The Best of FanGraphs: June 30 – July 4, 2014

by
July 5, 2014

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, purple for NotGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community.

MONDAY
What Might Mookie Betts Be? by Dave Cameron
“What won’t he be?” is another reasonable way of asking this question.

Astros Internal Trade Chatter Leaked Online by Dave Cameron
It’s like if your own emails were leaked but also someone actually cared.

Sergio Romo Out — Who’s In? by Eno Sarris
Sarris attempts, by objective means, to predict who will receive save opportunities in San Francisco now.

The Best of FanGraphs, June 29-July 3, 2015 by Jeremy Blachman
Jeremy Blachman went to the future and all he brought back was an edition of this same weekly column from next year.

TUESDAY
Jake Arrieta’s Eight Worst Pitches from Monday by Jeff Sullivan
Jake Arrieta’s eight worst pitches from his June 30th at Boston aren’t particularly bad — largely because Jake Arrieta is rather good, it seems.

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.

WEDNESDAY
Jose Altuve Might Actually Be Good Now by Mike Petriello
Houston’s Jose Altuve has recorded the second-highest WAR among major-league second baseman. “How?” is the question Mike Petriello attempts to answer.

Jay Bruce On Hitting by Eno Sarris
For anyone who’s ever met Eno Sarris and Eno Sarris’s face, it is positively shocking how well these interviews go.

Eighteen Paintings of Ballparks by Craig Robinson
Albert Camus suggested, before he died like everyone dies, that “a work of art is a confession.” Craig Robinson confesses here that he’s attended no fewer than 18 different ballparks.

How Telling Are a Teenager’s A-Ball Stats? by Chris Mitchell
An objective methodology for assessing the possible major-league futures of low-level minor-leaguers.

THURSDAY
MASH Report (7/3/14) – HURT and PAIN Reports by Jeff Zimmerman
Contains a digested form of Zimmerman’s two–part mega opus on Tommy John surgery and its implications for fantasy ownership.

Tragic Vintage Ballplayer: Humpty Badel by Mississippi Matt Smith
In addition to possessing a literal hump, German immigrant Humpty Badel was also regarded as “absolutely helpless” intellectually.

A Physics Comparison of Great Throws From Years Past by Eric Lang
In which capital-S Science demonstrates how Dave Parker produced a 110 mph throw from right field in 1979. (Features ample and compelling video footage.)

FRIDAY
America’s Birthday.





 

Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

1 Comment
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
John Elway
11 years ago

Gallop Poll time!

Which of these belongs in the 2015 update to Websters Dictionary?

a. algebra(n.) – after her dorsal fin, the next thing to disappear from the Little Mermaid when the prince took her home

b. gladiator(adj.) – past tense of elixir

c. paradigm(n.) – the difference between Nickelback and a quarterback

11