Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Afghanistan's Robert Redford Moment

“So, what do we do now?” This is the question newly elected senator Bill McKay, played by Robert Redford, asks his campaign manager in the last scene of the 1972 movie The Candidate. It is also the question we should be asking in Afghanistan today, now that the election– which took months of preparation, thousands of people doing everything from security to election administration to political party development, and millions of dollars in assistance–is over, and has been judged a success.

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An Olympian Mistake by the IOC

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.

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Fearing Government Involvement in Health Care →

One of the mantras of the opposition to meaningful health reform has been a fear of a government takeover of the health care sector. This fear is expressed virtually nonstop on talk radio, the right wing blogosphere, Fox News and at town hall meetings across the country. As we know, for better or for worse, the Obama administration is not proposing a government takeover of the entire health care system, but overstatement and exaggeration is unavoidable in these kinds of debates.

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Afghanistan's Presidential Election: Why It's a Problem that Karzai is a Sure bet to Win

The election in Afghanistan on Thursday will be watched closely around the world. It will be a critical moment for Afghanistan’s future as well as for American efforts in that country. The election will be a test for the nascent Afghan state, the ability of American and other forces to maintain peace in the country, and for Afghan unity. It is also an election, at least at the presidential level, where the outcome is a foregone conclusion. It is almost certain that Afghan president Hamid Karzai will be reelected.

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Revisiting the Defensive Spectrum

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.

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The Crisis of No Crisis: The Post-Recession Blues

The celebration of the recovery is a little premature, but it reflects the reality that most financial pundits and reporters have only two settings regardless of the economic conditions. One might be called the Jim Cramer setting, where we are told that talk of recession is nonsense and that we should keep buying. The second might be called the Nouriel Roubini setting, where we are told that things are much worse than we think. Accordingly, first the recession itself, and later the overstated claims about how bad it was going to be, have discredited most of the financial punditry.

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The Steroid News Could be Worse

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.

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Why Calling Countries "Strategically Important" is Hurting US Foreign Policy

There’s also some truth to this. All countries, particularly from America’s point of view, have some strategic value. The problem with this approach is that if all countries have strategic importance, then no country has strategic importance and all countries are of equal import. Strategic value only has meaning if it is a relative term, and referring to a country as strategically important only means something if it is considered more or less strategic than other countries.

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Health Care and the Possibility of Change →

It is difficult to believe that only 16 years ago some of us were outraged by the Harry and Louise ads. Those ads seem quaint compared to what we are seeing today from the opponents of health care reform and their scare tactics that are just short of saying that health care reform means President Obama will personally sign orders to kill anybody who is sick or over 60 years old. It is, however, a good bet that if we wait long enough, we will start hearing that as well.

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Patterns of Greatness-George Brett, Willie McCovey and Eddie Murray

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.

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What the Georgia-Russia War Did and Didn't Change

The Russia Georgia war in a paradoxical way changed everything and changed nothing. Accordingly, determining the real impact of the war can be a puzzling task. The initial fears articulated in Tbilisi and Washington last August have proven false. The dominoes did not tumble throughout the former Soviet Union; a new Cold War did not occur, President Mikheil Saakashvili is still in power in Georgia; and Russia did not take over Georgia. Although these extreme scenarios did not come to pass, something did change.

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What We Know About the Wild Card

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.

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Supporting Democracy Without Understanding It

The idea that aggregating preferences of ordinary people, treating all people equally and allowing a substantial amount of political rights to everybody is the best way to organize society is a new one for most of the world, and one which still strikes people as strange. I know this from my own experience doing political work in dozens of countries. In every one of these countries, the U.S. included, I have heard people, including people in positions of influence and power, remark that the citizens of their country are somehow not smart enough, educated enough or prepared enough for democracy.

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Talking About Recovery, Talking About Recession →

During an appearance on Face the Nation this past Sunday, Lawrence Summers, economic advisor to President Obama, remarked "Six months ago, when the president took office, we were talking about whether recession would become depression...Today we are talking about when recession is going to end." These comments only make sense if taken in the most literal sense. Summers is right. The administration is certainly speaking about the economy differently than it was six months ago. This statement, unfortunately, reveals more about what the government is saying, rather than what the economy is doing.

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Lincecum and Cain and Pray for Rain, but Don't Settle for Sanchez and Garko

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.

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Manny, Papi, Jeter and Mo

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.

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Barack Obama: Our First Post Post-Cold War President

As our first post-Cold War president, Bill Clinton was faced with an entirely new content for international politics when he came into office in 1993. Now, sixteen years later, Barack Obama comes to office as our first post post-Cold War President. And while the end of the Cold War was a major international news story, the end of the post-Cold War period is much less clear or decisive. If the Cold War ended with a bang, the post-Cold War ended with a whimper (or perhaps a tweet). And now that the post-Cold War paradigm is no longer our frame for international relations, President Obama is operating in a vastly different foreign policy environment than either of his two predecessors were.

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The Policeman, the President, the Professor, an Apology and a Round of Beers →

The recent incident in Cambridge involving Henry Louis Gates Jr. is indicative of the way we have talked, if not always thought, about race in America, at least white America, for the past few decades. Race is rarely a topic that is explored directly, even though it remains a constant, perhaps even defining issue, in the U.S. Instead, we only discuss race when specific cases or incidents occur and become stories in the media. Thus, the Rodney King beating led to discussions of police abuse and race, O.J. Simpson to race and the judicial system and even Barack Obama's campaign to a discussion of race and politics. Similarly, the Gates incident, has brought on another discussion of race and police profiling.

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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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Did the 1981 Baseball Strike Cost Dwight Evans Election to the Hall of Fame?

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.

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