Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Tagged with: Earle Combs

The Hall of Fame and the Jack Clark Test →

Therefore, a good test for whether a player should be elected to the Hall of Fame is whether or not he was clearly better than Jack Clark. The data suggests that people who were better hitters than Clark probably should be in the Hall of Fame. There have been 47 players who, like Clark, posted an OPS+ of 135 or better over 8,000 or more plate appearances. Of those 26, are in the Hall of Fame. Of the remaining 21 all but four other players, Will Clark, Bob Johnson, Sherry Magee and Reggie Smith are either on the ballot, still active or not yet eligible.

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Replacing Russell Martin →

This is a decision about personnel, but it is also a decision about philosophy. If the Yankees believe that they must win the World Series every year, then the logical thing to do is to bring on Napoli or Pierzynski. However, these players are 31 and 35 years old now; and Napoli has never been a full time catcher. Signing an older player, particularly if that player will quickly migrate to first base or DH, as Napoli would, would raise many problems for the Yankees, especially as both these players will likely end up with contracts of three years or more, but turning the job over to some combination of Whiteside, Cervelli and Romine will damage the Yankees' chances in 2013.

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Don't Dismiss Bernie Williams' Hall of Fame Candidacy Too Quickly

The arguments against Williams are clear. He was not great defensively, was never one of the best hitters in the game, was surrounded by better players and did not play much past his prime. The arguments in favor of Williams candidacy are less obvious, but also very powerful. Williams was a very good hitter who had a very long prime. Between 1995-2002, a period of eight years, he hit .321/.406/.531, good for an OPS+ of 142. He did this while playing a key defensive position decently. Although he retired at age 37, thus truncating the decline phase of his career, he remained a useful player until the end hitting .281/.332/.436 during his last year with the Yankees.

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Hip Hip Jorge: Saying Goodbye to Posada and Placing Him Among the Yankee Greats

The question of whether or not Posada is one of the twenty greatest Yankees will have to be left to future, and longer, subway rides, but his place in the top 25 is reasonably secure. The same ambiguity around Posada’s place in Yankee history will probably surround his Hall of Fame candidacy, but there is no ambiguity around his role in the last four Yankee championships. If game five of the LDS was indeed Posada’s last game, he will be missed by all Yankee fans, whether hunched over their computers looking at numbers or cursing A-Rod while semi-conscious on the subway.

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The Hall of Fame Voting System and the Coming Logjam

In all elections, whether for awards, political office or All Star Games, the election system has a big impact. This will continue to be the case for the baseball Hall of Fame and it will add another dimension to an already complex and sometimes irrational process over the next few year

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Pair Up in Threes-Baseball's Greatest Gangs of Three

The questions of how the core four of the New York Yankees compare to other groups of four players who played together for ten or more years, which was discussed here last week, raises the question of what was the greatest threesome of all time to have played together for ten or more years. There are four serious contenders for the best group of three players as well as one group, Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio and Bobby Doerr, who are not eligible because they all missed time due to military service.

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Honus Wagner and Evolving Definitions

Comparing players across generations is a confoundingly difficult task. Complete games are extremely are in today’s game; few people stole a lot of bases in the 1930s-1950s; home runs were very rare until Babe Ruth went to the Yankees. Therefore we cannot know, or even approximate well, how many bases Dom DiMaggio would have stolen, or how many complete games Randy Johnson would have thrown if they had played in different eras with different expectations and incentives.

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