Bill James, the godfather of the famed sabermetrics and senior advisor to the Red Sox has written a new book, The Bill James Gold Mine 2008. Time's Sean Gregory sits down with him for a Q&A about the book and his thoughts for the coming 2008 season. The book is a collection of essays with statistical "nuggets" about players and the game in general dropped in between sections. Without giving too many "nuggets" away, James states that one of the most surprising ones he came across was from Brad Hawpe, the RF for Colorada Rockies, the defending NL champions. Hawpe, who resembles a Who from Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas with his hooked nose, was the best clutch  hitter in baseball during the 2007 season. Hawpe drove in an amazing 45 runs during the regular season in clutch situations (for more on the statistical breakdown of James' criteria of what consists of clutch breakdown, read his byline in Sports Illustrated).

Although James will not predict if the Red Sox will repeat as World Champions, he did say that the Red Sox and Yankees are both dealing with the same decisive issue right now:

Well, the Yankees are kind of moving on to the future. There's something I call Sam's Law — after Sam Rich, an attorney from Pittsburgh who has been a friend of mine for many years. Sam's Law is that young pitchers will break your heart. I think that when teams go into a pennant race depending on young pitching, it very often it takes a year or two for that young pitching to be as good as you thought it would be. The Yankees have that problem, and we have that problem — we're depending on [Jon] Lester and [Clay] Buchholz and some other guys to be useful to us. It's going to be interesting to see how many of those young pitchers live up to those expectations.

James is of course referring to Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain of the Yankees, both of whom have actually pitched in the postseason, including Joba's eigth inning bout with the fourth plague in Game 2 of the ALDS against the Indians (which ended in a Yankee loss).

Lester, on the other hand... well I think we all remember Game 4 of the World Series. Ultimately, I think James is errring on the side of caution so the Sox will not come off as cocky during the preseason or put extra pressure on our young arms. James always brings an interesting view to the game; however, I can't say I agree with his view on Mariano Rivera. James claims that Rivera looks like Henry Fonda from The Grapes of Wrath...

    

All I have to say is that I am glad he doesn't contribute to our Sports' Spitting Images section.

Cordially,
The Ignorant Bostonian

The Ignorant Bostonian is a co-creator and senior writer for Boston Sports Buzz.