Rob Neyer of ESPN.com is moderating a panel on baseball analytics, featuring Red Sox advisors Bill James and Tom Tippett, Diamondbacks scout Joe Bohringer and "Diamond Dollars" author Vince Gennaro.

Some highlights:

- James and Tippett said that contractually, they can't really say a whole lot about what they do. But Tippett, a creator of baseball simulation programs, said they do a lot of aggregating of statistics from all walks of baseball including the minor league and college level. He said much of what they've been able to do results from Major League Baseball's decision a few years ago to take over collecting play-by-play data for all games from rookie ball all the way up to the big leagues. Tippett said he'd also like to improve the statistical models that project how minor league performance projects to the major leagues.

- Bill James said he stopped writing his famous "Historical Baseball Abstract" 20 years ago because there was no way for him to keep up with the amount of information that was being collected.

"We're 20 years further along ... some of the information out there is truly fascinating. Technologically, it's so far ahead of me I can't even fathom it."

James said the biggest void in baseball analytics is that there is no system for evaluating a player's character.

"We worry about it all the time. Every time we make a trade we worry about how he'll fit in. And we don't really understand what we're doing. We don't really have any organized way of looking at it in a way that makes sense. There's no systematic data about it because no one knows how to collect it."

- James said MLB should consider standardizing equipment, including bats. He compared players using their own custom-made bats to field goal kickers using their own footballs.

- James said the Red Sox do not regret Hanley Ramirez for Josh Beckett, but admitted that "99 percent of the time you trade away a player like that you regret it."

- Bohringer, a traditional scout, said he will often incorporate statistical analysis in his reports, but rarely uses it for the youngest players because useful data is so hard to come by. A player who is 27 with four years of experience, he said, is easier to rate than an 18-year-old kid with 20 total innings pitched in an independent league. Overall, though, he said

"We really don't know how to evaluate players. As much as we're trying to be more right, we're really just trying to be less wrong. The variables are astronomical in terms of what's thrown out there."

- All of the panelists they'd like to find out more about how injuries will affect future performance. Tippett said he is still often baffled as to why one player is injured all the time while others are more durable.

"I can tell you we talk about it all the time," he said.

- Tim Lemke