The Awesome Brandon McCarthy

A terrific read to start continue your week: Michael J. Mooney’s profile of Brandon McCarthy over at Buzzfeed.

[T]he Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher, who will begin his eighth season with his fourth different organization when he takes the ball Opening Day, comes across as genuine and unaffected, whether it’s to his 100,000+ Twitter followers or in his living room….

“I became addicted to Fangraphs,” he says, referring to a popular stat-head website. “If I wanted to stop sucking, I knew I needed to change something.” He looked at which pitches lead to more runs. At the end of his stretch with the Rangers, he made the conscious decision to remake himself as a pitcher….

“After the injury, trying to be funny was one of the things that helped me clarify my thoughts,” he says, still sitting on the same couch where he came up with most of his ideas. “I always liked the idea of writing, but actually writing is harder than hell. Having an idea is one thing, but creating characters and a universe and then giving them words and all that is completely another idea all together.”

The entire piece is a must-read.