Morning Mound Visit: Sabermetrics News - 5/17/18

FanGraphs | Jeff Sullivan: Francisco Lindor is pulling the ball less, and his xwOBA is climbing every year that he’s in the majors. It’s very possible that this improvement, combined with his world-class defense, could make him one of the best players in the league, if that hasn’t happened already.

Baseball Prospectus | Matthew Trueblood: Even though the juiced ball era has ushered in an influx of four-seam fastballs, you will definitely see more sliders and sinkers as a counter. Jake Arrieta and Jose Berrios, for example, are already using it to great effect.

Bill James Online | Alex Vigderman: Synthetic Statcast is a BIS product introduced at SABR Analytics, and it “estimates exit velocity, launch angle, and spray... from the hit location and timing of batted balls.” Where this is actually interesting is applying this to leagues and eras where Statcast didn’t or doesn’t exist.

Tangotiger Blog | Tom Tango: This is more of a thread than an article discussing what he describes as “one-dimension versus two-dimension performance,” where the former is Win Shares and the latter is WAR.

The Athletic | Eno Sarris: Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuña are the new one-two star combination the baseball world is talking about, and they join a prestigious group of top-of-the-lineup pairings at such a young age—Lou Whitaker and Alan Trammel, Luis Castillo and Edgar Renteria, and Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts, for example.