The Best of FanGraphs: July 3-7, 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
Jonathan Lucroy’s Mysterious Decline, by Travis Sawchick
Travis paints a pretty bleak picture here. He then painted similarly bleak pictures for other catchers on Friday.

Remembering Tony Conigliaro, by Alfonso Tusa
We published this eloquent look back at one of Alfonso’s favorite players in both English and Spanish.

TUESDAY
We were mostly off on this day, to celebrate America’s birthday.

WEDNESDAY
The Relationship Between Spending Efficiency and Labor Markets, by Matt Swartz
It’s a pleasure to have Matt back with us. Don’t miss his research this month for the FG Residency.

Fireworks All Summer Long, by Tony Blengino
Sometimes, even fireworks can wear out their welcome. Just like the M-320 did.

State of the Fantasy Game: Mid-Season Report, by Jeff Zimmerman
Jeff breaks down some first-half trends.

Coffee Sippers: Those Who Played One Game (Pinch Hitters and Runners), by John Paschal
This is the concluding piece in a three-part series that John exhaustively researched. The first was on pitchers, and the second was on position players. This piece was on those who didn’t even qualify as either, the poor guys.

THURSDAY
Freddie Freeman’s Strange BP Technique, by Eno Sarris
“I’m trying to hit a liner to the shortstop.”

Rich Hill Got Good Again, by Jeff Sullivan
It’s tough to introduce a new pitch midseason, but that’s just what the 37-year-old has done.

Manny Machado on Preparing for a Series, by David Laurila
As the young Orioles player puts it, living in the moment is the beauty of baseball.

Maybe It Is a Bad Idea to Pitch in the WBC by Nicholas Jaeger
A Mariners fan goes looking for comfort, and may have found some. It’s not conclusive, but it is interesting.

FRIDAY
The Best Hitter in the NL Central (Minimum 29 Plate Appearances), by Chris Mitchell
The Cardinals found another rando who has (so far) come up and mashed. We’ll see if it lasts.

Mid-season Arsenal Scores, by Rylan Edwards
In addition to a top 150 leaderboard and breakdown of interesting players, this piece features the phrase “groin-grabbingly underowned.”

Constructing an Ottoneu All-Star Team, by Joe Douglas
This would be an interesting exercise nonetheless, but with some simple caveats it becomes even more interesting.