The Best of FanGraphs: May 9-13, 2016

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
Here Is Every Pitch That the Cubs Threw to Bryce Harper, by Jeff Sullivan
It almost feels like ancient history because a lot happened this week, but Bryce Harper took a historic amount of pitches last weekend, and Jeff was there to chronicle it in painstaking detail.

TUESDAY
Stephen Strasburg’s Extension Is a Win-Win, by Dave Cameron
There’s a lot of risk for the Nationals here, but as Dave says, the Nationals are in a position to take some risks.

Blind Résumés: Musings on Perceived Value, by Alex Chamberlain
Don’t give up on Jorge Soler.

The Change: The Bad Fastball Bucket, by Eno Sarris
Eno didn’t credit anyone as helping him with that fancy Tableau graphic, so it would appear that he did it on his own. Perhaps old dogs can learn new tricks!

WEDNESDAY
Affordable Buy-High Candidates, by Paul Sporer
Should you spend for players with a smaller track record? Paul digs in.

Ciao, Cooperstown: Move the Hall of Fame to New York City, by Nathaniel Rakich
Nathaniel’s piece proved to be quite the discussion starter, so make sure you read it and join the conversation!

THURSDAY
Introducing the Batter-Specific Run-Expectancy Tool, by Jonah Pemstein
If you aren’t excited about this post from Jonah and new tool from Sean Dolinar, then I’m not sure what you’re doing on this site. It was a big week for Sean, who also unveiled new (and outstanding) player graphs as well.

Max Scherzer at His Best, at His Best, by August Fagerstrom
If you missed it, Max Scherzer struck out 20 batters earlier this week. Not sure if you heard. Here, August detailed the five best of them. Craig also went back and looked at the victims in all five 20-strikeout games.

MLB Already Backing Off New Slide Rule, by Craig Edwards
You guys see the great article here from Craig, but what you didn’t see is the nerdy discussion he and Neil Weinberg had about the rule on Slack. It was glorious.

FRIDAY
Reviewing Clayton Kershaw’s Four Walks, by August Fagerstrom
What’s the bigger upset, that Clayton Kershaw has only walked four batters, or that one of the batters he did walk was Yangervis Solarte?

The Red Sox Offense Has Been Better Than the 1927 Yankees, by Owen Watson
It’s been a good week for Red Sox hitters. Eventually they won’t get to beat up on the Braves, A’s and Astros though.

A Letter of Farewell, by Dan Farnsworth
Best of luck to Dan in the future.

Preparing for a New League Type, by Tanner Bell
Congrats to Tanner and his wife on their third child! And also, his new league.

Simulating the WARriors, by Gus Madsen
Good news for fans of the Big Red Machine. And I got a kick out of seeing Jim Kern’s name, who I wrote about once upon a time.





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.