The Best of FanGraphs: November 30-December 4, 2015

by
December 5, 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
KATOH’s Top 100 Prospect List for 2016, by Chris Mitchell
Sorry, Marlins and Angels fans.

Tigers Sign Perfectly Fine Zimmermann to Perfectly Fine Deal, by August Fagerstrom
“If there’s one thing we know about the Tigers it’s that they’re probably willing to spend more than we think they’re willing to spend.” Or, in other words:

kwERA: The Starting Point for Pitcher Evaluations, by Jeff Zimmerman
Jeff is pretty excited about kwERA being on the custom leaderboards, and he celebrated by building a new ERA estimator.

TUESDAY
The Potential Benefit of a Salary Cap for MLB Players, by Nathaniel Grow
Nathaniel makes his case.

What We Know About David Price On the Red Sox, by Jeff Sullivan
Since this will undoubtedly be one of the largest signings of the offseason, we briefly turned into PriceGraphs. (hey, that has a nice ring to it!) In addition to Jeff’s expert take here, Dave put in his two cents both at InstaGraphs and at FOX (RIP JABO), Eno looked at the value of Price’s opt-out, and Owen looked at Price’s change-up.

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Chris Coghlan & When You Should Pick Prospects in a Redraft, by Eno Sarris
An interesting look at the underrated middle rounds of the draft.

Christian Yelich is Kind of an Historically Unique Hitter, by Alex Chamberlain
Great stuff from Alex here.

Is Aaron Hicks The Next Carlos Gomez?, by Paul Sporer
If he is, people are going to be madder than usual with the Yankees. And the Twins.

WEDNESDAY
2016 ZiPS Projections – Atlanta Braves, by Carson Cistulli
Carson started the ZiPS procession, and we don’t have to wonder long whether we’ll have a 0 WAR projected player, because the Braves have one.

Positional Case Study: Minnesota Twins Third Basemen, by Alex Remington
The continuation of a sporadic, but fun, series of deep dives on specific team positions.

THURSDAY
On Opt-Outs and Risk Mitigation, by Dave Cameron
Could an opt-out clause also reduce a team’s risk? Dave explores.

The Unionization of Baseball, by Adam Dorhauer
Most pieces that Adam writes are exhaustively researched and incredibly informative, and this piece is no exception.

FRIDAY
Jeff Bridich on Building the Rockies, by David Laurila
The Rockies general manager opens up on what the team is and is not happy with.

“Kelly Now Catching”: King Kelly and Baseball’s Substitution Rules, by Sarah Wexler
Sarah makes her THT debut with a great historical piece on how something King Kelly did (or possibly did not do) and its effect on the game’s substitution rules.

The Most Perfect Pitcher Career, by Jaack
Ridiculous Moon Wizard Pitcher was pretty damn good.





 

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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