The Best of FanGraphs: January 5 – January 9, 2015

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.

ALL WEEK
TechGraphs at CES, by David G. Temple and David Wiers
This week was the international Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and our David’s were on the ground covering the whole event. That link will take you to all of their event coverage.

MONDAY
Let’s Find Ryan Howard a Happy New Home, by Mike Petriello
Head east, not-so-young man. Or, stay east. Or something.

Early RotoGraphs Mock: Let’s Get it Started, by Chris Cwik
The things we do to entertain ourselves during a slow week. I think Kershaw went a little early.

TUESDAY
The Blue Jays’ Version of Wade Davis, by Neil Weinberg
A look at contact rate reveals the Blue Jays may already have the dominant reliever they need.

Early Mock Draft: Round Two, by Eno Sarris
Mike Podhorzer has a lot of faith in Bryce Harper.

Undefeated and Uninvited: Playing Ball in the Land of Crested Cranes, by Bojan Koprivica
Our author traveled to Uganda to take stock of how baseball is played there. Fascinating stuff.

WEDNESDAY
Did Stephen Drew Ever Look Like a Major-League Hitter?, by Jeff Sullivan
During 2014? Just once, as Jeff points out in this fantastic piece.

My Home League’s Prospect List, by David Wiers
It’s always fun to see these kinds of example posts.

Offering a Solution to the fWAR League Adjustments, by AC_Butcha_AC
Making adjustments to fWAR is always a popular topic, and this piece by AC_ is well thought. He then applied it in a follow-up post on Thursday.

THURSDAY
My Two Cents On The 2015 Hall of Fame Voting, by Tony Blengino
Tony looks at some trends, as well as a few players impacted by this year’s voting.

Uncertainty, Mookie Betts, and Javier Baez, by Jeff Sullivan
Jeff gets by with a little help from his friends, and he added the results from said friends in a second post on this subject, complete with some pretty pictures.

Does the Changeup Have a Strikeout Problem?, by Eno Sarris
Ground balls are great, but they’re not better than strikeouts.

Can Mat Latos Regain His Velocity?, by Jeff Zimmerman
Spoiler — not likely. Read on to find out why.

Finding Value in Fastball Mixing, by Max Weinstein
There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and Max points out one such way in this marvelous piece.

FRIDAY
Evaluating the Prospects: Miami Marlins, by Kiley McDaniel
This system isn’t as top heavy as it used to be, but that’s OK.





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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Well-Beered Englishman
9 years ago

Readers,

Your weekly reminder that NotGraphs lives! Link in my username.

Banknotes Industries in the New Year:
– The Physics of the Bugs Bunny Changeup
– John Paschal’s Hall of Halls Ballot
– Mexican Baseball Fashion Report
– MLBers Playing All Nine Positions in One Game

Next week: Mad Libs???