The Best of FanGraphs: May 15-19, 2017

by
May 20, 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.

MONDAY
Jake Arrieta Has Not Been Good, by Jeff Sullivan
This is indisputable. Will he be good again? Jeff explores this in thoughtful fashion.

2017 Home-To-First Times, by Jeff Zimmerman
Jeff is more meticulous about tracking these times than anyone I know.

TUESDAY
A More Selective Miguel Sano Is Crushing It, by Travis Sawchick
He’s becoming a beast right before our eyes.

KATOH’s Most-Improved Hitting Prospects So Far, by Chris Mitchell
In encouraging Padres news, two of their players made Chris’ list. He also looked at pitchers the following day.

How to Beat Statcast’s Hitting Metric, by Craig Edwards
This was one of two Statcast-themed articles that Craig wrote this week. Here’s the other.

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.
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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.

Seven Days in May (1968), by Frank Jackson
Bryce Harper is lord and savior of Washington DC baseball these days, but back in 1968 it was Frank Howard…sort of. Baseball wasn’t a primary concern in the nation’s capital that summer.

WEDNESDAY
Corey Dickerson Got Out of His Own Head, Is Hitting Out of His Mind, by David Laurila
Some players need to think more about their game. Some need to think less.

Everyone Is on the Disabled List Right Now, by Eno Sarris
In one of my leagues, we made a special exception on rule changes to expand the disabled list from two to four players. I suggest you do the same!

THURSDAY
Bryce Harper Is Zeroing In, Eliminating Few Remaining Holes, by Travis Sawchick
While the player himself offered little introspection, Travis walked away encouraged nonetheless.

The Case for Rafael Devers, by Dave Cameron
This is 100 percent correct. The Red Sox don’t need to make a trade. Also please note Gleyber Torres’ inclusion on this list, so you can not be surprised about the Yankees calling him up later this summer.

Starting Pitcher Ranking Update, by Paul Sporer
Very thorough work from Paul, as usual.

A Few Starters To Buy, by Rylan Edwards
It can be hard to suss out which developments are for real and which aren’t. Let Rylan help you.

The Physics of Choking Up, by David Kagan
David deftly walks through explaining the science behind this common practice. Please also read Eno’s companion piece on the subject.

Why Launch Angle Can Only Be Optimized, Not Maximized by Dominikk85
Interesting stuff.

FRIDAY
Ryan Zimmerman’s Unsatisfying Explanation Behind Success, by Travis Sawchick
Travis wrote about Miguel Sano crushing it, but so is Travis.





 

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.

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