The name and the face are different, but when it comes to the bigger picture, Ben Cherington looks, and sounds, a lot like Theo Epstein. The new Boston GM is his own man — make no mistake about that — but like his predecessor he is cool, calculated, and sabermetrically savvy. Befitting the Red Sox model, Cherington is all about information and assigning value.

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David Laurila: In a May 2009 interview, Andrew Friedman said of the Rays’ organization “We have guided ourselves by the principle that information is king.” Do the Red Sox have the same approach?

Ben Cherington: I think that every team is looking for the most precise information that applies to their particular situation. Every team’s situation is different, so the way that each team applies that information is different. The business of baseball in Boston is different than the business of baseball in other cities.

We may be looking for some of the same information that other teams are, but we may apply it differently. Ultimately, we’re trying to do the same thing that every other team is trying to do, which is to use our resources in the most efficient way possible within the context of our baseball and business models.

We’re looking for any information that can help us assign an appropriate value to a player, regardless of the segment of the market that player is coming from. It could be a teenager in the Dominican, it could be an amateur player in the States that we’re evaluating for the draft, it could be a minor league player with another organization, or it could be major league player. It’s also our own players, both in the minor leagues and at the major league level.

With every player that is a potential target for us, or is someone that we need to assign a value to, we’re looking to acquire as much information as we can about that player. We try to be as precise as we possibly can.

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Editor’s note: This previously unpublished interview was conducted in 2008.

Juan Samuel wasn’t the best second baseman of the 1980s, but he was definitely among the most exciting. The former Phillie was erratic in the field and he put up some scarily-bad BB/K rates, but he logged a healthy number of extra-base hits and he ran the bases with abandon. He also had some notable teammates and nearly found himself part of a Schmidt-Samuel-Franco-Sandberg infield.

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The third installment of this series — short unpublished interviews from three years ago, focusing on the 1980s — features Dave Duncan. A big-league catcher for 11 seasons, Duncan went on to become the pitching coach for the Oakland A’s from 1986 to 1995. He currently serves in that role for the St. Louis Cardinals.

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Duncan, on what made the A’s pitching staffs of the late ‘80s so good: “Balance. It was a well-balanced staff with good starting pitching. We had Rick Honeycutt, a good left-handed reliever, and we had a great closer in Dennis Eckersely. In middle relief we had guys like Gene Nelson. It was just a really well-balanced pitching staff.

“At times it has been said about the Yankees that they play a six-inning game. There have been periods where their bullpen was strong enough that if they were leading after six, they were pretty much going to win the game. The pitching staff we had in ’88 and ’89 was a lot like that. We had depth and balance to where if we had the lead we had a good chance of winning.”

On Dave Stewart: “Stewart was good because he had good stuff, including a unique pitch in his split-finger. He was a fierce competitor. He never had a game where he wasn’t up for it — either mentally or physically. I think that all of your good pitchers are that way. Sometimes that separates really good pitchers from guys who could be really good, but never get there because they’re not able to do the things — mentally or physically — that allow them to not let starts get away from them.”

On catching Catfish Hunter and Jim Palmer: “What can you say about them? They were great pitchers. They personified exactly what I’m talking about when I say great physical ability and the right mental makeup, and mental approach, to pitching. And they were competitors — really good competitors.”

On Terry Steinbach and Carlton Fisk: “They were both very conscientious about taking each pitcher and knowing how to use what that pitcher was capable of doing effectively. They also didn’t have off days mentally. They were into the game when they played.”

On pitching in the 1980s: “I don’t see a lot of difference in how pitchers were used, although I think pitching changes. I think the 1980s was a period of time where a lot of guys were starting to throw split-fingers again. That was a very effective pitch and it was coming back — the split-finger, or forkball.”

On Billy Martin and pitcher abuse: “He was an exception. In the 1970s, it was common for guys to throw a lot more pitches, and pitch a lot more innings. But by the 1980s I think that everyone had become really aware of pitch counts and usage. They were pretty protective of pitchers. For your top-of-the-rotation guys, 230 or 240 innings was pretty common.”

On being a pitching coach: “I think that you never stop learning. I’ve learned a lot from pitchers. I’ve learned a lot from other pitching coaches. I’ve learned from bullpen coaches. And a lot of what you do is have a common-sense approach to solving problems. Not every pitcher has a different style, but most every pitcher has something that’s unique to him. A big part of being a pitching coach is recognizing what a pitcher does well, and honing it.”

Bud Black would have enjoyed pitching in Petco Park. Alas, the lefty didn’t get the opportunity: his playing career ended a decade before the Padres’ home ballpark opened. But as San Diego’s skipper, Black does relish the opportunity to manage there.  Still, that doesn’t mean his job is easy. The 54-year-old isn’t just nurturing a young pitching staff, he’s helping an equally inexperienced lineup navigate one of the game’s most-challenging hitting environments.

Black discussed Petco’s park factors, and several of his players — including the recently departed Heath Bell and Mat Latos — during last month’s Winter Meetings.

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David Laurila: How much does Petco Park impact a pitching staff?

Bud Black: Besides the hard numbers, it really gives confidence to a pitcher, and not just our own pitchers. Like with a lot of parks in the game, there are certain pitches to be thrown that will make it extremely difficult to hit the ball out of the park. Percentage-wise, if the ball is hit to a certain part of the ballpark, the pitcher isn‘t going to get hurt as much.

In our place, that’s to right field and to right-center, as well as to left-center. To straightaway left field is very doable for a home run — but the majority of our park, as you move from the right field corner to left center — is big. Pitch selection is important in Petco.

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Since joining FanGraphs eight months ago, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing a number of people within baseball. Many of them had interesting things to say. So continuing a tradition that began when I was at Baseball Prospectus, I’m ending the year with some of the highlights. Without further ado, I give you The Best Quotes from FanGraphs Q&A 2011:

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“I don’t try to strike out people, but sometimes they swing and miss.” — Felix Hernandez, May 2011

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With the trade of Andrew Bailey and Ryan Sweeney to Boston in exchange for Josh Reddick and a pair of minor leaguers, one of the questions A’s fans are asking is, “Who is Miles Head?” The short answer is that Head is a mid-level prospect who would have been ranked in the 15-20 range among Red Sox farmhands by most publications in the coming days. A more detailed description will tell you that…

…Miles Head can hit a baseball. The 20-year-old first baseman proved that last summer, bashing his way to one of the best seasons of anyone in the Red Sox system. Splitting the year between low-A Greenville and high-A Salem, he emerged as a legitimate prospect by hitting .299/.372/.515, with 37 doubles and 22 home runs.

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Mariano Rivera’s cutter is the most dominant pitch in the game today, if not one of the best ever. Baseball’s all-time saves leader has carved out a brilliant career with his signature offering, sawing off a lumberyard’s worth of bats along the way. Hitters know it’s coming, but rarely can they square it up.

When a pitcher possesses such a weapon, it is easy to assume that he can simply rear back and let it go. Unlike a Greg Maddux or a Mike Mussina, he doesn’t need to be a practitioner of the art of pitching. He just blows hitters away with pure stuff.

According to Rivera, it isn’t that simple.

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Bob Dylan wasn’t thinking of Justin Masterson when he wrote “When I Paint My Masterpiece” — the Indians right-hander wasn’t even born yet — but it’s fun to imagine. Dylan sings about how someday everything is going to be smooth like a rhapsody, and isn’t that how Masterson pitches? Or how he lives his life? To Masterson, the world is a rhapsody and that’s why he is one of baseball’s most engaging personalities.

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David Laurila: Is pitching fun?

Justin Masterson: Absolutely. I feel like it’s one of the most fun things, simply because, in one respect, it’s you out there by yourself. You’ve got your catcher kind of giving you a hint of what he’d like you to throw, but it’s your final decision. You’re facing this hitter — maybe it’s a clutch situation — and it’s just mano-a-mano. Once a pitch has left your hand it becomes a team game — maybe you’ll get a ground ball — but up until that point it’s just you going after that hitter. That, to me, is a lot of fun.

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As noted in the introduction to last Friday’s conversation with Chris Chambliss, three years ago I did a series of short interviews that were never published and will appear in this space over the coming weeks. They focus on baseball during the decades of the 1980s, and today’s subject is Wade Boggs, who played for the Red Sox, Yankees and Devil Rays from 1982-1999.

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Boggs, on OBP in the ‘80s: “That was my game. It was how I thrived, but at the point in time that I played, I was criticized for doing something that is now fashionable – Moneyball, or whatever you want to call it. Today, everybody is looking for a guy who can get on base 250 times a year, and at the time I was doing it I was getting 200 hits and 100 walks. Then I would go to arbitration and be criticized for doing something that [front offices] now love.

“Billy Beane, the guy in Oakland, is the one who really put it on the map and it’s been fashionable for close to 10 years by now. Like I said, it wasn’t that way when I played, especially earlier in my career. I led off, so I always felt that it was my job to get on base and set the table for Jim Rice, Tony Armas, Dwight Evans, and all the big guys coming up to drive me in. That was a part of the game that I excelled at, but quite frankly, it was a part of the game that I was criticized for.”

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Three years ago I did a series of short interviews, focusing on baseball in the decade of the 1980s, for a book that was never published. Starting today they will begin appearing here, perhaps on a weekly basis. First up is Chris Chambliss, who played 18 big-league seasons with the Indians, Yankees and Braves from 1971-1988.

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