Interview with Bill James

Bill James, the father of sabermetrics and a man whom Time Magazine listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2006, was kind enough to answer a few of my questions. I asked about the Red Sox and the Royals, as well touching on a number of other subjects.

Q: Are the Red Sox going to make the playoffs this year?
A:  I don’t know what is going to happen.

Q: Does Dice-K win the AL Rookie of the Year?
A:  I don’t know what is going to happen. 

Q: If Dice-K is successful in Boston, does it help the Red Sox’s popularity in Japan? Can they ever compete with the Mariners in this regard?
A:  I don’t think we’re trying to compete with the Mariners in Japan.  If we are, it’s certainly not my area.  But we have about 80 Japanese writers and reporters covering the Red Sox on a daily basis, so we must be doing alright over there.

Q: What needs to happen for the Red Sox to have a successful season?
A: Our pitching should be pretty good.  We have to score more runs than we did last year.

Q: In a best-case scenario for Alex Gordon’s career, will baseball historians consider Gordon to be anywhere near the same league as George Brett and Mike Schmidt?
A:  I don’t have any idea.

Q: Gil Meche was signed for five years, $55 million. Give me a very short sentence about the signing.
A: Good luck.

Q: The Royals have said more than once that Meche shares many traits with guys like Chris Carpenter, that whole early-injury, late-bloomer thing, and that there’s a good possibility that he follows that career path. What are your thoughts here? Is this a legitimate reason to sign a guy?
A: Well, I don’t see close parallels between Gil Meche and Chris Carpenter.  Gil Meche was the best pitcher available to the Royals for the money they had at the time they were in the market.  He’s healthy and he wins half his games.  Whether he’ll get better....I don’t know. 

Q: Compare and contrast team-hired statistical analysts and independent analysts. Has your job with the Red Sox changed the way that you approach a problem, the way you think or research about baseball?
A:  Certainly it has changed.  There are a lot more aspects to the problem from the team’s standpoint than there are from the fan’s standpoint.  From my standpoint, I kind of needed a change of viewpoint, and I think my work has benefitted from being required to look at problems in a different way.

Q: Shortly after Allard Baird stopped his work as GM for the Royals, he began his work with the Red Sox. What has it been like working with him? How is he different in person than what we saw of him as the Royals GM?
A: I enjoy working with Allard. . . .he’s a great guy.  Allard is very self-disciplined, has his life very much under control.  That doesn’t tend to make him transparent.

Q: How badly does Fenway’s Green Monster skew outfielder defense stats? Baseball is the only sport that comes to mind where the boundaries are not completely set. How much are defensive stats – the last frontier, it seems – altered by the various shapes and sizes of outfields?
A: A lot.  It’s a real problem, but we’re working through it.  When I young, we didn’t really have a good handle on how parks effected hitting stats or pitching stats.  But it’s not really a huge problem....it’s just something you work through.

Q: Do you have any projects you’re working on now? What non-Red Sox stuff have you been up to?
A: I’m actually writing a non-baseball book at the moment.... a book about famous crimes.  That’s my number one non-Red Sox project.

Q: I’ll disqualify the Red Sox here – who is your favorite current player in the MLB?
A:  El Duque?  El Duque is fun.  Gary Sheffield is a lot of fun.  I’m a huge Roger Clemens fan, always have been.

Q: Look 50 years into the future. What areas have sabermetrics conquered, and what are we still clueless about?
A: We’ll still be trying to figure out what to do with the steroid-era stats.

Q: What chance do you give the Jayhawks for taking the title this year?
A:  I have no idea.

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I appreciate Mr. James’ time and answers. I also want to thank Mike Webber for his help in getting this done.

But, of course, that isn’t the end. Please feel free to answer the questions yourself. Consider it a Royals and Red Sox open thread. There obviously wasn’t much conjecture on James’ part—that’s where you guys come in. I’ll take one right now—I can guarantee the Jayhawks are taking the national title, no doubt.