The Best of FanGraphs: September 18-22

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
Technology Threatens Scouts, Could Also Set Them Free, by Travis Sawchick
“They are able to just watch.” Sounds nice, actually.

A Minor Review of 2017: Los Angeles Dodgers, by Marc Hulet
Part of the Dodgers’ success this season was due to their farm system, and there are more good-to-great players on the way.

Forever (Anthony) Young, by Stephon Pujols-Johnson
We had two debuts at THT this week. This was the first, as Stephon recounted what the late, former Mets pitcher meant to him.

An Alternate Look at Ground Ball “Luckiness” by Sam Isenberg
The new tools from Statcast continue to be applied in a way that can help take out some of the guesswork.

TUESDAY
No One Will Want to Face These Yankees, by Travis Sawchick
I’ve been saying this for awhile. We’ve been caught up in watching Cleveland and Houston, and seemingly haven’t paid enough attention to New York. Part of that is the hurdle they face with the Wild Card game, but I think they’ve been a little underrated as well.

Is This the End for Jose Bautista?, by Dave Cameron
He won’t make the Hall of Fame, but Bautista is one of just nine position players to post an 8+ WAR season since 2010, and has been a pretty special hitter to watch.

Clayton Kershaw Allowed a Grand Slam, by Jeff Sullivan
I suppose it had to happen at some point.

Using Recurrent Neural Networks to Predict Player Performance, by Kiri Oler
One of the best presentations at this year’s Saberseminar comes to written life, in what serves as Kiri’s THT debut, and the second THT debut of the week.

WEDNESDAY
How Big Is Too Big for Shortstop?, by Eric Longenhagen
Eric really dove deep into the data to answer this one.

Players’ View: Role-Model Advice for Angels Prospect Jo Adell, by David Laurila
Some very good advice lies within, from some very prominent players.

THURSDAY
The 2017 Fans’ Scouting Report, by Dave Cameron
We’re very excited to be hosting this vote this season. Please take the time to vote.

Mike Trout’s Never Won a Playoff Game and It’s Weird, by Craig Edwards

Let’s Improve the Wild-Card Round, by Travis Sawchick
This is an awesome idea and I’m pissed I never thought of it. Travis does that a lot.

FRIDAY
What Numbers J.D. Martinez Looks At, by Eno Sarris
What the new Diamondbacks outfielder has to say makes a lot of sense, even if those numbers aren’t currently trending the way he would like.