Fred Mitchell
Fred Mitchell was, perhaps, a manager ahead of his time. He was smart and disciplined, but only 39 (just three years older than his center fielder, Dode Paskert) when the season started. He was demanding of his players, but young enough to be able to relate to them.
Mitchell had made his reputation working as the pitching coach under George Stallings with the Braves. He was very analytical in the way he approached his pitchers, and it seemed to work—the Braves were sixth in the N.L. in pitching in 1913, moved to fourth in ’14, then were second in ’15 and ’16. Mitchell took the Cubs job in 1917, and though the team was only mediocre, their pitching did improve from sixth in the N.L. to third.
Fred Mitchell was only 39 in the first half of 1918. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.)
Mitchell could not know this back in 1918, but, in 2003, a book called Moneyball would revolutionize the way fans, media and executives saw baseball. Moneyball described the strict adherence of one team, the Oakland A’s, to well-defined statistical principals applied to all aspects of the game big and small. Baseball decisions—from scouting and drafting players to deciding when to steal and how to arrange the defense for a specific batter—had so often been left to the gut feelings and biases of old-timers. But the A’s analyzed all decisions mathematically.
This, too, was Mitchell’s approach as manager of the Cubs. His methods were more rudimentary, but still, he was the Moneyball manager of his era, dedicated to what the stats said, not what his gut said.
“[Mitchell] has employed a system of percentages in his attack and defense, and indications are he has installed the system well into the mind of each one of his players,” James Crusinberry wrote in the Tribune. “There are managers in baseball who play ‘hunches’ and there are others who yield to sentiment and some who play favorites and perhaps some who simply trust to luck or main force, but Fred Mitchell sticks to the system of percentages, no matter what happens. … Mitchell will always know whether the percentages favor success in doing a thing one way or whether they favor his doing it some other way.”
Mitchell stuck with his system in the 1918 World Series, deciding the percentages looked best if he used lefties Hippo Vaughn and Lefty Tyler exclusively in an attempt to keep the bat of Babe Ruth out of the Red Sox lineup. The Cubs lost the series, so it would be easy to conclude that Mitchell’s system failed. But in reality, the Cubs allowed just six earned runs in six games. Mitchell’s percentages were fine. His team just didn’t hit.
After the trip to the ’18 series, and the resignation of Charley Weeghman, Mitchell was named team president, as well as manager. But the 84-45 record in 1918 was the best he would do, and he was fired in 1920. He returned to Boston to manage the Braves in 1921, but the team was bad and he was fired after three years.
