The Best of FanGraphs: September 10-14, 2018

Each week, we publish in the neighborhood of 75 articles across 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, 9/10
Historic Images of Béisbol in Mexico: Star Negro Leaguers, House of David, and More Photo Rarities from Mexico, Part II, by M. G. Moscato
An excerpt: “Bit by bit, players from Cuba, the Negro Leagues, and major league clubs gradually visited or even immigrated to Mexico for organized league play or one-shot exhibition matches or series. It was only a matter of time before baseball took hold in the culture at large. When that happened, youth baseball followed.”

TUESDAY, 9/11
Using Contact Quality to Sort Out the AL Cy Young Mess, by Craig Edwards
You know what they say. If you can’t fix it with duct tape or contact quality…

It’s Physics – The Batter’s Grip Doesn’t Matter, by David Kagan
An excerpt: “There have been experimental verifications of the fact that grip doesn’t matter, although none have been as convincing as the one that occurred on May 27, 2012. Todd Frazier, then of the Cincinnati Reds, hit a home run. Slow motion video shows the ball struck the bat after the bat had actually left his hands. His grip certainly didn’t matter since he wasn’t even touching the bat!”

WEDNESDAY, 9/12
Using Survival Analysis to Predict Chase Utley’s 200th Hit By Pitch, by Shanna Shi
An excerpt: “You might be saying, ‘This is cool, I guess, but that doesn’t tell me when Utley’s going to be hit.’ (That you already know, and are pretending it is April is quite generous of you.) And you’re right. What this model gives us are situations where he’s most likely to be hit, but nothing concrete about the when.”

There’s Definitely Something Strange About Citi Field, by Jeff Sullivan
And no, it’s not that the giant home run apple is actually cursing all who wear orange and blue in its vicinity with wild and outlandish injuries.

Manaea’s Loss Further Thins Oakland’s Decimated Rotation, by Jay Jaffe
The A’s might be forced to show up to the playoff push party without any gifts for the host.

Who Would Be the Home-Run Leader in Space?, by Carson Cistulli
It’s not Not Graphs, but it’s not *not* Not Graphs.

THURSDAY, 9/13
If You Can’t Make A Sentence Apply to Baseball, It Probably Isn’t Worth Reading, by Steven Goldman
An excerpt: “Possibly Brandon Drury considered these words as he passed through the Yankees organization like a swallowed wad of chewing gum on his way to Toronto. Thurber wrote a little bit of everything, all of it masterful, including Aesop-like fables from which he derived cynical morals like, “You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.” (“The Owl Who Was God,” 1940.) This would serve as a fine motto for three generations of Florida/Miami Marlins ownership.”

Why the CBA Should Be the Province of Lawyers, by Sheryl Ring
Sheryl knows a lot of things. She lets you know some of those things in this piece.

Jeff McNeil and Rewarding Boldness, by Stephen Loftus
Well behaved second basemen rarely make history.

FRIDAY, 9/14
To Reseed or Not to Reseed? Improving the MLB Playoffs, by Christopher Dale
An excerpt: “Boston has clearly earned the right to play the weakest opponent in the first round. This year, that almost certainly will not happen. This leads to one question, simultaneously simple and complex: After the dust settles following the Wild Card games, should the MLB playoff field be reseeded?”

The Daily Grind: Scherzzz, by Brad Johnson
There were a few things on Friday’s agenda.

Examining 2018’s Biggest Pitch Repertoire Changers, by H.W. Linwood
TUUUURN and face the strange…