Age of Competitive Balance Sustainable?, by Travis Sawchick
Travis goes in depth.

Amiel Sawdaye on Arizona’s New Boston Culture, by David Laurila
Everyone just wants to be like Boston. Hard to blame them, really. After all, it is the City of Champions.

Four Reasons to Be Optimistic About Oakland’s Sean Manaea, by Ryan Pollock
We don’t talk about Oakland as often as we used to, but Ryan believes this particular Oakland player will be worthy of our attention this season.

Top MLB Prospects for 2017: The Hitters (Part 1 of 2), by Marc Hulet
Hopefully Nina Myers doesn’t try to stand in the way of Jake Bauers’ major league dreams.

Speak Their Names, by Shakeia Taylor
A well-written piece on an important cause. If you are a looking for a baseball-related charity to support, the Negro Leagues Grave Marker Project is certainly worthy of said support.

TUESDAY
The First Weekend of College Ball by (Maybe) Predictive Stats, by Carson Cistulli
College baseball is back, and so are Carson’s reports on it!

2017 New Pitch Tracker, by Jason Collette
A valuable resource is back for the fourth consecutive year. If you see one that isn’t there, let Jason know in the comments!

WEDNESDAY
Restricted Free Agency, Anyone?, by Travis Sawchick
I love this idea, and can’t believe I didn’t know of its history.

The Least Interesting Player of 2016 by The Kuzdu Kid
It comes as little surprise to this writer that the player here is a member of the St. Louis Cardinals. #boring

THURSDAY
GMs’ View: Picking a Direction and Staying the Course, by David Laurila
The A’s start blaming their season on the lack of a new ballpark early this year, and several other awesome anecdotes lie within.

Here Is What You Think of Our Team Projections, by Jeff Sullivan
We love hearing what you think, and Jeff loves compiling what you think into hot internet content.

The Story On xStats Outliers, by Andrew Perpetua
This story focus on a very particular Story.

FRIDAY
How Dellin Betances Lost $10 Million, by Craig Edwards
The loss for the elite Yankees reliever wasn’t just about his salary this season. Arbitration is a flawed system. Dave also had some thoughts on how to fix it for relief pitchers later in the day.

When Fans Detach from the Herd, by Britni de la Cretaz
The Angel Pagan tackle has now mercifully replaced the Tom Gamboa attack as my go-to running on the field memory. Excellent research here by Britni.