The Best of FanGraphs: March 2-6, 2015

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, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.

MONDAY
Attempting to Forecast Yoan Moncada Statistically, by Chris Mitchell
Data for Moncada is imperfect to say the least, but Chris puts in yeoman’s work putting down what will be surely be just a starting point.

2015 Pod Projections: Carlos Carrasco, by Mike Podhorzer
An in-depth look at one of the more fascinating pitchers heading into the 2015 season.

Tutorial: FanGraphs’ Auction Calculator, by Brad Johnson
Brad helps you get familiar with our latest toy.

Is Charlie Brown the Worst Manager Ever?, by Patrick Dubuque
Good grief!

Pitch Grades vs. Relative Pitch Grades, by Ben414
Opening the discussion on how movement and velocity of pitches should be evaluated.

A PCA for Batter Similarity Scores (Part 1: Basic Methodology), by Matt Malkus
Creating player comps for seven types of hitters, including “sell out for power,” “balanced mashers” and “put on a glove.”

TUESDAY
How the Playoff Odds Have Changed in a Year, by Jeff Sullivan
Sorry, Rangers fans. There may be more of this in your future.

WEDNESDAY
Demography of the Good Player, Part I: Amateur Origins, by Carson Cistulli
Good stuff from Carson, who continued with Part II here.

The Smallest Big Free Agent Signings, by Miles Wray
When you get to the end of this post, you will realize how young Miles is.

The Cubs Rotation: Arrieta, Lester, Hope it don’t fester, by Chris Cwik
With his recent announcement that he will be heading over to Yahoo’s Big League Stew blog, this was Chris’ last post here for the FanGraphs family, and he went out with a bang — especially in the title department. Best of luck to Chris at Yahoo! and beyond.

THURSDAY
Creating an Expected Payroll for all MLB Teams, by Craig Edwards
Some interesting research by Craig reveals that perhaps the Mets aren’t as cheap as we’d like to think.

Marijuana and the Joint Drug Agreement, by Nathaniel Grow
Major League Baseball mostly looks the other way when players and their friends Mary Jane get five on that buddha, that weed, that sess, that purple, that sour diesel, and/or that chronic, and roll it up, light it up, smoke it up and inhaaaaaaale, like a saaaaaaail.

Mike Norris and the Moral Winter, by Owen Watson
The experiences of the former A’s pitcher make us think about what has and hasn’t changed over four decades.

ASMI’s Glenn Fleisig talks about Tommy John Surgeries, Wearable Sensors at Sloan Conference, by Bryan Cole
Anytime Dr. Fleisig is on the mic, you should be paying attention.

FRIDAY
Examining SERA’s Predictive Powers, by Jonah Pemstein
Jonah is back with some SERA/pSERA goodness, including a chart of how pitchers stack up in 2015 through its lens.