Bill James hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s been working for the Red Sox for years, but in recent years he’s reportedly had less and less of a voice in the team’s major decisions. Which isn’t surprising because you don’t need a groundbreaking analyst’s input to decide to give Carl Crawford and John Lackey a gazillion dollars. Quite the opposite, actually.
But the Boston Herald reports that James will back to the front in this bold new era of Red Sox history:
... as Henry informed the Herald, James had fallen “out of favor over the last few years for reasons I really don’t understand. We’ve gotten him more involved recently in the central process and that will help greatly. He’s the father, so to speak, of baseball analysis and a brilliant iconoclast who looks at things differently from everyone else.”
The biggest challenge for the Red Sox -- how does one rebuild in an era where investments in amateur talent are capped and fewer and fewer elite talents are hitting free agency in their prime -- would seem to fit James’ skill set pretty well.
