Over at BTF, there's a fascinating discussion going on stemming from a Voros McCracken critique of a comment by Keith Law in an online interview (and is that meta-bloggy enough?). Law talks about being disappointed after seeing Jordan Schaefer in person, feeling he didn't live up to the hype.
A sampling of the McCracken rant in question:
And if it makes me seem like a jerk, or it makes me seem arrogant or makes me seem incapable of understanding things from my garage, fine. But the reality is I remain highly skeptical of the ability of anyone to be able to make long term wide sweeping conclusions about a professional baseball player from 7 or 8 at bats.
There's more along that vein, with the crux seeming -- to me -- to be, its the stats that matter, not what you see.
McCracken chimes in extensively in the thread, and, to me, seems dead set to confirm Dave Cameron's take. Law and Cameron also weigh in in the thread...
You have to wade through a lot of OT "I look like so-and-so" crap, but the other stuff is pretty lively and, to me, interesting...and I almost have to wonder, given McCracken's responses, if he isn't doing this as a persona, sort of a caricature of the antagonistic, uber-stathead jackass...