"The amazing part about Jeff Luhnow's introductory press conference wasn't the admission of a years-long rebuild, it wasn't the support for Brad Mills and it wasn't the smooth linguistic transition midstream from English to español. No, it was that he was able to leave the spreadsheet unattended for an hour and come into the light.

Yuk, yuk, yuk. 2004 finds that joke hilarious.

That was probably the peak of the often counterproductive scouts vs. stats argument. One year after the dead tree edition of "Moneyball" came out and sparked a movie version and countless misinterpretations.

Educated in a dual degree program that blended business and engineering, Luhnow joins a front office that is increasingly data-oriented. To listen to him and to CEO George Postolos talk is a different experience than to listen to the old regime when it comes to what Luhnow called "the zero-sum game" of baseball.

How this will play out in terms of real results obviously remains to be seen. The Brit who proved Fermat's last theorem probably liked Barry Zito's deal for all I know."