The Best of FanGraphs: January 9-13, 2017

by
January 14, 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
David Phelps is Ready to Break Out if the Marlins Let Him, by Alex Chamberlain
Free David Phelps!

TUESDAY
Comparing the Rapsodo Baseball Device to Other Pitch Trackers, by Max Goder-Reiser and Julia Prusaczyk
Max and Julia do a great job of breaking down Rapsodo’s new pitch tracking device, with the help of their Tufts brethren.

WEDNESDAY
2017 FAN Projections!, by David Appelman
Lots of our readers think they know better than our projections. And sometimes they do! That’s why we give you a chance to offer your own thoughts on each player’s projection.

Vladimir Guerrero and the Best Truly Bad Ball Hitters, by Eno Sarris
Eno does that thing where he quantifies a hard-to-quantify thing.

Okay, Now the 2017 Mariners Are Interesting, by Dave Cameron
The Mariners just keep trading players, and their 2017 squad is finally rounding into shape.

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.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
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.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
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.

Two Short Studies: Groundballs Pitchers & StatCast Projections, by Jeff Zimmerman
Two studies for the price of one? Where do I sign up? (Here, is where, if you’re interested.)

The Greatest Game José Fernández Ever Pitched, by Evan Davis
Warning: Reading this may make you sad.

THURSDAY
Yasmani Grandal’s Lone MVP Vote and Voting’s Future, by Travis Sawchick
People asked Travis why he gave the Dodgers catcher an MVP vote, so he told them.

Scouting the Braves’ and Rays’ New Prospects, by Eric Longenhagen
Eric is still firing out the top prospects lists, but he made time for this piece as well.

How Much Control Do Pitchers Exert Over Exit Velocity?, by Craig Edwards
You’ll have to click through to find out!

The Kings of Pain, by John LaRue
Whose fans have really suffered the most? John breaks it down, and with fancy graphics!

FRIDAY
Effectively Wild Episode 1006: Sullivan’s Travels, by Ben Lindbergh
I can’t tell you how excited we all are to have Ben publishing the Effectively Wild podcast at FanGraphs. Well, actually, I can. We’re very, very, very excited.

The Man Who Hasn’t Been Hit in Almost Six Years, by Neil Weinberg
Some players are just weird. Neil shows you just how weird this particular player is with several visual aids.

Excuse Me! Five Soft Contact Kings, by Brad Johnson
“The Slappy Rabbit” sounds like a band name that Andy Dwyer would have come up with.

Random Box Score: Aug. 12, 1974, by Stacey Gotsulias
Stacey found some tickets inside an old book, so she went back and figured out what happened in that game.





 

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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Baltar
8 years ago

Thank you, Paul, for this eminently useful weekly feature.

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