The Best of FanGraphs: March 12-16, 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, 3/12
Last Year’s Boom to This Year’s Bust: Avoiding the Post-Breakout Player Trap, by Mike Podhorzer
Breakout stars can make suckers out of us all. Who can resist the shine of a player who just spent a whole season running on all cylinders? The first piece of The Hardball Times’ Fantasy Week explores just how easy it is to get sucked into shine that was always just an illusion.

No $200 Million Deal for Jake Arrieta, by Jay Jaffe
Arrieta, in a reluctant market, was paid less than most equations thought he would be. Where does his contract sit in the grand scheme of it all?

TUESDAY, 3/13
The Most and Least Confident of Projections, by Rian Watt
Projections are frequently proven wrong when the future turns into the present, and they rarely agree with each other. Here, Rian delves into the variance in player projections.

The Things You See in the Eighth Inning of a Spring Game, by Meg Rowley
Sometimes imposters have a lesson or two to share.

The Opt-Out Clause Is Evolving, by Jeff Sullivan
Charles Darwin would be proud.

WEDNESDAY, 3/14
Recognizing The Best Defensive Catcher in Baseball, by Conrad Parrish
Conrad makes a thorough argument to crown Austin Hedges as baseball’s best backstop.

The Law of the Headhunter, by Sheryl Ring
Baseball is a game of inches, and as such, there are often just inches between a ball up and in and a career-ender, or worse. What does the law say about beanballs and those who deliver them?

Fly Ball vs. Ground Ball Pitchers: What We Might Expect in 2018, by Alex Chamberlain
Is a ball on the ground worth two in the air? And what does that mean for this season?

FIP vs. xwOBA for Assessing Pitcher Performance, by Craig Edwards
FanGraphs is full of questions and attempted answers, and then, oftentimes, come more questions. Craig’s question concerns how we might best evaluate pitcher performance.

THURSDAY, 3/15
Ronald Acuna, Willie Calhoun, and Service-Time Manipulations, by Craig Edwards
Remember when Kris Bryant started the 2015 season in the minors despite clearly being ready to take a spot in the bigs and as the top position player in the Cubs organization? Service-time manipulation, when teams wait to call up players for no other reason than to gain a year of control, robs the player of a year in which they could otherwise be earning in free agency. Who might be this year’s victims?

Perhaps Dee Gordon Was Out of Position Until Now, by Travis Sawchik
Gordon has spent his spring making the adjustment from second base to center field. Could he just be adjusting to where he’s always belonged?

FRIDAY, 3/16
Closers Never Leave The Bullpen, by Brad Johnson
C’mon, there’s air conditioning in there sometimes. Why would they want to?

Eric Hosmer Is Thinking About Swing Plane, by Travis Sawchik
Hosmer hits lots of balls into the ground, and it is partially the cause of his inconsistency at the plate. Lucky for him (and the Padres), he seems to be on the path to turn that around.

The Mound-Visit Rule Might Have an Enforcement Problem, by Sheryl Ring
MLB is leaving us still without an answer to the age-old question: “What are you gonna do about it?”

Eugenio Suarez and the Free-Agent Market, by Jeff Sullivan
No player envied the free agents trying to find homes this offseason. Eugenio, possibly dissuaded by that display, signed an extension that pushes back the date of his free agency.





Find Mina on Twitter @maddc8.

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