Bill JamesIf the name Bill James doesn’t mean anything to you, then you are probably not a baseball fan and have no need to read further. If, however, you are a baseball fan — ranging from fairly serious to obsessively statistical — then the name Bill James probably sets your brain and heart a-clattering. Here’s what his bio says:
Bill James has been writing about baseball since 1975. He is Senior Baseball Operations Advisor for the Boston Red Sox, and is the author of The Bill James Gold Mine 2008.
This would be the equivalent of a George Washington bio that said:
George Washington was a colonel and then a general during the U.S. Revolution, and then he became President.
Bill James hardly invented the statistical analysis of baseball, but over the past 30 years, he has done more than anyone to turn it into a science. His Wikipedia page gives a pretty good overview of his achievements; it is also worth visiting the Society for American Baseball Research (S.A.B.R.), which allowed sabermetrics to become a way of life.
With a new baseball season about to begin, and with his Red Sox pursuing their third World Series title in five years, Bill has agreed to take questions from readers of the Freakonomics blog. So fire away in the comments section and we’ll post his answers in a few days’ time. Thanks to Bill and all of you for participating.
Addendum: The answers to this Q&A can be found here.
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Do you feel that baseball managers’ salaries will increase dramatically over the next few years? Asking the question another way…do managers have much leverage at all? (I feel that they are easily replaced and the best ones do not add much value. Therefore the open market should lead to little increases in managers’ salaries.)
Have you looked into the economic impact of MLB teams and their stadiums on the cities that they are in? The economic research that I’ve seen leads me to believe that no politician should be using public dollars to subsidize stadiums for teams, which are private businesses. But we see it over and over again (FLA, NYM, NYY, WAS, etc). What’s your view of using public dollars to build stadiums?
From a consumer of all things James for 26 years: 1) What has been the most interesting thing you learned since you started working for the Red Sox? 2) What is the rate at which your suggestions are adopted (when I went to the Council of Economic Advisors I was told to be happy with Wade Boggs’ batting average)?
3) What accepted recommendation to the Red Sox are you proudest of?
Has sabermetrics pretty much squeezed the last drop of new insights out of traditional counting statistics? If so, what data ought to be collected to improve our understanding of the game? If not, where can the boundaries be pushed?
Bill,
What do you feel is the value of a players past statistics in drafting a fantasy player? What I mean is, what statistics year over year have the greatest correlation to a players future performance, and which statistics for a player matter the least in future performance?
On average how many runs does Manny Ramirez’s defense cost the Red Sox? Is there some special adjustment that must be made to evaluate LF defensive stats in Fenway?
I know statistics don’t lie, can predict the future, and cook a steak medium-rare with mind-numbing ease of cleanup (look ma! no laughs!), but how do you quantify team chemistry week to week? This really comes in light for March Madness and the whole don’t-let-the-other-team-think-they’re-in-it speech every basketball coach from the top to the bottom spews. You really can’t tell though unless you know how the team plays week to week. Is there some kind of statistic for such a subjective thing? Maybe it’s not as influential in baseball, I don’t know; I grew up a basketball kid.
Generally, who should have a larger role in evaluating college and minor league players: scouts or a stat guys?