Tim Lincecum
Many people in the Giants community are “freaking out, man” about Tim Lincecum’s last few starts. In his last three games started, Lincecum hasn’t had much success. Going a combined 14.2 IP with 18 H, 16 ER, 10 BB, 15 K over that span. That’s good for a 9.82 ERA. In yesterdays loss to the Blue Jays, Tim’s final line was a little more ugly than it probably should have been. After loading the bases, Messenger was called in to try and stop the bleeding. Aaron Hill hit a hard groundball right at Ray Durham that took a tough hop, skipped off his glove, and shot into the outfield for an additional 2 ER on Lincecum’s final line.
Lincecum is a fantastic talent but it was obvious that he didn’t have his best stuff yesterday and was frustrated by the results. He couldn’t locate his fastball, it often was up in the zone, and his curve was almost nonexistent. Lincecum himself agreed that he was getting frustrated with the game, and worse he was letting it show.
“I was frustrated and kind of showing it, and that’s not what I should be doing out there at all,” Lincecum said. “Your team doesn’t want to see you doing that, and the other team seems to feed off that.”
Lincecum has had so much success already in his career he’s not accustomed to getting knocked around like he was against the Jays. I believe that how he responds to the new challenges of major league life is going to be crucial in his development. Plus, we as fans sometimes attach unrealistic expectations to a young player like Lincecum. Giants fans, starved for some youthful prospects have boosted Lincecum to Olympian heights. We tend to forget that this is a guy with less than 75 total innings pitched in the minor leagues. Like any young pitcher, he’s going to have days where his command goes and he’s going to have days where he struggles. It’s all part of the development process.
The options for Lincecum seem to be divided between either 1) Sending him back to Fresno 2) Skipping him a turn in the rotation or 3) Keep him in the rotation. I think that solutions 2 and 3 are the best ones. Lincecum needs to be exposed to major league hitting to improve, I don’t think he has anything left to prove in AAA. As Lefty has noted, skipping him a turn in the rotation to work on mechanics, or to get his head straight isn’t exactly a bad thing. The Giants did it last year with Matt Cain and he responded well, coming back to throw a 1 hitter against the A’s. Skipping a turn would also lessen the amount of total innings pitched too, which wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Looking at the stats from Lincecum’s rough stretch, he’s still striking out guys at a great rate, so that helps ease some of the fears. His control has wavered some and he has given up some unlucky infield hits. Skip him a turn or keep him in the rotation to work through his struggles but don’t send him down to Fresno. The Giants have the advantage of taking it easy with Lincecum because they aren’t contending this year. I expect Jonathan Sanchez could spot start if they decide to skip Lincecum. It’s a shame that Russ Ortiz went to the DL because he provided some nice insurance in case something like this happened.
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14/06/2007 at 4:22 pm Permalink
I would also add that Lincecum has been battling control problems since he started college, so this is nothing new for him. He worked hard to reduce his BB/9, adding an additional pitch, to prove himself after the team that drafted him wouldn’t give him the bonus he wanted, and won himself the Golden Spike the following season. So this is just a bump in the road, and he will work hard to overcome his latest obstacle.
Plus he has battled through a number of difficult things during his short life already - questions on delivery, his size, his weight, his looks, his fitness routine - so I have no doubt that he has the make up to learn from this bad stretch and grow from it, and become just as devastating as before.
However, as a word of caution, I read that someone at Baseball Prospectus found that he is tipping off when he is throwing a curve, so perhaps other teams read that (particularly Toronto, which has saber-oriented GM, probably a reader of BP) and researched his videos to figure out what the tip off is.
14/06/2007 at 4:52 pm Permalink
Martin,
You’re very correct to note that Tim has had to struggle with command in his brief career. I’m not too worried about his control as I think it’s still very early and he should settle in after he makes the proper adjustments or gets more comfy.
I had heard murmurs of him tipping his pitches but I never heard it substantiated, in fact I remember a chat log on BP that I read and the question was brought up. I think it was a chat with Kevin Goldstein and he said that Lincecum was not tipping his pitches?
16/06/2007 at 12:59 am Permalink
From what I recall, it was Will Carroll who was named in the comment that I read, so I’m getting this second-hand. If you recall BP saying he’s not tipping off pitches, then I would rely on that more, I have no idea where the other poster got his/her info from.