The Best of FanGraphs: May 4-8, 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
Kyle Blanks & Marco Estrada: Deep League Wire, by Karl de Vries
Kyle Blanks is one player I have always rooted for, so I’ll use any excuse to post about him. He had a pretty good week, so hopefully you followed Karl’s advice and scooped him up.

Catching Hell: Rookie Backstops Won’t Save Your Season, by Paul Sporer
Paul recounts the long list of rookie catchers who did not provide salvation.

TUESDAY
Player’s View: Does Lineup Protection Exist?, by David Laurila
I’m continuously impressed by Joe Girardi, and this is another example. Lots of other good quotes from David (and Eno).

Ron Roenicke and the Career Afterlives of Fired Managers, by Carson Cistulli
Cheer up, Ron Roenicke!

WEDNESDAY
New Hitter xBABIP Based on BIS Batted Ball Data, by Alex Chamberlain
This doesn’t necessarily get us closer to finding that white whale that is the perfect xBABIP, but this is still noble work nonetheless.

Dynamic Run Value of Throwing a Strike (Instead of a Ball), by Dan Meyer
This in-depth look at run values examines the value of each ball not put in play, and thus, the value of catchers who know how to frame.

The FAA Shifts Their Drone Policies, by David Wiers
David kind of goes next level here, as this doesn’t affect sporting events quite yet, but one could see how sports coverage could easily be improved with drone use. One example that leaps to mind is marathon coverage, as I have always hated how TV trucks just drive alongside the runners. I’m sure there are plenty of other examples.

THURSDAY
On the 162 Game Workload, by Dave Cameron
As Dave points out, it seems incomprehensible that the owners will advocate for the everything burns approach of lopping off four home games from their slate each season.

Assigning Blame for the Red Sox Rotation, by Jeff Sullivan
Surprise! The Red Sox starters have been more or less as good as could have been expected.

Scott’s Miscellany – Shift Candidates by Oppo%, by Scott Spratt
Great breakdown by Scott, potentially bad news for the starting shortstops of the Cubs and Red Sox.

A Decade of ERA-xFIP: Is Clay Buchholz a Buy Low?, by Colin Zarzycki
The Czar checks in with a spirited defense of everyone’s least favorite pitcher.

Buying CC Sabathia, by Mike Podhorzer
Mike hasn’t given up on Carsten Charles. Should you?

Introducing a Concussions Database, by Julien Assouline
Important effort here from Julien. Building this kind of database is difficult.

FRIDAY
A Visual Look at Defensive Metrics, by Sean Dolinar
Visual aids help so much.