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Morning Mound Visit: sabermetrics news - 7/5/18

Offenses projected to regress; Eddie Campbell on sports cartoons; the Astros’ negative WAR feat

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Houston Astros v Tampa Bay Rays Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images

The Athletic | Eno Sarris ($): Taking a look at the projections, there are a few offenses in baseball that could very well regress negatively in the second half, namely the Braves, Cubs, Indians, and Dodgers. They have players abound to rebut the argument they will collapse, like with the Braves with Ozzie Albies/Ronald Acuna and the Dodgers with Max Muncy/Matt Kemp, but they’ll be fighting an uphill battle.

Baseball Prospectus | Beth Davies-Stofka: BP interviews Eddie Campbell, comic book and graphic novel writer, on his latest book, The Goat Getters: Jack Johnson, the Fight of the Century, and How a Bunch of Raucous Cartoonists Reinvented Comics, and he shares some interesting tidbits on the history of sports cartoons, the prevalence in nightly city newspaper from people like Rube Goldberg, and how that era of cartoons seems quaint, and somewhat charming, to people of today.

FanGraphs | Jeff Sullivan: Here’s a fun Astros fact: they have only devoted 0.2% of their plate appearances to negative WAR players in 2018. They’re an amazing club, but I think what gets lost is the extent to their goodness—not only are they fielding a great team, but they are also fielding a team where every single player contributes something positively, which is an insane indicator of depth.