Bill James On The Red Sox — In 1979

Going back in time again

Bill James On The Red Sox — In 1979

It turns out that there’s more than one source for old and obscure Bill James writing.

A book called This Time Let’s Not Eat The Bones was published in 1989. This included a number of excerpts of James’ prose from a variety of sources.

Fortunately, these article excerpts include dates, which means we can get some raw and unfiltered classic James writing to dig through.

Here’s a blurb on the Boston Red Sox that was published in Esquire on April 24, 1979:

Now, James is actually making two separate points here. The first is that the Red Sox aren’t going to have any success without a left handed starting pitcher, and the second is that poor hitters tended to look good because of the contours of Fenway Park.

We’ll look at the second point later. Let’s focus on the left handed pitcher question for now.

The 1979 Red Sox indeed did not have a regular left handed starting pitcher. Rookie John Tudor was the closest thing the team had — and he didn’t come up to the big club until August 16.

However, the Red Sox weren’t bad in 1979, going 91-69 and finishing third, 11 1/2 games behind Baltimore. I guess it wasn’t the disaster James had predicted.

The famous 1986 Red Sox had Bruce Hurst as the club’s only left handed starter:

Hurst was with the Red Sox through 1988. When the Red Sox won the division again in 1990, Tom Bolton was the requisite left handed starter:

So maybe James has a point.

Of course, the really interesting thing here is that James worked for the Boston Red Sox front office from 2003 to 2020. In 2003, the Red Sox had one left handed starter: Casey Fossum:

I also never realized that Byung-Hyun Kim started 5 games.

Anyway, Fossum left the Red Sox after the 2003 season. In the 2004 World Series season, Boston didn’t have a single regular left handed starting pitcher:

I guess you could count Abe Alvarez, who had a single 5 inning start against Baltimore on July 22nd before going back down to the minors. Alvarez would never start a major league game again.

The 2007 Red Sox, which I consider the strongest of the 21st century teams, did have a left handed starter in Jon Lester. Kason Gabbard should also probably count:

Still, you’ll notice that the Red Sox didn’t exactly have an abundance of left handed starting pitching. This is presumably because of the fear that right handed batters will exploit the matchup and pull the ball to or over the green monster in left.

I don’t know how much credit we should give to Bill James for the way the Red Sox bullpen was composed during his years advising the club. However, I do think we can say that James’ actions contradict James’ writing in this case.