The Best of FanGraphs: September 4-8

by
September 9, 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
The Reality of the Anti-Ground-Ball Revolution by Jim Melichar
We were mostly off as a company on Monday, but the Community was still hard at work, including, of course, Jim.

TUESDAY
Protecting Players Against Big Data, by Michael Hattery
Michael is our Resident for the month of September, and this was his debut article. Please give him a warm welcome!

Is the LeMahieu Shift the Boldest One Ever?, by Travis Sawchick
If it isn’t, it definitely needs to be in the conversation.

J.D. Martinez Makes History, Keeps Improving, by Travis Sawchick
Tuesday was “Travis Sawchick writes about the Diamondbacks” day.

Where the Diamondbacks Have Found Their Wins, by Jeff Sullivan
Jeff didn’t want to be left out of the fun of writing about Arizona.

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.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
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.

Six Days in September: The 1967 AL Pennant Race, Part 1, by Shane Tourtellotte
Part 1 implies that more of these pieces are coming. Check back each Wednesday this month, as Shane breaks down what might have been the best pennant race of all-time. Also, if you didn’t notice, we made some changes this week at THT.

WEDNESDAY
Manny Machado’s Lost Season Now Found, by Craig Edwards
Now, if only he could find the keys to that old Buick.

THURSDAY
The CBA’s Poison Pill Isn’t Very Poisonous, by Stephen Loftus
We’re very excited to welcome Stephen to the FanGraphs team!

The Disconnect in Pittsburgh, by Travis Sawchick
Travis takes the unpopular stance of being reasonable on the internet.

Baseball Is Moving Away From the Sinker, by Jeff Sullivan
These things come and go, and right now, the sinker is on the downswing, no pun intended.

Quick Takes on Rookie Call Ups, by Jeff Zimmerman
Jeff runs through 16 players who have been called up so far.

Pitcher Spotlight: Luiz Gohara’s MLB Debut, by Nick Pollack
File this one away for the late rounds of your draft next March.

Unaccounted For Changes In Exit Velocity, by Andrew Perpetua
Somehow, all three RotoGraphs articles ended up being on Thursday. Maybe RotoGraphs is turning into NBC. Or maybe it’s a huge coincidence.

Using Statcast Data to Measure Team Defense by Nate
New stats are fun. Nate has created xRS. Have fun with it.

FRIDAY
MLB Should Fight Technology with Technology, by Dave Cameron
Earlier in the week, Dave had had with it the whiners and cheaters. On Friday, he proposed a solution, as he is wont to do.





 

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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