I like Will Carroll. And yeah, I'm using the present tense.
I've been a fan since before he even came to Baseball Prospectus, when he was producing his quirkily fascinating baseball-injuries-only e-mail newsletter. Had a couple e-mail interactions with him during that time, and he was very gracious and informative. I thought he was great at BP, I think he's a lot of fun to follow on Twitter, and I'm sure sometime soon he'll have some sort of big new gig (if he doesn't already), and I'll probably mostly like that, too.
But on Monday, Will had something to get off his chest. Problem is, I'm not quite sure anybody who read that really understands what that thing was.
We start (after an opening line on The Simpsons that's never really brought back in) with this:
It might surprise you to know Ryan Howard doesn’t know his VORP.These are true facts (well, the last one is a fact if you translate it to "Dusty Baker hates most statistics"). But the question that comes immediately to mind is: so what?
Roy Halladay didn’t know his xFIP.
Jamie Moyer doesn’t understand BABIP.
The Reds? You think I’m going to ask those questions in Dusty Baker’s clubhouse? Forget it.
