Grantland so far

Disagree. I think the skepticism was right in the first paragraph:

"The computer mainframe in the basement of Scott Boras' battleship offices foretold none of this. It didn't see the injuries, it didn't see the waning confidence, it didn't see the fastball that has become a fastball in name only. It didn't see anything like this end. The computer saw only magic in Barry Zito's future, because the computer can do only math."

I think the story makes that point that there is more to evaluating a pitcher than just numbers. Boras reduces everything down to numbers which in some cases can lead to bad outcomes for the teams.

This paragraph to me is the key to the story:

"Barry Zito is a believer in totems. In those days, he had a replica of Reggie White's Green Bay Packers jersey draped over the back of his couch for inspiration. He had a shrine built to Sandy Koufax in his bedroom, near his own Cy Young Award from 2002. A portrait of Carlos Santana was on the wall nearby. And now there was this blue binder sitting on his kitchen counter.

That binder destroyed Barry Zito."

I think what Jones is saying is that once Zito's game was reduced to numbers, he was no longer the same pitcher.

 

Curses on Tom Bissell for his piece on iPad games, which led me to World of Goo. No one should spend this much time dealing with goo. Very distressing.

 

https://twitter.com/#!/Gruntland33

 

Me too. Not sure why. Seems like everytime I click over there, it's filled with stories I don't really care about. So I don't click over there quite as much.

 

I agree that's what he's saying, but I think what he's not questioning is why the Giants or anyone else believed Boras' numbers. As a precursor to my argument, I should have said I'm very much a Baseball-Prospectus-reading stat nerd. But Jones acts like because Boras' slanted numbers suggested one thing, that the numbers were proven wrong and that this wasn't foreseeable. I disagree entirely.

 

This.

 

Not sure why? Your third sentence says exactly why.

 

Simmons should hire Shannon Sharpe.

 

I thought "Brady Quinn's blog" was pretty damn funny.

 

Terrible rip off of TonyHomo.com.

 

Awful.

 

Well, I think y'all suck. Like Te-blow, even.