It would be too much to say Bill James and Rob Manfred are kindred spirits. But, when the father of modern analytics talks, we listen.
"Baseball has terrible aesthetic problems," James said. "We all know that. But, in many cases, it isn't the rules that are causing them. It's the lack of new rules."
These days, Manfred is the face of the owners' lockout, the chosen representative of the billionaires who stand between America and spring training. In happier times, and for years now, Manfred has tried to nudge a tradition-bound sport toward changes that he believes could make baseball more exciting to watch.
