Talking Chop’s favorite fanposts of 2018

This post is another (small) Talking Chop tradition: a roundup of the year in Fanposts. 2018 was definitely an exciting but strange year in terms of community flow — the fans entered the year thinking it was going to be yet another rebuild year, and most discussion was still pretty future-oriented until the Braves hit the ground blazing and rarely looked back on their way to capturing a division title. Unsurprisingly, the Fanposts kind of reflect this!

January

• A Lower Bound for Future Rosters. ABsinceWayBack, who is now on the masthead, put together this great look at what rosters actually need to be (and not be) in order to have a fighting chance. In the context of what ended up happening in 2018, this ended up being pretty interesting, in that he Braves didn’t really try to hit said lower bound, but won anyway. Baseball, man.
• Rules Roundup: Lineups, Substitutions, and the Designated Hitter. As he sometimes does, Cornutt chimed in with a rules roundup here. While not specific to anything that did or would end up happening for the Braves, these sorts of things are great resources and we’re lucky to have them.
• The Big 8: An Evolution in Pitchers. goliathefy summarizes a potential approach for the Braves’ bevy of arms. Of course, the Braves didn’t do anything resembling this in 2018, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to in 2019, either. But there’s always hope.
• Pushing in Chips, Hedging Your Bets, and the 2015 Cubs. This one’s fun to highlight because of what happened in 2018. Go on and read it with the knowledge that this post was made about a year ago. Woo. (Well done, another simpsons avatar.)

February

• Twitter Can Help Us Solve for Cristian Pache’s Upside. I like stuff with video of mechanics even though I don’t really ever know what I’m looking at. So if you do too, then check out this post by Lance Brozdowski.

March

• Braves 202: The Relationship with Liberty Media. Honestly, just read this. There’s way too much time spent discussing things (or just railing against things) that could be preclude from reading this fanpost. There’s a reason multiple community members have it as their signature. Thanks, goliathefy.
• Dansby Swanson’s Adjustment, Into the Rabbit Hole. Hey, more swing video!
• The Impossible: Game 162. This fictional fanpost ended the same way the year did — with the Braves winning the division. Albeit in much more dramatic fashion.
• Five Bold Predictions: 2018. This is kind of annual required reading. Go back and check out who was right, and who was very wrong, before the recap post goes up in a few months.
• THE STORM IS HEAR: 2018 BRAVES SEASON PREDICSHINS: MY COLLUM. No description needed. And if you liked that one, here’s one from August, too.

April

• No Relief for Folty. Another ABsinceWayBack post. The Braves didn’t use Foltynewicz in relief, and he was awesome. Woo.
• Matt Wisler (Emphasis On) Might Be Different. Ah, but he really wasn’t. Awesome analysis, though.

May

• The Braves’ Debt. rajah takes us through some financial considerations regarding our favorite team.
• The Idealised Version of the Multiverse. A really fun read in retrospect, given when the post was made, the Braves’ stats at that point in time, and where everything ended up.
• What’s right with Freddie Freeman? Also amusing in retrospect given that Freeman changed a lot after this post was made into a potentially “less right” form, but we won’t blame praeceps93 for it, no sir.

June

• Why is Dan Winkler Good at Baseball? Aaron Trammell with a quick look at one of the lesser-sung heroes of the Braves’ 2018 success.
• Braves Draft - understanding impact with Rankings by Position. June is draft time on TC, and ATLol did us all a useful service by summarizing the draft from the Braves’ perspective with a neat table that shows the pre-draft rank of the players taken.
• GIF-mania: Rome @ Greenville 6/14/18. If you like minor league gifs, you owe it to yourself to check out this smorgasbord by rajah.

July

• Top 30 Braves Prospects - Rule 5 Draft Eligibility List. FONZY451 does stuff like this quite often, and while the current Rule 5 draft has come and gone (the Braves didn’t gain or lose any players in the major league portion), this effort was supremely useful nonetheless.

(Also, just want to point out that when doing this list, there was a Fanpost from July titled “Offseason RF Void” and here we are!)

August

• 2018 Braves Survey. This was a ton of work by FONZY451. I’m not really sure what conclusions to draw from it, but it exists.
• 2017 Atlanta Braves: Where are They Now? This Fanpost being on this list makes it a look back at this look back. It’s very recursive.
• Big Debt in Baseball: Accounting, Earnings Reports, and Miracles? August was apparently the month of the Fonz, and if you care about the team’s finances. check this out.

September

• An Ode to The Captain (From the Other Side). Yes, TC is a Braves blog, but that doesn’t mean Fanposts aren’t fair game for praising stellar players on other teams who have proven to be thorns in Atlanta’s side.

October

• TC Community Free Agent Match Game. This was really fun to participate in. I’m not going to win, but someone else definitely is. The actual predictions are here.

November

• Much of November and the offseason have been taken up by rosterbation threads and voting for the community prospect list (once again, a huge thanks to rajah for running that particular show yet again). But for a change of pace, here’s b0dini with The Braves NEED (?) an ace! (Spoiler alert: they don’t)
• And on that note, here’s SanfordRJones with some video and analysis of newcomber Josh Donaldson’s swing. Josh Donaldson, Bringer of Swing Analysis.

December

• How did Foltynewicz improve? In a number of ways, none of which included going to the bullpen. Thanks, skydog25.
• A Fairly Understandable and Definitely Not Comprehensive Overview of Website Traffic Among SBNation Baseball Blogs. If you like analyzing public data on SBN blog traffic, loaj has got you covered.