More on Tim Lincecum

Yesterday a commenter asked about Tim Lincecum’s delivery since it appeared different. Well, after random sampling two of Lincecum’s starts last year and comparing them to this year’s starts, it’s safe to say his release point has indeed changed. Take a look for yourself:

Not by as much as I originally thought, but there still appears to be a conscious (or perhaps unconscious?) effort to lower his release point. There are also that set of dots way out there from the pack in which I have no idea what was going on with Lincecum, but it likely was nothing good.

Since I already had the Pitchfx hat on, I figured a glance at how Lincecum’s pitches were moving was worth the effort. They seem to be riding in to righties more and as mentioned yesterday the velocity is down a few ticks. Not sure if this should be cause for concern or not, perhaps it’s entirely intentional for Lincecum to have more break on his pitches and less velocity. Or maybe it’s just an anomaly that will soon be forgotten.

That added movement could explain his control issues though. If Lincecum’s grown accused tom topping out three to five inches of movement inward to right-handed hitters, and suddenly the ball is dancing five-to-seven inches it’s easy to understand why he’s missing the zone a bit more often.

Let’s see how Lincecum fares in his next few starts.