Another Look at Tim Lincecum

by
May 13, 2009

A while ago I wrote a piece on Tim Lincecum’s early season struggles. Since then, not only has he rebounded, but he’s looking like the best pitcher in the National League, sorry Johan Santana, Josh Johnson, and Dan Haren.

Lincecum’s FIP sits at 1.82, almost a full run lower than last year, his strikeout rate is up to 11.77 per nine, and his walk totals are down to 2.64. Oh, and he’s giving up even fewer homeruns The most amazing aspect of Lincecum’s turn around is his BABIP against. It was high before and it’s still high now. His career BABIP against is .312, this year his BABIP against is .368, that’s a lot of regression to go.

As for his pitches, Lincecum’s fastball is still down in velocity, 92.3 MPH instead of 94 MPH. His slider is being used more – or at least pitches registering as sliders – his curve usage is up and his change-up usage is basically static. Per our PitchFx data, Lincecum’s fastball is moving about a half-inch more in to righties, same with his change-up, and his curve is moving more vertically and less horizontally.

In that piece I also showed how Lincecum’s release point had changed, and speculated such as the cause for the lack of control, well, take a look at the release points that first start versus his last home start:


A little more clustered, don’t you think? If Lincecum keeps pitching like this, he’s going to make me eat my words when I wrote he may never top his 2008 season.





 

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John Galt
14 years ago

Part of the reason for Lincecum’s high BABIP is the defensively clueless Fred Lewis, whose inability to read routine fly balls and run decent routes to them has also added at least 5 earned runs to Lincecum’s ERA.

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Max
14 years ago
Reply to  John Galt

And part of it is the 24.8% line drives, right?

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SharksRog
14 years ago
Reply to  Max

Good point about Tim’s high line drive rate. His line drive rate was up last year, as well, after being quite low in his rookie season.

Here is my take:

Tim is throwing fewer fastballs this season, and his secondary pitches are comparatively very unhittable. The increased usage of his off-speed pitches has increased his strikeouts, but meant a higher percentage of his pitches put into play have been fastballs.

Tim’s fastball can be squared up if he leaves it in the hitting zone. But his secondary pitches are really tough to hit even if he leaves them over the plate. And when he misses with the secondary pitches, it is usually below the strike zone and/or off the plate.

Tim’s last start was intriguing. He wasn’t at his sharpest (although he walked only one, the first hitter of the game), but he has increasingly pitched backwards. Thus, he stole some early strikes with his secondary deliveries, then got a lot of called third strikes with fastballs when hitters were clearly expecting something else.

Tim has been at his very sharpest this season in only his third start of the year. In that one he pitched eight shutout innings and matched his career high 13 strikeouts.

One positive about Tim since the tipping point of his career on June 25, 2007: He has not only been very good, he has been quite consistent.

Three springs ago when I was extolling the virtues of Tim, predicting he would become the best pitcher in SF Giants history, the subject of no-hitters came up. I mentioned that I felt Matt Cain had a better chance of throwing one than Tim.

The reason is that batters always seem to get an infield hit or two and/or a broken-bat liner over the infielders’ heads, while when Matt is really on, he can somehow hold batters nearly hitless.

Matt has greatly improved his consistency beginning with his last start of July, 2007, but he still has yet to match Tim’s consistency and likely never will.

Matt’s present 3.00 ERA is easily his lowest since his brief rookie season. But his peripherals are mostly headed in the wrong direction. Don’t expect Matt’s excellent results to continue.

On the other hand, Matt’s 3-1 record is showing that he truly can win when given run support. The Giants’ starting pitcher lacking run support this season is Barry Zito — or at least the Barry Zito imposter who actually has pitched quite well over his last four starts.

Show me a pitcher who seems to be winning less often than he should be, and I will show you a pitcher with a lack of run support. Show me a pitcher who wins more often than expected, and I’ll show you a pitcher with very good run support.

Last year Lincecum clearly outptitched Cain, fashioning an ERA over a full run lower than Matt’s. But an even bigger reason for the huge difference between Tim’s sparkling 18-5 record and Matt’s almost unbelievable 8-14 mark was that he received over 1.5 runs per nine innings less run support than Tim.

Matt Cain is unlikely to ever become the pitcher Tim Lincecum is, but he is a good enough pitcher that all it will take for him to become a decent winner is decent run support.

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SharksRog
14 years ago
Reply to  John Galt

I don’t recall Fred’s costing Tim at least five earnies, but he did cost Tim two in the same game (Tim’s second start). Eugenio Velez cost Tim another, bringing Eugenio’s streak to four earnies in his last three starts behind Tim.

One could argue that Eugenio cost Tim the ERA title last season, breaking in on a line drive right at him, only to see hit soar over his head for a two-out, two-run double. That came in the last month of the 2008 season.

Then in Tim’s last start of 2008, he dropped a throw to second base on a steal attempt that would have had the runner, permitting the only earned run Tim allowed that day.

Fortunately Eugenio has started behind Tim only the one time this season. He has played three diffferent positions in his last three starts behind Lincecum — left field, second base and center field — and has cost Tim at least one run in each game.

When I heard Bruce Bochy say on his pregame show last season that he was going to start Velez in left field behind Tim in order to get Velez’s bat into the game, it bothered me — but I also saw the logic in it because Tim had really needed very few excellent plays behind him all season long. Despite his higher BABIP, he has actually had more good fielding plays behind him this season.

Then again, Tim’s BABIP started out quite high last season, as well, but dipped back toward normal as the season progressed.

Every pitcher gets hurt by his defense sometimes. Over Tim’s last 10 or 12 starts, he has been victimized at a rather high rate.

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Rowen
14 years ago
Reply to  SharksRog

I have Lincecum on my Strat-o-Matic team, and my thinking about the offense/defense balance of my lineup when Lincecum is starting is somewhat similar to your description of Bochy’s thought process re Velez.

I feel that with Lincecum on the mound, I can tolerate putting a bad defender in the lineup for his bat. I want to make sure that I score enough runs to win the games Lincecum starts, and if a poor defender allows an extra baserunner, Lincecum will be able to pitch his way out of that situation more often than my other starters would.

I’m not convinced that this line of thinking is “correct”, mind you.

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tom
14 years ago
Reply to  SharksRog

Yea, but Velez sucks….like a lot…..at everything

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Sean
14 years ago
Reply to  SharksRog

You would think that if the Giants can’t hit anyway they would at least give starting jobs to people who can field to reduce the damage defensively.

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