The Pontiff
Statistics are the language of baseball, and as with all languages, they can be used to clarify or to obfuscate. The truth of an event may be hidden behind statistics, or perhaps revealed more plainly by statistics. The same person, or the same event, can be viewed in radically different ways depending on the statistics used and how deeply a person is willing to dig into the statistics.
The case of Austin Pope is evidence of this fact. After pitching well in 48 appearances between Amarillo and Reno last season, he earned a spot with Salt River in the Fall League, and it didn’t go particularly well.