This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell
For Goldstein and Parks, the podcast was always a labor of love and we were fortunate to be able to share it with them. Parks will still be writing on baseball and, who knows, may start another podcast in the future. For now, however, followers of Up and In should take a moment to raise a glass, actually two glasses, one of a blueberry wheat beer and one of the beeriest beer we can find, to thank Jason and Kevin and wish them both well in both their future endeavors.
Although it may not be what the convention organizers wanted, the image of an older white man rambling often nonsensically about politics, President Obama, and, at times, nothing in particular, while responding to every heckler, and recycling lines from movies from a generation ago, is pretty fitting for today's Republican Party. Eastwood's speech underscored that the biggest problem facing the Republican Party is not Mitt Romney's obvious weakness as a candidate, Paul Ryan's tenuous relationship with the truth or even the presence of candidates like Todd Akin who offer a toxic combination of misogyny and ignorance. Rather, the biggest problem facing the Republican Party is that they are a backwards looking party in a country that has always been oriented toward the future.
Melky Cabrera’s suspension for the use of testosterone is a blow to the pennant hopes of the San Francisco Giants as Cabrera was having a great year and had been a key ingredient to the Giants being in first place at the time of the suspension. The impact of this event, however, goes far beyond one team. Cabrera’s steroid use demonstrates that while steroid abuse is probably not as rampant at it was 10-15 years ago, the steroid era is not as firmly in the past as many in baseball would like to believe.
Mitt Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate was, in many respects, consistent with, and a reflection of, Romney's political views and political style. Romney's decision to put Ryan on the ticket is being heralded as a bold move by much of the conservative media. The main reason this is such a bold move appears to be because the media keeps repeating it. Putting Paul on the ticket is not so much a bold move as a coward's idea of courage, or more charitably a timid candidate's idea of risk taking. A bold move for Romney would have been to put a liberal Republican who might have infuriated some of the Republican base, but given the ticket a better chance of winning centrist voters in November on the ticket.
Posey, only about fifteen months removed from a horrific injury which caused him to miss most of 2011, is hitting .329/.394/.541 for an OPS+ of 167. It is unlikely he can continue that pace, but he will not need to do that to accumulate 1.6 more WAR and break Breshnahan’s record. Posey is likely to record the greatest season ever by a Giants catcher, to some degree because catcher has been a weak position for the Giants throughout most of their history. Posey is, despite that context, still having a great season for a catcher. If he continues at this pace, he will have 6.6 WAR by the end of the season, good enough for a tie for 17th best season for a catcher and eighth best ever for a catcher under 26 years old.
Accordingly, Saakashvili's rhetoric tells a very clear anti-Russian story, but if the Georgian government were to be judged by outcomes, rather than rhetoric, with regards to Russia, a very different story would emerge. Regardless of its intentions, the Georgian government has delivered a set of outcomes that are in Russia's clear interest in the region. After being in power for more than eight years, Saakashvili and his government have seen roughly 20 percent of Georgian territory ceded to Russia for the foreseeable future, allowed Georgia's NATO and EU aspirations to become little more than a pipe dream, have presided over very difficult economic times in Georgia, a country now besot by joblessness, inflation, and a debt problem which will become more serious in the next few years.
Mitt Romney recently traveled abroad to try to demonstrate his foreign policy credentials, because we all know a few staged meetings with leaders of key U.S. allies is enough preparation to serve as president. Romney, however, was unable to pass even this extraordinarily easy test. Instead, his foreign trip served to reinforce what many people already believe about him -- that despite some strengths, he is an extremely bad candidate. This trip will be remembered more for Romney's insulting comments about the London Olympics and the quick and profane temper of his aid, Rick Gorka than for anything Romney did to demonstrate statesmanship or even an understanding of the world outside the U.S.
That rivalry may not be between the Red Sox and Yankees, but between two teams that are gearing up for another division race in the NL West, and who are also playing each other this weekend, the Giants and the Dodgers. Both the Yankee-Red Sox and the Dodger-Giant rivalries have had moments of intense competition, memorable games and pennant races, and genuine rancor between the two teams. However, the degree of competition and balance between the two rivals has been consistently stronger between the two NL rivals.
James’ transition from iconoclastic and groundbreaking baseball analyst to whatever he is now has not been smooth. The set of skills he had that made him so good in that role and so influential to so many people have not served James as well now that the movement he has started has now become part of the mainstream of baseball analysis. Questioning everything, and not believing any conventional wisdom was a great way to reinvent statistical understanding of baseball 30 years ago, but that approach has failed James badly now.
Until Romney releases these tax returns, it is not possible to know what the most damaging thing in them will be; and to some extent it doesn't matter if there is any one specific thing that is very damaging. It is, however, a certainty that Romney's tax returns will continue to tell the story of Romney as an extraordinarily wealthy man whose financial life is very different from those of ordinary Americans, and who has engaged in the kinds of wealthy-person financial shenanigans which, while not illegal, will raise more questions about Romney and his wealth.
Cabrera’s career, to be sure has been an odd one. Before 2010, he had established himself as a useful, if not quite good, outfielder: a valuable fourth outfielder on a good team or a passable starter on a bad team. In 2010, however, he was terrible, hitting .255/.317/.354 for the Braves. The Kansas City Royals took a chance on Cabrera; and the outfielder had a career year in 2012, hitting .309/.335/.470, numbers he is on track to easily exceed this year.
The general election is now less than four months away. The election itself has taken on the predictable rhythm of many presidential elections. The primaries were less contested than usual as the Democratic incumbent had no challengers, not even a protest candidate of some kind; and the Republican challenger did not have any serious opposition throughout much of the race. Not surprisingly, the main issue in the race remains the economy as President Barack Obama is seeking to make the argument that while the economy still has its problems, due to his policies, it is moving in the right direction. Republican challenger Mitt Romney's campaign is arguing that the economy is still in terrible shape and that only the magic of more tax cuts can turn it around.
Describing a team as boring is subjective, but it is clear that at the halfway point in the season, the Yankees, despite their very good record, have not generated any buzz in New York. Last year fans watched Derek Jeter reach 3,000 hits and saw Mariano Rivera become the all time saves leader. This year they have seen Jeter pass Paul Waner on the hit list while Rafael Soriano has taken over as a good closer, but one about whom few Yankee fans care deeply. It is hard to think of any Yankee games which are even close to as memorable as Santana’s no-hitter, any one of several starts by Dickey, or even some of the early season Yankee-Red Sox games of recent years.
Should Obama win, Republicans could blame the nominee, regardless of who it is -- Mitt Romney for being insufficiently conservative, Michele Bachmann for being too amateurish or frighteningly right wing, Tim Pawlenty for being too boring, or whoever else ultimately wins the nomination for some other flaw. This, however, will be an exercise in avoidance allaying responsibility for a Republican defeat at an imperfect, even weak, nominee and it obscures other significant questions. The real questions Republicans should ask themselves if they lose in 2012 is how they managed to lose a presidential election during a time of poor economic conditions with the country embroiled in at least two, and possibly three, wars. The corollary question they will need to ask is whether their strategy of attacking President Obama nonstop for four years while offering few useful solutions and giving in to the party's most extreme and ugly elements was really the wise decision. If the answer to the last question is no, the Party will have to determine how and why they allowed that to happen.
Only Chief Justice John Roberts can know why he decided to vote to form the majority on the recent court case seeking to overturn health care legislation. Nonetheless, his decision was enormously important in determining what health care will look like in the U.S. for years to come, as well as for political reasons which will shape the environment for this election and beyond. For far right activists, however, Roberts' decision must have felt like a punch in the gut. Perhaps when they recover from that initial shock they will also see it, at least partially, as a wake-up call.
San Francisco Giant first baseman Brandon Belt has been the subject of some controversy as many Giants fans feel he has not been given a fair chance over the last season and a half while others believe he has been a disappointment. Belt, who began the 2011 season as the Giants’ top hitting prospect, spent most of 2011 moving back and forth from first base to the outfield, the starting lineup to the bench, and the big leagues and AAA. This year, Belt spent the first month or two of the season being moved in and out of the lineup before settling, at least for now, into the starting first baseman’s role
American politics is increasingly defined by a two party system where one party, albeit imperfectly and generally not easily, reflects the racial, ethnic and other diversity, tensions and strength that is central to 21st century America, while the other is increasingly simply a party of white, heavily Christian Americans. Today Americans who are non-white, non-Christian or non-straight are far more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. This is true at the level of ordinary voters, grassroots activists and elected officials.
Roger Clemens’ acquittal on perjury charges may be a triumph of justice as the government case against him was weak. For this baseball fans should be relieved, as few fans, even those who never liked Roger Clemens, would have liked to have seen the baseball legend doing time based on a flimsy government case against him. However, Clemens’ acquittal speaks to the problems that baseball still faces in its efforts to put the steroid era in the past, because it does nothing to change the realities that Clemens took steroids and MLB did not seem to care.
The presidential election is less then five months away and is shaping up to be among the most predictable in American history. Once the noise around new technologies, Tea Parties and Romney's extraordinary wealth is stripped away, it is not difficult to understand this race as being between a Democratic incumbent and Republican challenger, both of whom faced either no, or only nominal, opposition in their efforts to win their party's nomination. Moreover, both of these candidates have positions and even ideology that is comfortably in the mainstream of their parties' of the last half century or so.
Soriano is winding down a career that will feel much more impressive in retrospect than it did at the time. Soriano was never quite the superstar some thought he would become because his game had too many holes and too many things at which he was not quite good enough, but when the incongruity between his tools and appearance on one hand, and his numbers and skills on the other, fade into the past, he will be more likely to be remembered as the very good player he has been.