The Best of FanGraphs: March 23-27, 2015

by
March 28, 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.

ALL WEEK
The Positional Power Rankings started this week. They didn’t completely finish, but we managed to make it through all position players. You can find all 10 posts at the link above, or for a quick look check out Dave’s recap post here.

MONDAY
KATOH’s Organizational Rankings, by Chris Mitchell
A ray of hope for Rangers fans.

Roto Riteup: March 23, 2015, by Zach Sanders
It’s back! Well, actually it came back last week, but let’s not split hairs, shall we? In this edition, Zach included his 2015 projection for Alex Rodriguez.

My 2015 AL-Only Tout Wars Team, by Mike Podhorzer
As usual, Mike paired sure-thing hitters with some not-sure-thing pitchers. It’s been a recipe for success for him plenty in the past.

TUESDAY
The Case of the Curious Diamondbacks, by Dave Cameron
Branch Rickey was fond of saying that “luck is the residue of design.” But sometimes luck happens even if you plan poorly, as Dave cautions us here.

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.

Duke’s Michael Matuella Returns to Top-5 Pick Form, by Jesse Burkhart
Jesse made his FanGraphs debut with this post about a pitcher who we should all be getting familiar with.

Random Auction Musings, by Mike Podhorzer
After putting together his Tout Wars team, Mike was in the pontificating mood. Some good stuff in here.

Tommy John Surgery Success Rates in the Majors, by Jon Roegele
Tommy John surgery is still a dangerous procedure that carries no guarantee of success.

Check Out MLBAM’s Ridiculous Launch Schedule for 2015, by Michael Tunney
Major League Baseball Advanced Media is an incredibly driven company, and they have set the bar high this spring.

WEDNESDAY
Trying To Optimize The Rockies Rotation For Coors Field, by Mike Petriello
Buoyed by the news of how the Rockies would handle their two Opening Day assignments (actual and home), Mike digs in on an interesting thought experiment.

Third Base Tiers: March Edition, by Michael Barr
This altogether reasonable take has Kris Bryant in a three-man fourth tier.

THURSDAY
The Last Expo Standing, by Miles Wray
Seven remain. Only one will stand triumphant. Your poll results are here.

FRIDAY
The Nuttiest Pitches: Changeups, by Eno Sarris
WARNING: Hot GIF action inside!





 

Paul Swydan used to be the managing editor of The Hardball Times, a writer and editor for FanGraphs and a writer for Boston.com and The Boston Globe. Now, he owns The Silver Unicorn Bookstore, an independent bookstore in Acton, Mass. Follow him on Twitter @Swydan. Follow the store @SilUnicornActon.

Comments are closed.