Lincoln Mitchell

Blog

This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Posted in: Baseball

Prospect their Futures and their Teams

There are many variables that determine which prospects are the most promising and have the brightest futures. These include quantitative measures, scouting reports and even things like size, body type, makeup and family background. For example, prospects who come from baseball families are often seen as having a slight advantage over others. One variable that is often overlooked regarding minor league prospects is the organization for which they are playing.

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What is a "True Yankee" and Why Should We Care if Jorge Posada is One

Should Posada move on to another team next year, one of the great Yankee careers will have come to an end. Inevitably, the baseball media and blogosphere in New York, will begin questioning Posada’s credentials as a “true Yankee.” Putting aside the legitimacy of questioning the credentials of a player who played a key role in four Yankee World Series winning teams, delivering numerous big seasons and clutch hits along the way, this also draws attention to the absurdity of this term.

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The Hall of Fame Numbers Game

The question of what active players will eventually get elected to the Hall of Fameis a fun one which can generate numerous articles and even more hours of debate. However, this topic also raises some interesting questions about the Hall of Fame itself and what defines a Hall of Fame ballplayer. Perhaps the most easily overlooked aspect of this discussion has to do with how many active players will end up in Cooperstown.

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The Beltran-Wheeler Trade in Context

The defending World Champion San Francisco Giants made two moves during the days leading up to the trade deadline. One, swapping top pitching prospect Zach Wheeler for slugging outfielder Carlos Beltran was intriguing, the other sending minor league outfielder Thomas Neal to the Cleveland Indians for Orlando Cabrera, a veteran shortstop who may well be finished as a useful player was not necessarily a terrible trade, but a frustrating one nonetheless.

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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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Is Matt Cain His Generation's Bert Blyleven

Cain is, however, an intriguing pitcher from a statistical angle. His career win-loss record is an unimpressive 65-67, but this is largely because during 2007 and 2008, he got very poor run support posting a 15-30 record despite an ERA+ of 120. While Cain has been unlucky in one area, some argue that he has been lucky in others, because he has managed to post a lower ERA than his other numbers, such as walks and strikeouts would suggest. Cain has consistently managed to hold his opponents to a lower BABIP than most pitchers, as when Cain is pitching more batted balls turn into outs than might be generally expected.

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The Jeter Narrative

In addition to the inevitable slowing down due to age, the biggest difference between Jeter in 2011 and Jeter in 2010 is that Jeter no longer is able to control the narrative of his media coverage. For most of his career, Jeter handled the media masterfully, avoiding conflict or scandal, always making himself available for a comment but rarely offering an interesting one, and creating an image of himself as a selfless team player. By doing this, Jeter ensured glowing coverage of his activities both on and off the field. While the constant descriptions of Jeter’s commitment to the team, the frequent shots of Jeter cheering whenever a teammate hit a home run and similar coverage may have irritated some, generally this contributed to Jeter’s sterling public image.

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Whither the Dodgers?

If controversy surrounding Frank McCourt were happening to the owner of the Yankees instead of the Dodgers owner, books would already have been written and the casting for the HBO special would be well underway. Because it is happening in baseball’s second largest media market, rather than New York, ithas not gotten the attention it might have. It could be argued that given the size of the Los Angeles market and the import of the Dodgers to baseball in general, the story has gotten surprisingly little publicity.

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A Tough Call on Reyes

As Jose Reyes continues to play the best baseball of his career, the question of how the Mets handle their star shortstop will become even more of a story. The basic question facing the Mets appears to be whether they should try to trade Reyes now while he is playing so well, but about to become a free agent, or whether they should commit to keeping their biggest star by offering a big multi-year contract either during this season or, as given the Mets preference for not negotiating during the season, after the season.

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Baseball Careers for Lefties and Righties

The finding suggests that left-handed and right-handed throwers are, to some extent, playing different games at the big league level, and therefore has implications for player development starting at a very young age. One of the first baseball skills that young children master is fielding. This may be because it is easier than hitting or more likely because it is easier for coaches and parents to practice and teach. Nonetheless, among seven or eight year olds, the better players first begin to stand out because they are good at fielding ground balls. The hitting generally comes a little later, so within a few years the fielders who can hit begin to stand out from those who cannot. However, there are still plenty of ways a good fielder can contribute to a team and be valuable as (s)he gets older. For left-handed throwers, these options disappear usually by high school when traditional views about what position lefties can play become more powerful.

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Foreseeing the Unforeseen Consequences of Baseball Realignment

Any proposal to restructure MLB is going to have its problems, just as the current system does, but it is foolish to move forward too quickly without thinking through these problems in advance. If baseball is comfortable creating a system that is, in some respects, more fair each season, but which further institutionalizes the advantages enjoyed by wealthy teams, that is not an unreasonable decision. On the other hand, rushing ahead with this new system and then feeling shocked and surprised when the Yankees and Red Sox are both in the playoffs for each of the first few years and that teams finishing 13th, 14th or 15th are hemorrhaging fans, would evince an appalling lack of foresight on the part of Major League Baseball.

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Innovating with Left-Handed Throwers

One possible area worth exploring is different ways of using left-handed throwing players. For most of the history of modern baseball, left-handed throwing big leaguers have only been pitchers, outfielders, first baseman and designated hitters. Obviously, many left-handed throwers rank among the greatest ball players ever including hitters like Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Lou Gehrig and Stan Musial and pitchers like Lefty Grove, Randy Johnson and Warren Spahn. However, it is still possible that by restricting the use of left-handed players, teams are missing a possible strategic advantage.

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Why the Giants Should Keep Posey Behind the Plate

Posey is now out for the rest of the season. It will be a good scenario for Posey and the Giants if he is fully recovered in time for spring training 2012. The Posey injury, because of both how it occurred, due to a collision at home plate, and because it happened to Posey, one of baseball’s best and most marketable young players, has drawn a lot of attention. Two major themes have emerged from this attention: whether or not baseball should change its rules to minimize the chances of collisions at home plate and young players of Posey’s caliber should be moved away from the catcher’s position to allow them to play longer.

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West Coast Pitching Dominance

While the origins of this difference between the West Coast and the Northeast may be partially economic, partially random and partially due to ballpark effects, the result is that a distinct West Coast style of baseball has evolved. The home run heavy, weak starting pitching and strong veteran bullpen approach best represented by the New York Yankees is not tried by any West Coast team; and the Red Sox are the only East Coast team with any young starting pitches, Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester, who are good enough and young enough to stand out in the west. Given the recent success of the Giants, who one quarter of the way into this season, are still playing very well, this model, which seems to be applicable in Florida as well, may catch on among mid-sized market teams outside of the West Coast, thus becoming yet another trend that originates in California and makes its way east.

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Jorge Posada and Baseball's Social Contract

The social contract in baseball is that while players are extremely well paid, they also must play well to hold onto their jobs. Although the numbers may have changed over the years, this has remained a constant. Posada is undoubtedly frustrated with this at the moment, but he will not be able to change the reality of this social contract. If Posada and the Yankees are wise they will agree to put this incident behind them and fete Posada, who has been a great player for the Yankees for a long time, for a month or two during which he either starts hitting or retires. As the Yankees probably already figured out, they need to handle this situation right without dragging it out too long, because a similar fate awaits Derek Jeter in the next year or two.

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The Yankees and the Jeter Paradox

The decline of Derek Jeter may be the most over-reported story of 2011, especially because the decline began in 2010. Therefore it may come as a surprise that as of Monday morning, following Jeter’s home run outburst in Texas, only seven shortstops had played 150 or more games during 2010 and 2011 while maintaining an OPS+ better than Jeter’s 90. An eighth shortstop, Marco Scutaro, had an identical OPS+ of 90 during this period.

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For Some Teams and Players the Season is Getting Late Early Already

After about twenty games or so, however, something interesting happens. The numbers begin to take on more meaning as trends become discernible making it easier to determine which players may have lost a step or have become legitimately better and what off-season roster moves will work out. Obviously, it is a long season in which games and championships are usually decided in the margins, but these general trends become visible at around this point. The line between the sample size being too small and real trends becoming apparent is not altogether obvious. As Yogi Berra might say, the season gets late early sometimes.

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Expanding the Playoffs Solves the Wrong Problem

The efforts to expand the current baseball playoffs so that a total of ten, rather than eight teams, earn a post-season berth is a good effort to solve a relatively minor problem, that will do nothing to address the more serious issue facing competitiveness in baseball. The alleged problem is that too many teams are never in the running for a playoff spot thus causing fans to lose interest early in the season, while the same small handful of teams dominate the playoffs.

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Are Long Term Contracts a Luxury Tax?

Long term contracts are unavoidable for big market teams, because in baseball teams still pay for past performance leading players and their agents to still be able to demand long term contracts. In practice this amounts to something of a luxury tax all but guaranteeing that big market teams will overpay for players during the last years of their big contracts. Adding big contracts every year is the cost of trying to compete every season. This tax pushes money to the players and not to the lower payroll teams, but it can be punitive nonetheless. For example, while most small market teams probably wish they could have afforded Rodriguez during his first years with the Yankees, very few will want him during the years 2013-2017 when the Yankees will be paying him more than $110 million while he is in his late thirties and early forties.

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Manny Ramirez, Derek Jeter and the Inevitability of Aging

Ramirez and Jeter were rivals, but also had very different public personas. Jeter sought to avoid controversy, was rarely an interesting interview, was deeply competitive, tried to conduct himself with dignity and seemed to personify what Yankee fans think of as Yankee dignity. Ramirez was something of a goofball often good for a funny line, made more mental mistakes in a typical month than Jeter would make in a decade, and was outgoing and gregarious in a way that Jeter never was. Ramirez was also controversial and often became something of a burden to his teams. Much of this was dismissed as “Manny being Manny,” whatever that meant.

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