The Best of FanGraphs: March 6-10, 2017

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 and blue for Community Research.

ALL WEEK
Fantasy Baseball Preview Week
The wonderful Alex Chamberlain, Jeff Zimmerman, Paul Sporer, Andrew Perpetua and Mike Podhorzer unleashed their fantasy fury at THT this week. Each piece was so good that I have a hard time picking my favorite!

MONDAY
The New Brazilian Flamethrower, by Kate Preusser
This week, we introduced the FanGraphs Residency. We are overjoyed about this program, and even more overjoyed to have Kate be our first Resident. If you don’t know why we’re so excited, read this article and you’ll see!

Statcast and the Future of WAR, by Dave Cameron
This is a must-read from Dave.

Gary Sanchez and the Persistent Belief in Small Samples, by Travis Sawchick
As Travis poignantly asks, have we learned nothing?

Top MLB Prospects for 2017: The Pitchers (Part 1 of 2), by Marc Hulet
Don’t forget about Part 2!

TUESDAY
Projected 2017 Strengths of Schedule, by Jeff Sullivan
As if Cincinnati and Oakland weren’t screwed already.

Basic Machine Learning With R (Part 3) by The Kudzu Kid
This part three is even better than Terminator 3, and I really liked Terminator 3.

WEDNESDAY
J.D. Martinez Debunks Conventional Wisdom, Thinks a Tipping Point Is Near, by Travis Sawchick
J.D. Martinez is pretty, uh, sure of himself.

Why Team Israel Isn’t a Surprise, by Nicolas Stellini
The players in the World Baseball Classic are still the best in the world, even if they’re not the best in Major League Baseball.

PITCHf/x Forensics: Matt Harvey and Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, by Mike Sonne
Before this article, I wouldn’t have drafted Matt Harvey with a 10-foot clown pole, and this article did little to comfort me.

THURSDAY
Average Draft Position Now on the Site!, by Paul Sporer
This is pretty huge.

FRIDAY
The Cubs, Astros, and Paying the Young Superstars, by Dave Cameron
Players who have not yet reached arbitration have no leverage when it comes to their contract, but perhaps teams are starting to realize that they need to put a little more thought into those contracts anyway.

MLB Teams With the Most Dead Money, by Craig Edwards
Hopefully all this dead money doesn’t come back to … haunt them! Thank you, I’ll be here all weekend!!!