The Best of FanGraphs: June 11-15, 2018

Each week, we publish in the neighborhood of 75 articles across 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, 6/11
Kill That Goose! A Brief History of Baseball Most Fowl, by Matthew Leib
An excerpt: “Down through the years, a menagerie of goats, cats, monkeys, bees, possums and, most recently, eagles, have infested the margins of baseball lore. But the goose, albeit one of the more figurative variety, holds a special place of distinction—not as a totem of timely hitting, but as a full-blown agent of anarchy whose fickle reign of terror can trace its origins to the dawn of the National League.”

The Updated Top 131 Prospect Rankings, by Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel
An update you don’t want to put off like you do with your iPhone.

Introducing the FanGraphs Book Club, by Paul Swydan
Paul is back as a distinguished new bookstore owner to introduce you to the FanGraphs bookclub.

TUESDAY, 6/12
Away from the Diamond, by Jason Linden
An excerpt: “Almost exactly two years ago, I started working on a story. I’d been knocking around the press box in Louisville watching Bats games and writing about Reds prospects. But I was also looking for stories, listening to what people talked about. I’d been there a few months when I realized one name kept coming up. Hernan Iribarren. Hernan Iribarren this, Hernan Iribarren that. The interns loved him. Then-manager Delino DeShields loved him. The other players loved him.”

Trading Jacob deGrom Would Be Foolish, by Craig Edwards
Look into the eyes of these graphs and tell me you don’t disagree.

WEDNESDAY, 6/13
The Reds Should Find a Place for Billy Hamilton to Run, by Travis Sawchik
This sounds like telling your kids that they have to give away their new puppy, but it’s not. Kind of. The article is, though, on the same topic Hamilton called “the stupidest thing [he had] ever heard in his life” not months ago, so.

The Best Call of the Season, by Jeff Sullivan
It’s said over and over that “if you notice the umpire, he’s not doing his job.” However, the call made on this particular occasion endeared the ump to Jeff.

THURSDAY, 6/14
Zack Godley Is Going Sideways, by Snerd
Zack… consider… not… doing that.

Zero, Interrupted: Pulling Starters From No-Hitters, by Shane Tourtellotte
An excerpt: “Other performance data follow the pattern. Walks are 333 in interrupted no-nos versus 578 in completed ones, working out to a 9/4 rate ratio. Hit by pitches are 24 to 37, a 5/2 rate ratio, while wild pitches are 17 to 21, more than 3/1. Strikeout rates are virtually identical: 408 in 522.2 innings against 1,604 in 2,053. However, interrupted no-hitters are front-loaded toward modern times, when strikeout rates are higher, so this even match is really an underperformance for the interrupted starters.”

Juan Soto Is Already Making History, by Craig Edwards
“Childish Bambino.” Thanks.

FRIDAY, 6/15
Highlighting An Artifact: The Williams/Paige Connection, by Bruce Markusen
An excerpt: “Under ordinary circumstances, the bat would have been discarded into a trash bin. But not this time. Someone kept the bat, which eventually made its way to Cooperstown. It’s unlikely Williams would have been the source of the artifact, not when it represented a moment of failure and frustration for him. Perhaps the bat boy retrieved it, knowing the broken piece of wood had belonged to one of the game’s greatest hitters. We’re not exactly sure who retrieved it, or how it got from Fenway Park to the Hall of Fame, but thanks to at least one or two thoughtful souls, and with some careful fact-checking by the Hall’s curatorial staff, the priceless artifact was saved and placed into the collection.”

NL Lineup Analysis (6/14/18), by Jeff Zimmerman
The same great lineup analysis you’ve been getting from Jeff for weeks, now with more focus.

Two Million Baseball Fans Are Missing, by Travis Sawchik
Did MLB make them disappear?

Chris Davis Might Be Having the Worst Season Ever, by Jay Jaffe
Move over, Adam Dunn. There’s a new sheriff in town.





Find Mina on Twitter @maddc8.

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