no one ever said you did. all I'm saying is that the site has really evolved into a great site. It wasn't great a year ago or even six months ago. I wonder if Klosterman not having much or any say now has helped?
Clears Cleaver said:no one ever said you did. all I'm saying is that the site has really evolved into a great site. It wasn't great a year ago or even six months ago. I wonder if Klosterman not having much or any say now has helped?
Bergs said:Holy shit, was their Best Song of the Millennium bracket a travesty.
Clears Cleaver said:That's because that model won't make Disney money.
The Social Chair said:You make it sound like Grantland is buzzfeed. Brian Phillips, Alex Pappademas, Charlie Pierce, Bryan Cutris, Zach Lowe, Jonah Keri, and Wesley Morris are all elite writers.
Here's Peyton Manning's legacy among writers: He's so good that he turns metaphor against itself. You look at his stats and you have no choice but to deploy weapons-grade verbiage. Peyton Manning shreds the Eagles for 327 yards and four touchdowns in three quarters. Peyton Manning torches the NFL for 1,470 yards on a 75 percent completion rate in September. Peyton Manning obliterates the Ravens with seven touchdown passes. Peyton Manning crushes. Peyton Manning burns. Peyton Manning annihilates.
And yet … have you ever seen a football player less likely to crush, burn, or annihilate anything than Peyton Manning? It's possible to imagine, say, Ben Roethlisberger, if a night took a weird swerve, actually wielding a torch in anger; Peyton Manning would spend that same night at home, in his sock-folding room, folding his socks. I doubt he has ever shredded anything in his life. (Maybe a document.) On the field, he's Genghis Khan as portrayed by your 11th-grade trigonometry teacher. The language that best describes his accomplishments is also the language that most completely misrepresents his style.
What can you imagine Peyton Manning doing? Let's build him an analogical world. You can imagine him wearing a short-sleeve button-down dress shirt. You can imagine him speed-typing numbers on an old-fashioned adding machine. You can imagine him lining up the corners on a pack of yellow legal pads. You can imagine him carrying coffee. You can imagine him researching lawn mowers. You can imagine him leaving early for work to take the station wagon in for a wax job and sliding Astral Weeks into the CD changer and watching the gray morning light settle on a street full of Dunkin' Donuts and drive-through bank branches and thinking to himself, This is the time of day I like best.
It's a cliché to note that he's got some curious OCD tendencies — all that finger-licking under center,those rapid-fire Tourette's bursts of audibles. What's incredible is the cumulative effect 10,000 perfectly executed seven-yard reads have had over the years. At this stage in his late career, really for the whole season-plus he's been with Denver, Manning makes being a midlevel IT manager look like a form of ruthless conquest. It's as if he wrote a script to install automatic PC updates, and somehow it made him the god-emperor of hell. This is how he plays football: He goes out every week with a graphing calculator and a stack of forms, and he just audits teams to death.
George Orwell wrote that by the age of 50, everyone has the face he deserves. Manning is 37, well past 50 in football years, and his face increasingly looks like something that was squeezed from a tube of Crest. But watching him this past month, I couldn't shake the feeling that his whole career has been pointing toward this moment — that somehow, this is the first time we've truly been able to see him. Which is strange to say, since, of course, he played in Indianapolis for over a decade, won four MVPs and a Super Bowl, broke half the passing records in the NFL, and will always be more associated with the Colts than with the Broncos. But still. Some athletes get old and become faded copies of themselves, diminished versions of what they once were. Think of David Beckham before he retired, or of Tiger Woods now, to name two athletes around his age. But Manning has become, if anything, an intensified version of himself. And not just because he's playing next-level-even-for-him football right now — his whole temperament resonates in middle age in a way that it never did when he was 22. He doesn't seem old, because he never seemed young in the first place.
Which is why, I'm sorry, I've never quite been able to buy his role in the romance of the Manning family. The Manning romance, to me, exists only between Archie and Eli, two essentially youthful improvisers who played for Ole Miss. With Peyton, I can't quite see Archie as anything other than a solid professional contact who happened to teach him to walk during a series of early lunches. Go back and watch his Tennessee videos now and it's disorienting how young he looks. Even some of his clips from the Colts years. It's as if you're being fed extraneous information. This partly explains why it hasn't been as weird to see him in a Broncos uniform as it was to see, I don't know, Joe Montana line up for the Chiefs. He doesn't look reduced; he just looks like Peak Peyton Manning, drilling Wes Welker on quick out routes, as God intended. For this legendarily single-minded player, it's as if youth were one more distraction he had learned to put aside.
And yes, you could make the case that all his tics and quirks and obsessive tendencies are signs of stunted growth, that he's not so much an adult as a sort of productively thwarted child. But being a grown-up is not simply a matter of having mature priorities or a broad perspective. It can also mean living up to responsibility, being prepared. It can mean taking care of business, with all the dumb pressure that phrase implies. That's Manning's context, and if he has come to represent a certain kind of heroism, as I think he has, that's the field on which it takes place. It's a deeply square heroism, one whose negative you can see sketched in the list of mild pleasures that feature in his commercials — grilling, sweaters, Christmas parties, watches, sitting on the couch and looking at the TV. But so what?
Look at it this way: There's a nervous disconnect between the way pop media portrays middle-aged white dads as bumbling dorks and the disproportionate share of American wealth and power that middle-aged white dads continue to enjoy. Manning quietly bridges this gap. He sends the reassuring signal that running the world is punishingly hard and that the world is nevertheless well run. That may be a lie, but on a Sunday afternoon it's often a comforting one. He's stressed out enough that you don't quite want to be him, but benevolent enough that you're glad he's out there. He's the sitcom doofus as culture hero. He is the Prometheus of dad rock.
drleather2001 said:Well, he's also had the world handed to him since high school.
I read somewhere, maybe it was Deadspin, where the author said "All great QB's have had a period where they had to do more with less; Peyton did it, Brady did it..."
And I thought: wait...when?!
drleather2001 said:Wow. That's a name I hadn't thought of in 8 years.
DrewDawg said:
Peyton through the years:
1998-Faulk (2200 all-purpose yards), Harrison
1999-James (2100 APY), Harrison
2000-James (2300 APY), Harrison
2001-Rhodes (4.7 ypc, 1300 APY), Harrison, Wayne
2002-James, Harrison, Wayne
2003-James, Harrison, Wayne
2004-James, Harrison, Wayne, Stokely (67 catches)
2005-James, Harrison, Wayne
2006-Addai (4.8 ypc), Harrison, Wayne
2007-Addai, Wayne, Dallas Clark
2008-Addai (ehh), Harrison, Wayne, Clark
2009-Addai (ehh), Harrison, Wayne, Clark (100 catches), An. Gonzalez (57 catches), Collie (60 catches)
2010-Wayne, Garcon (67 catches), Collie (58 catches), Tamme (58 catches)
So, in his first 8 seasons he always had at least 2 of the following: Marshall Faulk, Edgerrin James, Marvin Harrison, and/or Reggie Wayne. The year James was hurt Dominick Rhodes rushed for 1000 with nearly 5 yards a pop. 4 of those years he had 3 of them.
And from 2006 on, he was the QB for the emergence of Dallas Clark and had secondary WRs (behind Wayne) of guys like Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie (pre-injury).
Not making judgments, but he's had pretty good weapons most years.
This was true pre-2007 but I don't think it has been true since then until this year. Welker-Gronk-Hernandez was as good a supporting cast as any in the league, and the collection of various multipurpose running backs (BJGE, Woodhead, Ridley, Vereen, etc.) the Pats have had over the past 5+ years is better than Addai/Donald Brown/McGahee/Moreno. Also, the Pats lines have generally been good. Not sure I'd say the same for those latter-decade Colts lines.CaptainLaddie said:You can make the argument that Brady, outside of 2007 and last season, never had the offensive weapons that Manning has had in any year (except 2006 maybe). Even in 2007, entering the year, Welker wasn't WELKAH and Moss was supposedly almost cut in the preseason.
CaptainLaddie said:You can make the argument that Brady, outside of 2007 and last season, never had the offensive weapons that Manning has had in any year (except 2006 maybe). Even in 2007, entering the year, Welker wasn't WELKAH and Moss was supposedly almost cut in the preseason.
#Analysis (n.) — making a statement about a player, team, or trend that is self-evident, e.g., "Miguel Cabrera is good at baseball."
Bunting (n. and v.) — lovely decorative touch for stadiums on occasions such as All-Star Games and World Series. Other than a few, rare exceptions, bunting has no other useful purpose in baseball.
Was about to link this article. Very funny.tims4wins said:
The later Colts supporting casts weren't great, but they were nowhere near the groups Brady had in 2006 or this year. That team lost 13 games in a row because Curtis Painter was QB ... once they upgraded to a still-lousy Orlovsky, they were competitive. Painter was historically bad.coremiller said:2008 was Harrison's last year, not 2009. And that 2010 team was terrible. Manning was the only reason they won more than five games. Wayne was the only decent weapon -- guys like Garcon and Collie and Gonzalez were average at best. The line sucked. They couldn't run the ball at all (3.8 y/a). There's a reason they lost 13 games in a row the next year when Manning was hurt.
2011 was the only year the Welker / Gronk / Hernandez group was really in full effect. In 2008 Brady was hurt. In 2009 you had Welker / Moss, but the #3 receiver was Sam Aiken. 2010 brought Gronk and Hernandez aboard, but they were both rookies (neither cracked 50 catches or 600 yards), plus it was Welker's worst year (coming off surgery). 2011 was Welker / Gronk / Hernandez in full effect. Last year both Gronk and Hernandez missed significant chunks of time.coremiller said:This was true pre-2007 but I don't think it has been true since then until this year. Welker-Gronk-Hernandez was as good a supporting cast as any in the league, and the collection of various multipurpose running backs (BJGE, Woodhead, Ridley, Vereen, etc.) the Pats have had over the past 5+ years is better than Addai/Donald Brown/McGahee/Moreno. Also, the Pats lines have generally been good. Not sure I'd say the same for those latter-decade Colts lines.
I’d learned what I was looking for; now I wanted to get a glimpse. And I got that when we went to Papago and watched Gioskar Amaya, a 20-year-old second baseman in the Cubs’ system.
Our assignment in Papago was to write up a throwback third baseman with no batting gloves and a uniform that was torn after his first plate appearance. The third baseman wasn’t bad, but Amaya stood out. In infield, he showed off a decent arm for second with an incredibly quick transfer, redirecting feeds from the shortstop in an eyeblink and finishing with a Jose Iglesias–like flip from his shoetops. In the game, the clinic continued with two diving plays in the field, but Amaya also impressed us with his appearance at the plate — even before he homered.
I left the park with my first true prospect crush, the kind that’s based not on stats but on something I saw in person. We’d seen some prospects before Amaya — Cleveland’s Clint Frazier, the fifth overall pick in this year’s draft, made a quick cameo at the end of one game — but this was our first extended look at upper-level athleticism.
When I returned to the hotel, I looked up Amaya’s stats, which would’ve been my first move before Scout School. And based on those stats, I never would have pegged him as a player of interest. In 117 games and 500-plus plate appearances for Kane County, Chicago’s Class A affiliate, Amaya batted .252/.329/.369. He hit only five homers, and he made 22 errors at second. Those don’t sound like a prospect’s stats.
The disconnect could tell us one of two things, both of which are important lessons to learn. It could be that Amaya’s stats are misleading: Maybe the talent is real and he’s about to break out. But it’s also possible that we happened to see him have the game of his life, or that his tools don’t play against tougher competition.
So which is it? I asked a couple pro scouting execs if I was right to fall for Amaya. “You did well,” said one, who sees him as a future everyday player. “Awesome,” said the other, upon hearing how I felt. “Me too.”
Of course, they both could be wrong. I came to Scout School to see what I was missing when I looked at the stats. Maybe Amaya is the answer, or maybe he’s a mirage. Either way, he’s the perfect example of why so many conversations at Scout School end with “we’ll know in five years.”
Bergs said:Kind of a big get for Grantland. Interim landing spot for Nate Silver & fivethirtyeight.
That should drive a fuckton of previously untapped traffic to Grantland. How much of that traffic will stick around to consume other elements of Grantland is open for debate, but still...
http://www.grantland.com/fivethirtyeight/story/_/id/9802433/nate-silver-us-government-shutdown
First, we’re told to write up the report as if it’s a “Follow.” A Follow is a type of report filed on amateur players in the fall; the Bureau describes it as “the backbone of what we do.” The point of filing a Follow is to send the message “Pay attention to this player.” If a guy gets a good Follow, his report will be entered into a database accessible by all 30 big league clubs, which makes him a prospect. The next spring, someone from the Bureau will go back to see him, and some teams’ scouting directors will send in their own evaluators. At that point, teams can get a good idea of what he is before the draft in June.
Early in the program, I got a little overexcited about the first really promising pitcher we saw and gave a tall, athletic, left-handed starter named Brandon Bonilla (of the baseball Bonillas) a 65 OFP on a Follow. I wasn’t necessarily wrong about what he will be — Bonilla, a 19-year-old sophomore at Grand Canyon University who throws in the mid-90s and has those coveted big-league bloodlines — could turn into an early draft pick and become a top-of-the-rotation arm. But for a Follow, the grade was on the optimistic side, since we didn’t see Bonilla’s breaking ball, and a 58, for instance, would have gotten the point across just as well. As the Bureau says, “A follow is a follow is a follow.” In other words, there’s no need to pump a guy up too high, since beyond a certain number, you know someone will be going back to see him. The higher the number, the further out the scout is sticking his neck.
... If you like a player, you should file a Follow, no matter what any other scout says. Scout School lead instructor Mike Larson recounted a time when he was tipped off to a high school shortstop by a coach in Illinois and went to watch him for a couple of days. Larson liked what he saw and decided to file a Follow, but before he did, he called the Illinois area scout and told him what he was planning to do. “He can’t play,” the other scout said, and told Larson that he’d remove the Follow the next spring if he saw it in the system. Not wanting to waste his time on a report that would be removed, Larson didn’t bother to file it. So who was that high school shortstop? Ben Zobrist, who ranked third behind Miguel Cabrera and Evan Longoria in WAR from 2009 to 2013. Oops. Every scout seems to have a story like this.
Another great Larson story: When he has to take notes quickly, he’ll often make a comparison to another player’s body or playing style as a trigger that will help him recall what he saw when he was writing his report. Once, while watching a player named Romar Aguilar in Mexico, he thought he’d come up with the perfect comp. “Benji Gil body,” he wrote when he saw Aguilar from afar, referring to the former Rangers and Angels infielder. “Benji Gil swing,” he wrote after Aguilar took his first hack. “Benji Gil glove,” he added after Aguilar got a grounder. Later, he found out why the comp fit so well: “Romar Aguilar” is the name Benji Gil goes by in Mexico.
Leading up to the draft, scouts have a tendency to inflate OFPs, since they want to “get their guys.” There’s nothing more demoralizing for an area scout than to spend most of the year traveling and staying up late to write reports, only to see the draft go by without his team selecting a single player he recommended. (Often, a team will take a marginal talent toward the end of the draft just to appease an area scout; that late in the process, they might as well, since there’s little separating one prospect’s potential from another.) So in order to push a player he likes up a team’s draft board, a scout might give him a higher grade than he otherwise would, if only to keep him in the running with the players filed by a more forgiving grader from a neighboring territory. It’s understandable, but it’s still a problem, because it ruins the integrity of the already somewhat subjective scouting scale.
Morning Woodhead said:This is a really great oral history on the 89 series and the earthquake. Really well done.
I particularly love some of the Eck stuff. He was coming his hair when it happened.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9859539/the-1989-world-series-earthquake-oral-history
McCarver: Baseball has often been criticized for having games start at five or eight Eastern [Time] for big events like the World Series, but imagine if that hadn't been the starting time. Just imagine the casualties — because instead of people already at home ready to watch the game in the Bay area, it would've been more devastating because that would've been in rush hour.
Spacemans Bong said:There was no rush hour during that World Series. People either left work early or had office parties to watch the games.
The roads were as empty as they have ever been for a Bay Area rush hour; if they weren't, hundreds of more people would have died. Imagine a section of the Bay Bridge falling on top of cars during rush hour, or the Nimitz pancaking during bumper to bumper traffic.