Lincoln Mitchell

Blog

This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Posted in: Baseball

Happy 75th to Frank Robinson

Today is Frank Robinson’s 75th birthday. Frank Robinson, of course, is not exactly forgotten today. He is widely known as a baseball institution having been a great player, mediocre manager and high profile league official for more than half a century. Interestingly, partially due to all his other baseball related accomplishments, his playing career is often overlooked. Today, Robinson at times seems like little more than a name on a home run list which gets passed by players like Jim Thome or Alex Rodriguez. Most fans contemporary fans know that Robinson was a great player, but few are aware just how great he was.

Comment

Cano, Pedroia and MVP Second Baseman

Cano and Pedroia are both 26 years old and among the best second baseman in the game. The rivalry between the two players could energize the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry for years to come. It is likely that fans of both teams believe they have the best player. This is supported by the narrative, but the numbers suggest that Cano has become the better player. It will be interesting to see if the awards voters reflect this.

Comment

Saying So Long to the Staten Island Scot

Thomson’s death feels like the passing of an era that actually ended decades ago. The home run occurred when baseball was played in black and white, New York had three teams, and a radio broadcast of a ballgame to a soldier in Asia was considered an impressive technological feat. The home run belongs to a time, city, and even country of the long ago past, but somehow it can still make a young father feel compelled to share the event, which occurred years before he was born, with his young son and an make an aging veteran still feel his monthly paycheck slipping away just as Thomson’s fly ball slipped over the left field fence and into history.

Comment

Can Team Chemistry and Clutch Hitting Be Analyzed Better?

Making it more difficult to rely on often empty platitudes about clutch performance, chemistry or character as a way to explain outcomes in baseball has been one of the major impacts of the quantitative movement of recent years, but to some extent that has been the easy part. The harder work begins with revisiting some of these ideas, which are so influential in so many other areas of life, and seeking to gain a clearer, measurable and data based understanding of their import.

Comment

Jim Rice, Andre Dawson and that Other Guy

Rice and Dawson are not the worst selections in Hall of Fame history, but they are definitely among the weaker outfielders in the Hall of Fame. One way to see this is to compare Rice and Dawson not to other Hall of Famers, or borderline candidates like Evans, but to a player who clearly did not have a Hall of Fame career. There was another slugging outfielder who was also active from 1976-1989, but whose entire career lasted from 1975-1992 thus overlapping significantly with Rice and Dawson.

Comment

Maybe the Red Sox Should Be Sellers

The Red Sox have had a rough 2010 due to injuries, slumps and age. The team got off to a rough start, but played very well from mid-May through the All-Star break. Currently, with about 60 games remaining the Red Sox are seven games out of first place and five games behind the Rays for the wild card. It will not be easy, but they could catch the Rays and maybe even the Yankees. This would suggest that the Red Sox should be buyers at the deadline. However, another approach might be to recognize that while the Red Sox might be able to sneak into the playoffs as the wild card, this is not the type of team that, even if it snuck into the wild card, can play far into the playoffs and to be a seller.

Comment

Remembering Steinbrenner

In 37 years, Steinbrenner delivered seven world championships, countless tantrums, headlines and managerial firings, several horrendous trades, as well as several brilliant ones, one never-ending desire to win and hundreds of millions of dollars in support of that goal, but never a dull moment. That is the record on which the man should be judged. Baseball will miss him.

Comment

The Cliff Lee Trade and the Current Strategic Context

The Cliff Lee trade was an interesting trade not only because it worked out well for all three teams involved, but because it exemplifies the different kind of strategic thinking that is becoming the norm for different kinds of teams. Although the Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners were the only teams to move players, the New York Yankees were very involved as well. The Yankees offer of minor league prospects Jesus Montero and David Adams for Lee was initially accepted by the Mariners, before it fell through at the last minute when the Mariners accepted the Rangers’ offer instead.

Comment

Why Stephen Strasburg Should Be on the All Star Team

Stephen Strasburg may go on to become a great pitcher who appears in many All-Star Games, but he could also get hurt next month, or have a career that ends up somewhere in between. He will only be, however, a rookie phenom once.Many baseball fans would enjoy seeing this 21 year old compete against the game’s best; and the All Star game would certainly benefit from that storyline, but unfortunately the league missed this opportunity in the name of some principle that is prima facie laughable.

Comment

Cardboard Gods and Our Baseball Obsessions

Wilker has written an extraordinarily honest book about growing up and forging adult lives and adult relationships which, while not really about baseball, still made me feel like I was back at an almost empty Candlestick Park watching the Giants lose, playing ball in the Presidio, reading yet another baseball magazine or book and, yes, buying a pack of baseball cards and giving the gum to my brother.

Comment

Jose Reyes and Derek Jeter

The difference between Jeter and Reyes is that while Reyes plays better defense and steals more bases, Jeter is slightly stronger at the more important offensive categories of drawing walks and hitting home runs. Reyes advantage of defense has not been enough to make him the better overall better player. It is not entirely reasonable, or even useful to hold measure Reyes in comparison to a great player of historical significance like Jeter. Reyes does not have to be as good as Jeter, to be a very valuable player, but a flashier glove and better speed on the bases should not be overestimated either.

Comment

Revisiting the Curtis Granderson Trade

Although the Yankees are on pace for another playoff berth with one of the best records in baseball, the team has had numerous injuries and a few slow starts, so some fans are beginning to worry and question recent decisions. The dominant view of their off-season moves is that they probably gave up too much for Curtis Granderson and were foolish to think Nick Johnson could stay healthy for a whole season. According to this view, Austin Jackson, who was traded for Granderson, and Johnny Damon who left via free agency are both posting good numbers and would have been useful to the Yankees.

Comment

Why Is the World Cup Coverage So Full of Stereotypes?

Every World Cup, even through my very casual observance, I am struck by how in this extraordinarily international tournament that seems, in real ways, to bring the world together, national stereotypes still characterize, and at times even dominate coverage of the games. German teams are often described using terms such as “efficient” or “ruthless,” Brazilians as playing with flare, excitement, “razzle dazzle,” and the like. It is possible, although I wouldn’t know, that these descriptions are accurate, but it seems significant that they are consistent with existing national stereotypes. One half expects the American team to be described as arrogant or one of the Asian teams as inscrutable. This reliance on essentially national stereotypes to describe how the game is played, at least to the non-expert ear, makes it seem as if a major global event is being presented with the political sensitivities of the bridge of the USS Enterprise.

Comment

Was Ken Griffey Jr. Really the Best Player of His Generation?

Many baseball fans have little desire to be reminded of just how good Barry Bonds was, but during most of the 1990s he was a clean, great and graceful player at the height of his ability. Even before steroids, however, Bonds committed the greater sin of surly and nasty to the media which tainted his reputation and national profile, but he, not Griffey, was the best player of his generation. Glossing over this diminishes not only Bonds, but Griffey and his legacy as well.

Comment

Reflections on a Halladay Weekend

Nonetheless, Halladay occupies a strange place in the pantheon of great pitchers as his career fell between two generations of great pitchers. He spent the first part of his career in the shadow of the Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez cohort who dominated the game from the late 1980s until the middle of the last decade and were all better pitchers than Halladay. When these pitchers began to retire few years ago, a new group of pitchers including Tim Lincecum, Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez emerged as the top pitchers in the game. Although there is certainly no guarantee that these pitchers will have better careers than Halladay’s, it likely that for much of the duration of his career, Halladay will be not quite as good as at least some of this next generation of stars.

Comment

Does Derek Jeter Have Anything Left?

Even the most devoted fans of the Yankees and their star shortstop Derek Jeter likely recognized that 2009 was a special year for the Yankee captain. Jeter’s 2009 was probably the best season by a 35 year old shortstop in at least half a century. Few serious fans could have expected another year like that from Jeter. However, as the 2010 season approached, which would be the last under Jeter’s current contract, most fans had a sense of what Jeter’s future would be.

1 Comment

Does 2010 in Boston Equal 1982 in New York

1982 was the year the wheels came off for the New York Yankees. Following a string of eight straight seasons of .500 or better which included four pennants and two World Championships, the Yankees lost more than half of their games and did not make it back to the post-season until 1996. This was the longest such period in Yankee history since they acquired Babe Ruth from the Red Sox. 2010 may turn out to be the year the wheels finally come off for the Red Sox.

Comment

The Decline and Decline of Ken Griffey Jr.

The recent controversy over whether Ken Griffey Jr., who at age 40 would be within striking distance of 3,000 hits and fourth place on the all time home run list if he played beyond this year, did or did not miss a pinch hitting opportunity because he was sleeping in the clubhouse was a tragicomic twist in the long decline of Ken Griffey Jr. Griffey’s decline has been going on for at least a decade and may be the longest such decline in baseball history.

Comment

Multiculturalism and Baseball's Unwritten Rules

In addition to the question of whether Braden or Rodriguez is at fault, the incident also raises another question about the unwritten rules. Implicit in the notion of unwritten rules is that there are one set of unwritten rules which all players should understand. However, as the game becomes more international this assumption seems unlikely to hold up. Just as the language and expressions used in baseball vary regionally and nationally, it is likely that these unwritten rules will as well. For example, the policy of not stealing with a big lead dates back to a time when a five or six run lead seemed insurmountable. Countries where baseball has been introduced recently, during a period of stronger offense, may not view a five or six run lead as insurmountable and may view it as fine to steal in that situation. Similarly, places where baseball has not been played as long may have different views of brushing back hitters because they do not have the traditions of brushback pitches which were common in baseball until recent decades.

Comment

Eric Gagne and Established Closers

Earlier this week, in a story that was appropriately reported without much fanfare,Eric Gagne retired. Between 2002-2004, Gagne had been one of the best relievers in the game saving 152 games and posting a 1.79 ERA over that three year period, while appearing in three All Star Games and finishing 4th, 1st and 7th in Cy Young balloting. For those three years, Gagne was the best closer in baseball, but he never recovered from an injury in 2005 and bounced around between the Dodgers, Rangers, Red Sox and Brewers between 2005 and 2008. He spent last year trying to get one more chance to play, but was not successful.

Comment