This second World Series win in three years is a fantastic accomplishment for the San Francisco Giants; and it is also an opportunity to reflect on some of the players who were key parts of this win and, in some cases, both World Series wins by taking a brief, if early, look at there Hall of Fame chances. There are four players on the team Buster Posey, Pablo Sandoval, Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, who have played well enough to establish a chance at being elected to the Hall of Fame.Interestingly, these four players were among the few holdovers from 2010 to be part of the 2012 team. The remaining Giants are either two young or are clearly not on a Hall of Fame path.

The two pitchers in the group, Lincecum and Cain, have very different potential Hall of Fame trajectories. Obviously, if Lincecum continues to pitch as he did in the 2012 regular season his time as a valuable player will wind down quickly and he will never be a Hall of Fame candidate. On the other hand, if he is able to have two or three more seasons that approach where he was in 2008-2009, and a few other season like 2010 or 2011, he will be a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate. This scenario would put him with a career win total in the low 200 range, but with over 3,000 career strikeouts and perhaps a few more times leading the league in strikeouts. If he manages two or three more times in the top ten of Cy Young voting, that too would help his chances. There is no guarantee that this will happen, but it is certainly not impossible. This would make him a Hall of Fame candidate as a poor man’s Sandy Koufax or Pedro Martinez, weak on counting statistics, but with a short period of dominance.

Another possibility for Lincecum is that after struggling for another season or so as a starter, he is able to reinvent himself as a reliever. During the post-season he showed what he can do out of the bullpen. Although he is probably more valuable as an average to good starter than as a dominant reliever, his Hall of Fame chances would be better if he retired with two Cy Young awards as a starter and five or so dominant years as a reliever, making him comparable to Dennis Eckerlsley or John Smoltz.

Matt Cain is different from Lincecum because Cain has been a model of consistency and durability. Since joining the Giants rotation in 2006, Cain, who is a year younger than Lincecum, has never started fewer than 30 games or pitched fewer than 190 innings. During that time he has been one only ten pitchers to accumulate 1,400 innings. Only five of those pitchers CC Sabathia, Justin Verlander, Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay and Felix Hernandez have exceeded Cain’s ERA+ of 123 during that period. Cain will be an interesting Hall of Fame candidate because he has never been a dominant pitcher, but has always been a very good one. Additionally, despite accumulating over 1,500 innings as a starting pitcher, he only has 85 wins and has never led the league in wins, strikeouts or ERA.

Nonetheless, if Cain continues his consistent pitching, and remains a top flight pitcher until he is 33, it is not inconceivable that he could have 175 wins and 2,200 strikeouts with an ERA+ still in the 125 range. That would position him for a decline phase which could bolster his counting statistics. Cain helped his cause a lot this year by pitching a perfect game, which by some measures was the greatest game ever pitched by a gentile, and further building his reputation as a big game pitcher.

Pablo Sandoval is an intriguing Hall of Fame possibility because many fans do not realize that he just completed his age 25 season and has had two very strong years, 2009 and 2011, as well as an off-year in 2010 and an unspectacular 2012. Nonetheless, Sandoval is one of only 95 players to accumulate 2,000 plate appearances with an OPS+ of 125 or better, Sandoval’s thus far is 129, by the end of his age 25 season. Of those 95 players, 40 are already in the Hall of Fame or still on the ballot, while another 15 are still active. For Sandoval to get in the Hall of Fame, he will have to maintain or improve on this level of offensive performance for another decade or so which will be difficult, but many of the players who started out the way the Panda did, have managed to do that. A bigger challenge for the Panda will be to stay healthy and keep his weight under control, particularly as this will allow him to remain a third baseman longer. Sandoval’s is a very difficult future to anticipate because in five years he could be one of the top hitters in the game or he could have eaten his way out of the starting lineup or even the sport. If Sandoval ends up with borderline numbers he, like Lincecum, will be helped by his memorable nickname and personal style. His three home runs in the first game of this recent World Series won’t hurt either.

The best player on the Giants, and possibly on the planet, right now is 25 year old Buster Posey. Posey has played two full years in the major leagues while losing most of his second season to an injury. During that time, Posey has racked up an OPS+ of 146, won recognition for his stellar defense and emerged as a visible leader on two World Championship teams. Posey has done everything right thus far in his career, but he has only played two years. He will need to maintain this level of play as a catcher for another 5-7 years before either moving to another position an hitting for a few more years to become a sure Hall of Famer, but that is certainly possible.

It is unimaginable that all four of these players will be elected to the Hall of Fame, but it is likely that one and perhaps even two will be. For Posey and Cain the main issue will be whether or not they can build on the career trajectories they have already established, while Sandoval and Lincecum need to have more years at the level of play which they have demonstrated in their good years. The World Series victory will help the narrative around Cain and Sandoval. Cain’s status as a big game pitcher will grow because of his strong outings in each of the three deciding games this post-season, while Sandoval has earned a place in history with his three home runs in game one of the World Series.

Follow Lincoln on Twitter.

The post The Hall of Fame and these Giants appeared first on The Faster Times.

The Giants lost a tough seven game series to the Cardinals in that NLCS thus cementing their position in my eyes as a once proud franchise fallen irrevocably on hard times, and influencing the identity of a generation of Giants fans. We thought of ourselves as people who rooted for a perennially disappointing, and hard luck, team whose best days were in the past. Two years later in what remains one of my best memories as a baseball fan, that changed as the team won its first pennant in 27 years.

Last night the Giants won another pennant, their fourth in 23 years and second in only three years. Their last pennant before this one was part of the extraordinary 2010 season which saw the Giants win their first World Series since 1954. Last night was not only a great night for Giants fans, but it also forces us to rethink our identity as fans. Since 1989, only the Braves and Yankees have won more pennants than the Giants. The Giants have now won three pennants in 11 years, a period in which more than half of all big league teams have not won a pennant.

This pennant, especially given the dramatic way the Giants won it, following only two years after their World Series victory in 2010, solidifies the change in the Giants persona. Regardless of whether or not they beat Detroit in the World Series, the Giants are no longer the bad break team of Bobby Richardson catching Willie McCovey’s line drive, Dusty Baker giving the ball to Russ Ortiz, or Atlee Hammaker’s game seven in the 1987 NLCS. They are now closer to being a consistent contender and an enduring power in the NL. The Giants have clearly shaken off the identity they had through much of the 1970s and 1980s.

For longtime Giants fans, this means rethinking our identity as fans. We are no longer rooting for a forgotten team searching for a championship, a team that for a period of close to half a century were either mediocre or found a way to lose championships in dramatic, and occasionally strange, ways. Fans of other teams have experienced similar things. Any thoughtful Red Sox fan would have to rethink the narrative of being cursed and long suffering that was part of what being a fan of that team meant for more than eight decades, but after 2004 and 2007 can no longer be taken seriously. Similarly, a fan of the Orioles from 1966-1983 would have thought of that team as always contending, having stellar pitching and usually being in or around the playoffs while occasionally winning a championship, but over the last 30 years, the Orioles have evolved into being a very different, and less successful, franchise.

Loyalties to sports teams run very deep, but they are almost always built on factors such as geography or family. I am a Giants fan because my family moved to San Francisco when I was very young. My sons are Giants fans, even though we live in New York, because their father is a Giants fan. These are typical reasons why people root for teams, but they are not based on a thoughtful or probably even conscious decision. These circumstances lead us not just to a team, but to an identity, based on the fortunes and character of the team for which we root.

For many Giants fans, happily, the identity we have adapted no longer applies to our team. The Giants are not long suffering, nor are they living in the shadow of some of the game’s greatest players like Christy Mathewson, Willie Mays or even Barry Bonds. If fans like me hold on to that identity much longer we will become delusional and annoying, so we have to embrace the new. The new Giants identity may be simply that they are good and win more than their share of pennants. It may take a while to get used to that, but I think I can handle it.

Follow Lincoln on Twitter.

The post A New Identity for the Giants and their Fans appeared first on The Faster Times.

That series was a hard fought seven game affair which the Yankees won by barely holding on to a 1-0 victory in the final game. The most famous play of that World Series is undoubtedly Willie McCovey’s line drive out to Bobby Richardson for the last out of the game with the tying and winning runs on base.

That World Series was significant for other reasons as well. The Giants had a talent laden roster featuring star players, and future Hall of Famers, McCovey, Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal. They won that 1962 pennant in only their fifth year in San Francisco. Most Giants fans probably assumed the Giants would be winning a few more pennant due to their strong nucleus of stars, but it was 27 years until the Giants next appeared in the World Series. The 1962 Yankee team was the last team of the Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra period to win a championship. After that series, the Yankees would have to wait fifteen years, a lifetime in Yankee years, to win another World Series.

That Giant team was, perhaps like all teams and all World Series teams, a fascinating collection of past and future players. Viewed from half a century later it is an even more intriguing team. For example, two of second tier pitchers for the Giants that year were a 23 year old future Hall of Famer who still had not found his groove as a big leaguer, and a 32 year old journeyman who was mostly done, but six years removed from having thrown the only perfect game in World Series history. Gaylord Perry and Don Larsen were only two of the more interesting players on that team. These two were part of a bullpen led by Stu Miller who, in one of the most iconic moments in San Francisco Giant history, was blown of the pitcher’s mound in the All Star Game at Candlestick Park in 1961.

The offensive stars of that team were Cepeda and the incomparable Mays. The former had a good year, while Mays was in the middle of a period of dominant play that would last for the better part of two decades. It was, however, the rest of the outfielders and first baseman that also makes that team memorable. Harvey Kuehn, Manny Mota, two Alou brothers (Felipe and Matty) and McCovey, who was primarily an outfielder that year divided, up playing time in left and right field. Harvey Kuehn was a former batting champ having one of his last good years. The Alou brother were solid players more famous for being two of three baseball playing brothers than anything they did on the field. Mota lasted forever as a pinch hitter, but most famously for the Dodgers while McCovey, one of the top left handed bats of his generation, had still not found his way into the Giants lineup on a full time basis.

That 1962 Giants team cast a long shadow for Giants fans of my generation. After coming within one run of winning the World Series, the franchise and its fans had to wait 48 years before winning a championship. The promise of that 1962 team gave way to an extremely frustrating few years where that star studded lineup averaged 91 win each of the next seasons, but never won another pennant finishing third once, fourth once and second four times in a ten team league.

The third baseman from that team Jim Davenport later managed the Giants when they were probably at their all time nadir. Davenport, however, did not last a full season as he posted a sub .400 winning percentage in 144 games before being fired before the 1985 season was over. For fans of my generation, Mays, and Marichal were names from another era and reminders that the Giants were once a storied franchise, something that was less than obvious to most baseball fans in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Gaylord Perry, a minor player on that team, went on to win 180 games and two Cy Young awards after the Giants traded him away in the early 1970s. Orlando Cepeda, one of the big stars on that team, went on to win his only MVP award after being traded away from the Giants. In the late 1970s, the Giants bad trades were legendary in the Bay Area, but having nothing to show for these two future Hall of Famers other than Sudden Sam McDowell and Ray Sadecki, was proof that the Giants penchant for bad trades had long roots.

The only player from that team who was still playing for the Giants by the late 1970s was, fittingly, Willie McCovey, the great slugger whose line drive out just missed being a game winning hit in game seven returned to the Giants in 1977 after a three year sojourn in San Diego and Oakland. He was the Giants closest link to that 1962 team and a constant reminder to fans of what might have been.

Fifty years after that tough defeat, and more importantly two years after finally getting their World Series victory, Giants fans can look at that 1962 team more charitably. They can recognize the impressive talent and interesting baseball stories that were brought together on that team. It is still possible, but not likely, that that great World Series will be commemorated by a 50th anniversary rematch. Even if this does not occur, it is worth taking a few minutes this October to remember this extraordinary team that came up just a foot or so short of a championship.

Follow Lincoln on Twitter.

The post Don Larsen, Manny Mota and the 1962 Giants appeared first on The Faster Times.

The moment I knew that Up and In was the podcast for me was one night during the week between Christmas and New Year’s while I was driving around looking for a parking place during a vacation in San Francisco as Jason Parks and Kevin Goldstein discussed what they had received and eaten for the holidays. I remember Jason saying he had been given a “carbonator” followed by an exchange of recipes and a strange tangent involving a sweater and a former alter-ego of Jason’s.

These were, as my wife later pointed out, my people, mixing a great knowledge of baseball with humor, insight and arguments about food, agreement on left of center politics and friendship. The non-baseball side of the podcast at times overshadowed the baseball itself. Whenever I drink a fruity beer I think about how Goldstein would approve and Parks would not. I have learned about things like competitive Scrabble and how different beers hold their chill. I try to sneak the word “want”, used as a noun, a phrase coined on the show which means something like desire and drive, into serious discussions at work. I think more about different kinds of chile than I ever did before.

The baseball side of the show was excellent as well. The podcast focused on scouting and player development, a side of the game that had escaped my previous readings and study of baseball. I found myself learning a great deal about how the draft really works, what scouts look for and many angles on player development. I found myself using phrases from the podcast with the Little League team I coach, reminding them, for example, when throwing to be “a ferris wheel, not a merry-go-round.”

I had the good fortune to meet Goldstein and Parks at an event in New York where they invited their listeners to meet for a drink. Following that I even appeared on their show a couple of times discussing topics like the Arab Spring and the debt ceiling crisis. I wanted to talk baseball, but they seemed more interested in my work as a political scientist and scholar.

Baseball has been a major part of my life for more than 35 years, but as an adult, finding knowledgeable people with whom to discuss and argue about the game, and who are also the kind of people with whom I can pass hours without mentioning baseball, are hard to find. Many of my closest friends in the world fit that description, but the opportunities I have to spend time with those people, most of whom I met decades ago on the other side of the continent from which I now live, are too few. Listening in to Up and In was like hanging out in a favorite bar or cafe and chatting about baseball for a few minutes in the middle of an otherwise busy and stressful day.

Up and In’s last podcast came out this week because Goldstein was hired for a senior scouting position with the Houston Astros. This is a great opportunity for Goldstein, but a loss for many of Up and In’s fans. While the podcast will be missed, and probably quickly become a memory shared by a few thousand devoted fans, like a great band that broke up too soon, the experience is, at least for me, a reminder of the strange power of baseball to build communities, and create friendships.

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.

Follow Lincoln on Twitter.

The post Farewell to ‘Up and In’ appeared first on The Faster Times.

Until he tested positive for banned substances, Cabrera had been one of the feel good stories of the year. The former Yankee, Brave and Royal was proving that his solid 2011 season was not a fluke and at 27 was ready to take his place among the game’s most solid hitters. He had been hitting .346/.390/.516, while bringing excitement and energy to his new team. Cabrera had also begun to make a national name for himself by winning the MVP for the All Star Game in July. Now, all of that is obviously tainted by Cabrera’s steroid use.

Cabrera’s decision to use a banned substance was a colossally bad one. He will miss the rest of this season and will be damaged goods when he seeks a new contract with any team for next season. Had Cabrera not used steroids he might have had a good year and been in a strong bargaining position as a free agent, or had a poor year and signed on somewhere as a fourth outfielder for less money. Now even that may be tough.

It is impossible to know for certain the extent to which steroid use is responsible for Cabrera’s emergence as an elite player, but it doesn’t really matter. The perceptions and suspicions of this are legitimate. Unfortunately, the specter of Cabrera’s steroid use will now shadow any player having an exceptionally strong season or emerging from a few years of being an ordinary player into being a star. This suspicion is very damaging for the game and will inform how players are covered and how fans view these types of players.

Giants fans, for example, are disappointed because losing Cabrera means the team’s playoff chances are slimmer, but they also should be angry because Cabrera deceived them. They put their faith in him, and he betrayed that faith. One can certainly argue that adults who are fans should know better than to place this kind of faith in a player who has major financial incentives to cheat, but being a baseball fan is rarely the most rational of adult behaviors. An industry that makes billions of dollars by exploiting irrational attachments between adults and their teams, as well as the journalists, bloggers and others who benefit from the profits generated by that sentimental relationship, should understand that faith and belief in the honest good intentions of the players is at the heart of the game’s economic model.

Although it is the case that the worst of the steroid period is probably over, steroids remain a problem for baseball; and the inability to address steroids or their impact on the game remain a concern, but in different ways. One obvious example is that the biggest and highest profile concerns about steroid use over the next several years will be in the context of voting for the Hall of Fame, not anything that occurs on the field. The Hall of Fame concerns will involve issues of excluding an entire generation of baseball’s best stars, accidentally letting a steroid abuser into the Hall of Fame or letting a presumption of guilt, without any concrete evidence, damage a candidate’s chances of elections.

The on-field questions are also not the same as several years ago. In the days when many players were using steroids, it was easy to say that whoever won the World Series did not cheat because the steroid use kind of evened itself out. Today it is different. While Giants fans may be upset now, if Cabrera’s team narrowly wins the division, it will be Dodgers fans who will be furious. They will argue, with some credence, that if Cabrera had been caught and suspended sooner, the Giants would not have been able to win the division.

Because of the difficult challenges involved in eradicating steroid use as well as the flawed way MLB addresses this problem, Cabrera’s suspension does not give fans reason to think that baseball is doing its best to catch steroid users, but on the contrary, makes many fans wonder who else is using banned substances. It is a reminder that steroid use may still be widespread and that MLB knows little, and is able to do less, about it.

Follow Lincoln on Twitter.

The post Melky Cabrera and Baseball’s New Steroid Problems appeared first on The Faster Times.

These seasons are all significant because, based solely on WAR, they are the tenth best season for a Giant at first base, centerfield and second base. Obviously, there is room for debate on this, but these seasons all capture how well a Giant had to play to make it to the top ten single seasons at his position. The names of the players in the 1-9 slots include greats like Will Clark, Willie McCovey, Bill Terry, Rogers Hornsby and Frankie Frisch. Not surprisingly, the top ten — actually top 13 — seasons by a Giants center fielder were all recorded by Willie Mays.

For Giants catchers, however, the story is different. The best season ever by a Giants catcher, based on WAR, was 5.6 by Roger Breshnahan in 1908, the same year the team lost the pennant because of Fred Merkle’s failure to touch second base. Breshnahan was a good player, and a Hall of Famer, but not comparable to some of the men who starred at other positions for the Giants. Significantly, with almost a third of the season remaining, Buster Posey, who has already accumulated 4.6 WAR, is poised to have the greatest season ever by a Giants catcher.

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.

Posey has already earned a place in Giants history if only for his work behind the plate during 2010 when the team won its first World Series since moving to San Francisco, and Posey caught the last strike of the last game. Moreover, in only his third year in the big leagues, Posey is well on his way to having the greatest season by a catcher in his franchise’s history going back for more than a century and is only a few seasons away from becoming the greatest catcher in Giants history. Again, this is largely due to the odd inability of the Giants to have strong catchers over the years, but it also is further evidence that Posey is a very valuable ballplayer.

Posey’s strong year with the bat, particularly for a Giants team that has struggled to generate runs in recent seasons, is only one of the reasons 2012 has been such a great year for Posey. This season the young catcher has also shown that, following his injury last season, he can catch again. Posey did not move to first base or some other position, but has played primarily as a catcher, playing there in 78 of his team’s 111 games. Posey may not be ready to play 140 games behind the plate, but 110-120 a season with a few appearances at first base and DH is better than many Giants fans expected and enough to make Posey one of the league’s premier players.

This year, Posey is hitting well enough to be a full time first baseman, but that is not going to happen every year. By putting him back behind the plate, rather than moving Posey to first base, the Giants substantially helped themselves remain a contender in 2012 and made it possible for Posey to become what he is. It was a high risk move, as Posey might have broken down and been unable to catch a full season, but so far that decision, more than Melky Cabrera’s great year, Ryan Vogelsong’s second unexpected great year in a row, or anything else, is the reason why in mid-August the Giants are still in first place.

Follow Lincoln on Twitter.

The post Is Buster Posey Having the Greatest Season Ever for a Giants Catcher? appeared first on The Faster Times.

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.

In recent years the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry has rightfully gotten more attention. During the wild card era, the Yankees and Red Sox have finished close enough in standings for the two teams to face off in the LCS three times. This has never happened to the Giants and the Dodgers. In the pre-wild care era, however, comparable measures tell a different story with both the Giants and Dodgers and the Yankees and Red Sox finishing first and second in their league or division eight times. This measurement, however, misrepresents the two rivalries in favor of the AL rivalry because the Yankees have won so many pennants that it would be hard for the Red Sox to not have finished second to them a few times. Between 1903-1993, the Yankees only finished second to the Red Sox twice, while the Giants and Dodgers each finished second to the other four times, during those years, suggesting a much more even rivalry.

In some regards, the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry has been competitive and intense, but not consistent. The Red Sox were one of the best teams in the decade between 1910-1919, winning four pennants, but between 1921-1964, the period of the mid-century Yankee dynasty, the Red Sox only won one pennant. Thus, to a great extent, the AL rivalry has been limited to roughly 1938-1949, 1975-78 and 1995 to the present; and it is only in the wild card era that the rivalry has been remotely balanced. The Giants and Dodgers, however, while playing in a more balanced league which has never been dominated by any one team, has had periods of strong competition from 1910-1920, 1951-1966 and on and off during the wild card period.

Before the wild card era, a Yankee pennant was followed by a Red Sox pennant the next year twice — 1947 and 1976 — but the reverse never happened. Since 1995 this has happened in 2003 and 2004. A Giant pennant has followed a Dodger pennant five times, but not since 1989 — and only once since 1963. This demonstrates that the periods when both teams were very competitive were roughly equal, but in the Yankee-Red Sox case this has mostly been in recent years.

Over the last fifteen years, there is no question that the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry has been the best in baseball. The two teams have had several memorable post-season series as well as individual games, which cannot be matched by anything in recent years. The history of the two rivalries reflects something different. The 1978 pennant race between the Yankees and the Red Sox, perhaps the greatest in the history of the two teams, was extraordinary, but has nothing on the 1951 race between the Giants and Dodgers. Bucky Den’t 1978 home run has a special place in the memories of Red Sox and Yankee fans, but it was not as dramatic or as widely remembered throughout our culture as Bobby Thomson’s “Shot heard ’round the world” in 1951. Similarly, the fights between the Yankees and Red Sox have been intense, demonstrating the enmity between the two teams, but the Roseboro-Marichal incident was more violent, serious and had a longer impact on the game and baseball history than, for example, Don Zimmer being thrown to the ground by Pedro Martinez. The Dodger-Giant rivalry is also unusual because it survived a move across the country by both teams.

These two rivalries, when taken holistically, are probably more or less equal. The Giant-Dodger rivalry has deeper roots, slightly more memorable moments and is more balanced, while the Yankee-Red Sox rivalry has been considerably more intense in recent years and has a number of great moments, including a few going back to the 1940s, as well. However, the awareness of these rivalries among casual fans is undoubtedly much greater for the Yankees and Red Sox. In the next few months the baseball world may be reminded of the great NL rivalries as the Dodgers are just a few games behind the Giants in the NL West; and the two teams could conceivably meet in the NLCS for the first time ever.

Follow Lincoln on Twitter.

The post What is Really Baseball’s Best Rivalry? appeared first on The Faster Times.

I remember this series of transactions because I was convinced that this was a terrible move for the Giants. I thought Evans was the better hitter because he got on base and walked more, while most of my friends and fellow Giants fans thought Oliver was better because of his higher batting average. My certainty and adamance must have been annoying, but I was right. I was right not because I was smarter than the other Giants fans in my life, but because I had read Bill James and they had not. At that time, reading James and having a rudimentary understanding of his work made one an unusual, even weird, kind of fan.

I had begun reading James only in early 1982 when his work first became widely accessible. His combination of obsession with baseball, questioning of conventional wisdom and authority and humorous and rebellious tone was the perfect fit for my 14-year-old, baseball obsessed, smart-ass, rebellious self. Those early James books remain among the books whose impact on me has been the strongest and most profound. James’ broader impact in the decades since 1982 goes far beyond influencing teenage hippie Giants fans. He has helped revolutionize how America sees, appreciates and discusses baseball. Even those who disagree with him have to wrestle with his work in one way or another.

James’ career has been an interesting and successful one, but like many people who take on a dominant culture or paradigm and change it, James has had trouble adapting. The same ability to question conventional wisdom and authority that made him a great security-guard-turned-baseball-analyst seem misplaced as a well placed senior advisor to one of baseball’s richest teams. Similarly, his aggressive approach to debunking the baseball establishment is less valuable now that what baseball research most needs is a way to combine quantitative and qualitative research. This phenomenon occurs in other areas of life as well. The politician who was a firebrand while in the legislature opposing the executive becomes a mediocre president, governor or mayor. The leader who makes the revolution cannot govern after the revolution.

This week saw the latest example of James’ largely unsuccessful attempts to make a place for himself in a baseball world where many of his once radical ideas are now broadly accepted. It is in this context that James’ defense of Joe Paterno for his role in the Jerry Sandusky affair should be viewed. James argued that Paterno “was isolated. He was not nearly as powerful as people imagine him to have been,” thus making Paterno less responsible for doing nothing to stop Sandusky. James’ defense of Paterno was shameful and, on the surface, inexplicable.

This is a more serious mistake for James than arguing, as he did in 2003, that Craig Biggio had been the best player of the 1990s, but the origins of the two arguments are very similar. In both cases, James is seeking to question the accepted narrative and to see if a different approach leads to better answers. This methodology has served James well for much of his career, but was clearly the wrong way to figure out Joe Paterno’s role in what has happened at Penn State.

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.

Follow Lincoln on Twitter.

The post Bill James Gets It Wrong on Penn State appeared first on The Faster Times.

Cabrera moreover, was probably better known for the things he could not do: play centerfield well enough to hold down a starting job there, walk enough to bat in the leadoff spot, hit for enough power to bat in the middle of the order, and even, according to some, focus enough on baseball to have a successful big league career, than for the things he could do — like hit.

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.

Given Cabrera’s career path, it is easy to overlook one important piece of information. Cabrera was able to play at the Major League level effectively, although not as a star, at the age of 21. More specifically, he was able to hit big league pitching reasonably well when he was 21, posting an OPS+ of 95 in 2006. Since 1900, only 115 players have had OPS+ of 90 or better while they were 21. Some of these players, like Jimmie Foxx, Eddie Matthews, Ty Cobb or Rogers Hornsby had much higher OPS+ than Cabrera, in the range of 169-173, so are not good comparisons. However, even the players whose numbers at 21 looked a lot like Cabrera’s still generally put together relatively strong careers.

Including Cabrera, 24 players had OPS+ between 90-100 when they were 21 years old. Of these, five are now in the Hall of Fame; although two, Joe Tinker and Bill Mazeroski, are there primarily for their defense. Two more, Sammy Sosa and Ivan Rodriguez, are strong Hall of Fame candidates who will only be stopped by steroid-related issues. Seven more had careers which range from solid, Claudell Washington, to borderline Hall of Fame, Buddy Bell. Others in this category are Ed Kranepool, Larry Parrish, Harlond Clift, Elmer Valo and Ned Yost.

Good players, even those like Washington or Parrish, who are definitively not great players occasionally have half-seasons of production of the kind Cabrera just had; and players who hit decently at the big league level at age 21 are often good, or even great players. From 2007-2010 the major theme of Cabrera’s career was that of unfulfilled promise, although given how little attention he had received as a prospect, even that theme was not very pronounced. Nonetheless, during those years, the ability he had shown as a 21 year old was largely forgotten.

Cabrera’s 2006 season was often overlooked because it was by no means a great season. He only hit .280/.360/.391, but not too many 21 year olds have had better years. All baseball fans know how important age is, but the details of that are still occasionally not fully comprehended. For example, as Cabrera posted that 90 OPS+ as a 23 year old, he would have been one of 401 players, up from 115 21 year olds, to accomplish that feat. Cabrera remains one of the big surprises of 2012, but his excellent first half, capped off by his All Star Game MVP, are more easily understood when we remember how relatively rare a talent he was at age 21.

Follow Lincoln on Twitter.

The post Maybe Melky Is Actually A Good Ballplayer appeared first on The Faster Times.

The Mets win-loss record only tells part of the story. A few weeks ago, Johan Santana, who has successfully come back from surgery which cost him all of the 2011 season, pitched the first no-hitter in the team’s history. Santana, however, has not been the Mets best or most captivating pitcher. That role has been taken by R.A. Dickey: a 37 year old knuckleballer who, in his 16th professional season, has emerged as one of the game’s best pitchers, posting a 12-3 record with a 2.15 ERA while striking out 113 during the first half of the season.

The Mets may be an exciting team, but they are not the best team in New York. The Yankees have quietly, to the extent the Yankees can do anything quietly, amassed a five game lead in what is till probably baseball’s toughest division. They also have the second best record in all of baseball. The Yankees’ excellent season is not receiving much notice not only because it is what most people expect from the Yankees, but also because the Mets have generated so much interest and because the Yankees are, to a great extent, a very good, but very boring team.

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.

The Yankees are winning due to solid but not great starting pitching, an excellent bullpen, about which the biggest story has been injuries, and a strong veteran offense. The Yankee offense is drawn largely from great performances by stars like Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano who do not have significant public profiles, as well as from good seasons by players like Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira whose skills are declining. These players can still hit, but Rodriguez in particular is no longer a claimant to being the best in the game and is now a third baseman and, increasingly, a DH, rather than the extraordinary combination of speed, power and Gold Glove defense that he was a decade or so ago. The Yankees hit home runs but, with Brett Gardner injured, are not a particularly fast team, nor do they play spectacular defense. Even their ace, CC Sabathia, is building a Hall of Fame career defined by being consistently good rather than by being occasionally dominant.

The Yankees have no fun young players, moving comebacks from veterans, colorful and quirky players or off-field dramas. The most interesting players on the team, at least from the perspective of fans and the media, are a trio of veterans who first started playing together in the mid-1990s. Andy Pettitte’s return from retirement had the makings of a great story until his season was cut short by a broken leg. Similarly, an injury to Mariano Rivera meant that the greatest closer ever would miss most of the season. Derek Jeter is still in the lineup, but his slipping productivity following his hot start and his slow ascent up the hit list have yet to capture the imaginations of Yankee fans.

For the Mets, 2012 has already been a great year. The emergence of R.A. Dickey, Santana’s no-hitter and David Wright’s return to being a top flight star will be remembered even if the team misses the playoffs. For the Yankees, who are much more likely to make the playoffs, how this season will be remembered is not yet clear. Winning the World Series will ensure that the 2012 Yankees will earn a place in Yankee history, but if the team gets eliminated in the early rounds of the playoffs, they will have been one of the best, but most boring teams in recent memory.

Follow Lincoln on Twitter.

The post Baseball’s Best Boring Team appeared first on The Faster Times.