This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell
Posted in: Baseball
The problem with the current playoff structure, if a problem exists at all is not that wild cards do not confront enough barriers, but that winners of the league’s weakest division are rewarded for seasons that are often clearly worse than those of the wild card winner.
When the ALDS opens today in the Bronx, it will be the latest installment in the now familiar baseball series called “Can the Yankees make it out of the first round?” Before missing the playoffs last year, the Yankees had been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in three consecutive years, part of a seven year streak of making the playoffs but not winning the World Series.
It seems that one thing most baseball observers understand about the post-season is that having two dominant starters is the key to winning the World Series. Two dominant starters, because of the extra days of rest, can start almost half of there team’s games and carry their teammates to championship. We know this because this is what Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling did with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001. Spending too much time trying to figure out what happened in other recent post-seasons is, apparently, not worth our time.
Jeter is putting up a very good year for a shortstop, but certainly not the best in recent memory from that position. For this reason, Mauer is likely to, and probably should, win the MVP. If Mauer had spent 130 games or so as a DH, while missing a few weeks with injuries, the Jeter-Mauer question would be an interesting one, but Mauer would still be my choice. The 110 games or so Mauer spent behind the plate this year only make it an easier choice.
Among these four aces, Lincecum has more strikeouts, complete games and shutouts and a lower ERA, while pitching the second most innings, Wainwright is first. Lincecum is also second, to Carpenter, in fewest walks plus hits over nine innings. Carpenter and Wainwright would both be respectable Cy Young choices, and together with an Albert Pujols led Cardinal offense could help the Cardinals play well into October, but the best NL pitcher, and the best top of the rotation so far in 2009, have both been in San Francisco.
It is only a slight exaggeration to say that success in the regular season in determined by the back end of pitching rotations, but that in the playoffs these pitchers barely matter. Successful regular season teams frequently have strong number four and five starters who, while not expected to shut down opposing offenses, can keep their team in the game. Teams with genuinely good four and five starters in the regular season usually are very difficult to beat over the course of a long season. Similarly, good offenses which can consistently beat up on the back ends of opposing rotations can give their teams a real advantage in reaching the post-season.
Andy Pettitte probably won’t and probably shouldn’t go into the Hall of Fame. However, the image of Pettitte as the all-time Yankee leader in wins and strikeouts who fits into a long history of great Yankee lefties who spent their whole career with the franchise might have been enough to get Pettitte significantly more consideration. However, that is not the narrative at which voters will be looking. Instead they will see a pitcher who is not one of the very few great players to spend their career with one team, who is second or third, but not first in a few categories for Yankee pitchers and who was just a little too close to Roger Clemens during the latter’s steroid period.
The problem with the inning limit, estimated at 150-160, the Yankees have imposed on Joba Chamberlain for the season is not the number of innings, but that there never seemed to be a plan for implementing the limit. Did Yankee management really think that starting Chamberlain every fifth day for half the season and every sixth to tenth day for the second half of the season was a good idea? Did they really think that this was a good way to get the most out of him in the post-season? On August 1st, Chamberlain looked like he could be the Yankees number two starter in October. Thus far in August, he has pitched his way into the number four spot in the post-season rotation; and there is real danger the Yankees will not want to use him at all in October.
Whenever Rose’s name comes up, it is usually in the context of discussing the ban. Meanwhile memories of Rose the player have begun to fade. Rose was not only a great player, and in many respects the iconic player of his generation, but a very unusual one. No player in history has had a career quite like Rose’s. As a player, Rose is now primarily remembered for being baseball’s all time hit leader, but even that only tells part of the story.
The Olympic decision seems to have come right as international baseball is approaching a tipping point. In the next few years Major League Baseball will likely become more international as more countries are represented at the Major League level, thus building greater fan bases outside the U.S. and contributing the growth in popularity of the baseball globally, and the WBC specifically. The inner workings of the IOC on questions like this are something of a mystery to me, but they made a mistake this time and placed themselves firmly behind the curve with regards to baseball’s international popularity.
The defensive spectrum, however, particularly the notion that middle infielders and catchers are not expected to hit as much as other players, has not been entirely constant over time. The basic framework has applied for over a century, but the extent to which it has been accurate has varied. At first glance it would seem like currently there are more middle infielders who contribute offensively, and fewer who are in the lineups exclusively for their gloves, than a generation ago, but this alone does not represent strong evidence.
The only thing we know for certain about steroid usage in baseball is that we don’t know anything for certain about steroid usage in baseball. Leaked information, inconclusive tests and strong suspicions comprise the majority of the “evidence” in this area. The list of stars that are either clearly guilty or strongly suspected,of using steroids is well known and includes some of the biggest names in the game’s recent history: McGwire, Sosa, A-Rod, Bonds, Ortiz and Clemens.
George Brett, Willie McCovey and Eddie Murray were three of the game’s all-time greats. Bill James ranked Brett as the 30th greatest player ever, followed by Murray as the 61st and McCovey in the 68th spot. James awards Murray 437 career win shares, followed by Brett at 432 and McCovey at 408. James’ ranking makes sense and recognizes Brett’s additional value as a third baseman, rather than a first baseman like the other two. If, however, we just focus on offensive production, the debate raises some interesting questions not only about peak versus career figures, but about how valuable different kinds of peaks are.
The introduction of the wild card in 1994, first used in 1995, changed the post-season baseball forever. Baseball within two years transformed from being a sport where the regular season was grueling and few teams made the relatively brief playoffs to one where a ticket to the post-season was now easier to get, but the playoffs were expanded to look more like other sports. The relative benefits and drawbacks of this playoff system is a subjective matter, but now that there have been 14 seasons using this format, it is possible to reflect on what we have learned about the new playoff system.
The first question this raises is: what is meant, in this case, by playing for this year? Does that mean that Giants are going to try to get the wild card, or that they are going to try to build a team that can play deep into the playoffs and have a chance at winning the World Series? If the goal is the former, than these trades make some sense. Sanchez and Garko will be marginal players; not dramatic upgrades over Travis Ishikawa and Juan Uribe. But then again the wild card race could well be decided in the margins. The Giants’ reason for pursuing this strategy is not clear. Although the team has now missed the post-season for five years in a row, they have also been eliminated in the first round three of the last four times they reached the post-season. Another first round exit may not slake the thirst for a championship of a franchise that has not won the World Series since Eisenhower was in his first term as President.
The Yankee-Red Sox rivalry has been particularly intense over the last decade because these years, just as in the late 70s and late 40s, both teams have been contenders. The Yankee-Red Sox rivalry is based on more than just regional loyalties; it is also based on a narrative which many fans seem to believe. The narrative can be summed up, and dramatically exaggerated, by saying it is about the Evil Empire-Best Team Money Can Buy Yankees against the Underdog-Long Suffering Red Sox. This narrative is even more nonsensical than most, but it is surprisingly persistent among casual fans.
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.
On Sunday when the wrong corner outfielder from the Red Sox teams of the 1970s and 1980s will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, few baseball fans will be thinking about the 1981 strike, but perhaps they should. Dwight Evans, who was almost certainly a better player than his longtime teammate Jim Rice, never received any real Hall of Fame support from the BBWAA. Evans was overshadowed by higher profile teammates and had offensive skills that were not fully appreciated while he was playing. Nonetheless had that strike not occurred, it is possible that Evans would also be a member of the Hall of Fame, and almost certainly would have received more support.
Yogi Berra was a baseball black swan because before he began his career there had never been an everyday catcher who was a consistent middle of the order power hitter. Before Berra, the best catchers in baseball had either not hit much, or had hit well with little power, like Mickey Cochrane. Three possible exceptions to this were Bill Dickey, Gabby Hartnett and Ernie Lombardi but none of them hit with Berra’s power while remaining in the lineup consistently.
Today roughly 26.7% of all teams make the post-season. This is a higher proportion than ever. For most of the 20th century only 12.5% of teams played in the post-season. During the first period of divisional play, 1969-1993, between 15-17% of teams appeared in the post-season. A league where more than one quarter of the teams makes the playoffs is very different than one where one out of six or eight teams do requiring teams to adjust their strategic thinking accordingly.