Lincoln Mitchell

Blog

This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Posted in: Baseball

What Does Carlos Beltran's Great Post-Season Play Mean?

Supporters of Beltran will argue that his post-season performance should inform his candidacy. That notion is also relevant for players like Andy Pettitte who started more than a full season's worth of games in the post-season. Beltran's post-season record probably should be taken into account, but so should everybody else's from this era. However, this record should not only be taken into account, but should be viewed in its proper context. One striking line from Beltran's post-season resume is that he has played in 38 post-season games, but none in the World Series. The great post-season performers from previous generations either played all their post-season games in the World Series like Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle, or, like Reggie Jackson and Steve Garvey, played a good proportion of their post-season games in the World Series.

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Platitudes and Tautologies in Post-Season Baseball →

The advantage of platitudes is that they do not have to be accurate, as they are generally untestable. Asserting the winning team has good chemistry might be true or it might not be. A fight in the locker room, for example, can be attributed to bad chemistry if the team goes on to lose, or just the right thing to motivate the team if they go on to win. The team that wins the World Series will likely have the right mix of veterans and young players because all teams have a mix of these types of players. David Ortiz, Tori Hunter, Brian Wilson, Bartolo Colon, AJ Burnett and Carlos Beltran and several others on post-season rosters are all capable of providing veteran leadership and will likely be credited with doing just that if their team wins.

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And Then There Was One →

If this were another player, the Yankees would probably try to move him to another team or persuade him to be more flexible, but the Yankees have invested hundreds of millions of dollars not just in Jeter the player, but in Jeter as the face of the franchise. They cannot risk damaging that now by either having an acrimonious fallout with the future Hall of Famer or seeing him spend a year in the uniform of another team.

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What is a Pitcher For? →

On August 25th of this year, Matt Harvey the star pitcher for the New York Mets, suffered an injury that will require Tommy John surgery and cost him the rest of this season and most of the next one. This is a great disappointment, not just to fans of the star crossed Mets, but to anybody who likes exciting young pitchers. Since being called up late in 2012, Harvey has been one of the game's best pitchers, posting a combined ERA+ of 153 and averaging 9.9 strikeouts, and only 2.2 walks per nine innings. Harvey turned 24 at the very beginning of this season so, if he is able to fully recover from the surgery, as many pitchers do, he may still have a great future.

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Baseball, Steroids and Cowardice →

Ryan Braun's recent statement regarding his use of PEDs likely convinced nobody of anything. Those who were predisposed to like Braun and want to move beyond the PED issue were probably satisfied with his statement. Those who either don't like Braun, or are absolutists regarding PED use were equally likely to be displeased and dissatisfied with Braun's statement. Ryan Braun, it seems, is just another rich man caught breaking the rules who exacerbated his problem by denials and obfuscation before finally offering an unconvincing apology. Perhaps if baseball does not work out for him, he could run for mayor of New York.

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The Giants Could Contend in 2014 →

The Timmy-Cain-Panda-Posey-Bumgarner Giants may never win another championship, but keeping that nucleus together is smart economic thinking and good for the Giants. If the Giants resign Lincecum and Pence, they will be poised to be a strong contending team in 2014, especially if they are able to add an above average hitting outfielder or a league average starting pitcher. It is unlikely that any trade of those two players would have left the team a similarly strong position for 2014.

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A Lifetime Ban for A-Rod Would Be Bad for Baseball →

A few weeks ago a former MVP who, is still one of the best and highest profile players in the game, was suspended for the duration of the 2013 season. However, nobody is talking about Ryan Braun anymore because this story has been completely eclipsed by the possible lifetime ban now facing New York Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez. The issues around this possible suspension are complicated because while most people recognize Rodriguez has been a user of PEDs, he has not failed a drug test since 2003. Rather he has been linked to Biogenesis, the medical lab which distributed PEDs to many players. More significantly, the discussion of Rodriguez's possible punishment appears to be somewhat capricious rather than grounded in policies or specific rules.

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If A-Rod Plays Well What Will the Yankees Do? →

The toughest question facing the Yankees may be what they will do if Rodriguez comes back and plays well. While Rodriguez is a shadow of the player he was from 1996-2007, and is older, injury prone and overpaid, he is still a valuable player when he is on the field. Last year he managed to post an OPS+ of 113 while having a WAR of 2.3, batting .272 with 18 home runs in only 122 games. These are not great numbers, but they are useful, particularly for a team this is desperate both for a third baseman and a right-handed power hitter.

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Wha Timmy's Future Could Hold →

This is why, with only a few months to go before he becomes a free agent, Lincecum and the Giants are facing some very tough decisions. It is likely that both the Giants and their one-time superstar pitcher would like to see Lincecum have a strong second half and then sign a big, multi-year contract. However, it is not likely that things will go that smoothly. If Lincecum continues to struggle while showing occasional signs of brilliance, the Giants may offer a contract in the three-years, $20-million range, but not much more than that. Lincecum may get lucky and find another team willing to take a chance on him, but if not he might stay with the Giants because he has always played there, or he might leave because he feels insulted at not receiving a better offer. Either way, the likelihood is that if he continues to struggle through the end of this season, Lincecum's days as a dominant starter will be behind him.

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It's Getting Tougher to Improve in Mid-Season →

Given the new structures and trends in baseball, player development may be more important than ever, but player development takes time. Between 2007-2011, the Giants had a very productive farm system, but have hit a bit of a downturn. That may change in the future, but is unlikely to change in the immediate future. Teams like the Giants who are looking to improve mid-season may look less to make big trades for name players and more towards adding international players or trying to bring players out of retirement, but as quick fixes these are less reliable and more difficult than simply trading for a player approaching free agency was in the past.

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Is It Time to Get Rid of the All-Star Game? →

These changes also have not addressed the major problem facing the All-Star Game-that it is a relic from another era and no longer meets the needs of fans or players. In an era of interleague play and widespread access to televised baseball in one form or another, the logic underlying an All-Star Game is not evident. Fans wishing to see how a great American League pitcher like Justin Verlander or Mariano Rivera fares against a National League star like Bryce Harper or Buster Posey no longer have to wait until the All-Star Game and hope for that matchup. Since the advent of interleague play, hose matchups may occur during the regular season when the Yankees play the Giants or the Tigers play the Nationals. The fans may have to wait a year or two for a specific matchup, but the regular season now has a great deal of interleague play.

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Evolving Information Symmetry in Baseball →

Twenty years ago, no fans had access to, for example, the data about pitch type and speed that is now relatively easily available, even decent video of major or minor league players was hard to come by. Thirty years ago up to date data of minor league games was unavailable for most fans. This made is possible for insiders to either know more than most fans, or by alluding to hard to get information, pretend they had more information than most fans.

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Pedroia, Cano and Magical Thinking →

Cano's intangibles are almost never mentioned, but an argument can, and probably should, be made for them. Cano handled a starting job in New York during a rough time for his team gracefully and smoothly. He has also transitioned from being a supporting player on a team of stars, to being the best player on an old team last year, and on a team of castoffs this year. There are many reasons why the Yankees are surprising so many people this year, but Cano has been a big part of that, hitting .290 while leading the league in home runs. Cano also starred on a Dominican team that, under a fair amount of pressure to succeed, completely dominated the recently concluded World Baseball Classic.

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Have We Seen the Last of the Greatest Yankee Infield? →

The 2009-11 Yankee infield stands out because of its balance. They had no star comparable to Lou Gehrig in his prime, which lasted from the mid-1920s, until he got sick in 1939, but all four players in every season were good to great. Teixeira, Cano, Jeter and Rodriguez all contributed to the Yankee offense in a way that cannot be said of Dent, Crosseti, Koenig or Dugan. With some luck, Rodriguez and Jeter will be back some time this year, and this foursome may take the field again. They may even play together a bit next year, but there best years together are clearly behind them. Those years, however, are by many measures the very best the Yankees ever got from their infield.

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Now A-Rod Is Just Getting Older →

The Rodriguez storyline is that one of baseball's greatest players ever is now a shell of himself racked by injuries and the hangover from steroid abuse. While the full story of Rodriguez's steroid abuse remains unknown, and he has lost a lot of time in recent years to injury, this storyline obscures a major point. To a great extent, Rodriguez is simply guilty of getting old and declining accordingly. The decline that Rodriguez will experience in the next few years is inevitable and largely due to aging. Since 1900 there have only been 26 seasons where second baseman, shortstop or third baseman over the age of 36 has managed an OPS+ of 110 or better. Given that, when he was healthy last year, Rodriguez was quite good for his age. There have only been 14 seasons where a player in that category posted an OPS+ of 120, suggesting that for infielders over 37 staying healthy and being an impact offensive player is very unusual.

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The Yankees Have a Tough Choice on Robinson Cano →

This is a very tough decision for the Yankees involving a very good and popular player. Letting Cano go at a time when the rest of the team is aging and there is limited promise in the farm system would make it hard for the Yankees to contend in 2014 and 2015. Keeping him would ensure that the latest cycle of Yankee dysfunction, overpaying for aging stars, will continue unabated while other teams are getting smarter in this regard.

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How Good a Player Was Jackie Robinson? →

Robinson played in his last game well over 50 years ago, and died over 40 years ago. Thus many baseball fans never saw Robinson play, and have only read about him or seen old footage of his playing days. Over time, not surprisingly, the story of Jackie Robinson, has surpassed the memory of Jackie Robinson as a player. Robinson was, however, a great player, and an unusual one. Looking more closely at what Jackie Robinson did on the field helps fill in the picture of who he was.

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The Yankees and Mets Are Facing Challenges Off the Field Too →

Despite the good first weak enjoyed by the Mets, and the recent hot streak by the Yankees, this season may be a rough one for big league baseball in New York. It is possible that, for the first time since 1992, both the Yankees and Mets will finish below .500. Additionally, the Yankees are an old team without any top-level prospects ready to step into major roles in either 2013 or 2014. The Mets are younger, but like many recent Mets teams, seem to be without a plan or vision for improving for the next several years. This tough situation is compounded by the resurgence of California baseball and of Southern California as a big market. To put this in perspective, if they played in California the Yankees would probably be the third best AL team in the state, while the Mets might make it that high among NL teams, but could also fall behind the Padres and be the fourth best team in that state.

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The Posey and Cain Contracts →

In keeping Posey and Cain the Giants are taking a risk, but losing one or both of these potential Hall of Famers just as they may be reaching their best years would also hurt the team. The Giants have won two of the last three World Series after a period of 54 years in which they won exactly six World Series games, and no championships. They have brought a level of excitement about baseball to San Francisco that has never been seen before and are on the cusp of becoming a national, and even international brand, like the Yankees or Red Sox only cooler. Losing Cain would have jeopardized that. Posey, for his part, is one of the very best players on the planet and the face of the franchise. Keeping him is a good baseball move and sends a message to baseball and to Giants fans that the Giants are committed to continuing to field championship calibre teams.

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Play Ball-Baseball Season is Here Again! →

The beginning of the baseball season is only a few days away. This is good news to all baseball fans who have made it through another off-season, and another winter. This season, like all others, is full of possibility excitement and questions. Will this be the year the Yankees finally fall apart? How can Mike Trout top his extraordinary rookie season? Are the Nationals going to be as good as they look? Somewhere in the ephemera is Miguel Cabrera still waiting for that slider? All, or most, of these questions, and many others will be answered over the next seven months or so.

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