Bill James was kind enough to answer a few of my e-mail queries. Bill is the reason I was able to spend 10 years working on Baseball Tonight. Twenty years ago his Abstracts clarified ideas that had been percolating in my mind for years. Now, as a consultant for the Red Sox, his methods are having a serious influence on the game. Enjoy.

Baseball Musings: In the years since you've started publishing, what's the biggest change you've seen in the game?

Bill James: Wow. The game is very, very different from the game of 1977. . .it's almost hard to put a finger on any one thing. But probably the easiest thing to SEE is the change from a speed game to a power game, with the consequent change in the pace of the game and in the appearance of the game. The players of today simply don't LOOK like the players of the 1970s. They are much heavier, much thicker, much slower.

Baseball Musings: There have been a number of articles published recently about GM's using OBA or Sabremetrics to evaluate players. Is this really a new trend, or have the good GMs always implicitly done this?

Bill James: Well, two questions there:

1. Is it new? and


2. Have GMs always implicitly done this.

The second question is easy to answer: NO. General Managers of 20, 25 years ago, for the most part, did NO analysis of any kind; they based decisions on seat-of-the-pants analysis. This certainly was true of many general managers as recently as five years ago.

As to whether it is NEW. . .that's harder. I don't know what everybody is doing, don't know what everybody was doing 10 years ago or 20 years ago. So. . .some of it is new; the rest of it is just old stuff that is spreading.

Baseball Musings: What should the Rockies strategy be for Coors field? What kind of hitters and pitchers should they sign?

Bill James: Whitey Herzog had a good take on that in "You're Missin' a Great Game". His theory was that you want sinker-ball pitchers there, because you can't rely on the curve ball, and you need hitters who make contact, because you make contact there, good things happen. But I'll add one thing: you need a manager who makes liberal use of the phrase "You're going to have to pitch through it." Don Baylor's theory there was that you need lots and lots of pitchers, because you're going to have to make a lot of pitching changes. But I think that's just destructive of your pitching staff, to be jerking pitchers out of the game because bad things happen to good pitchers. I think you have to tell your pitchers, "Look, things are going to happen here. You're going to throw a decent pitch, and somebody's going to slap it 420 feet. That's just going to happen. Get over it; keep pitching." That way you build your pitchers up, whereas if you overreact every time you give up a couple of runs, you tear your pitchers down.

Baseball Musings: Given what we now know about the relationship to balls put into play and hits allowed, doesn't this strategy also require a very good infield defense? Would a better strategy be to have fireballers who can strikeout 9 a game?

Bill James: This assumes that fastballs get strikeouts. This is untrue. Breaking pitches get strikeouts. Breaking pitches are difficult to throw at high altitudes (a fact, incidentally, which has been known by baseball pitchers at least since the 1920s. In the 1920s there are published comments about how hard it is to throw a breaking pitch in Salt Lake City.) But there is a valid point in there--which is, that if the value of offense increases per ball in play, then the value of fielding skill also increases.

Baseball Musings: There are a number of players who are having phenomenal success late in their careers. Barry Bonds and Randy Johnson stand out. Do players still peak at 27 has the peak age gone up? If not, do peak years stretch longer than the 25-27 year time frame?

Bill James: It was 25-29, not 25-27. Players still peak at 27, and are declining with the same frequency that they always did (actually, there is some slight evidence that the rate of decline from aging is INCREASING.) Bonds was born in 1964--but so was Will Clark, Jose Canseco, Dwight Gooden, Bret Saberhagen, Ozzie Guillen, Roberto Kelly, Luis Polonia, Jeff King, Pete Incaviglia, Mike McFarlane, Bobby Witt, Jose Lind, Mitch Williams, Rob Dibble, Joe Magrane, Billy Ripken, Greg Hibbard, Kevin Reimer and Doug Strange. Bonds is simply not typical of the group.

Randy Johnson was born in 1963, but so were Paul O'Neill, Ken Caminiti, Lenny Dykstra, Cecil Fielder, Lance Johnson, Mike Greenwell, Mariano Duncan, Kal Daniels, Shane Mack, Chris Bosio, Mike Devereaux, Eric Plunk, Matt Nokes, Norm Charlton, Jim Leyritz, Bruce Ruffin, Bobby Thigpen, Daryl Boston, Jose Guzman, Pat Borders, Jeff Treadway, Scott Bankhead, Mark Carreon, Dale Sveum, John Cangelosi, Doug Henry, Felix Fermin, Dwight Smith, Damon Berryhill, Todd Benzinger and Sam Horn. The fact that ONE of them is still playing the best ball of his career does not make this in any way representative of the group.

Baseball Musings: What's next after Win Shares? Do you have any new formulas that you are working on?

Bill James: Many. But the Red Sox own some of them, and the others aren't quite ready to bust out.

Baseball Musings: Of the moves the Red Sox made this winter, which do you think will pleasently surprise the fans the most?

Bill James: Todd Walker? Walker has a reputation as a poor defensive second baseman, which is unfair; he is actually a very good second baseman. Plus he can hit.

Baseball Musings: How do you like working on the inside of baseball? What was the most unexpected thing for you?

Bill James: It's been fun so far. The most unexpected thing is the Red Sox organization, the internal view of it. The guys I work with are mostly young, extremely sharp, very focused. But you walk around the offices. . .the office is very diverse, extremely competent. It is unusual to see an organization with so many quality people.

Baseball Musings: Last question, how many games are the Royals going to win?

Bill James: 66

Thanks to Bill for taking time out of his busy schedule and for his thoughtful answers.