On Saturday, September 13th, the Giants, who stood 14 games under .500, allowed Tim Lincecum to throw a season high 138 pitches in a complete game victory. Not only was it a season high for Lincecum, in terms of pitches thrown, but also a season high for any major league pitcher. Bruce Bochy and the Giants looking to help boost Lincecum’s chances for a CY Young Award, let the young right-hander throw deep enough into the game to earn his first career complete game. By the 8th inning the Giants were up 3-0 and Lincecum was already at 106 pitches. By the 9th inning the Giants were up 7-0 and Lincecum was at 118 pitches.
Bochy was quoted as saying:
“That’s big for a pitcher to get that first shutout,” Bochy said.
Bochy also acknowledged that Lincecum’s Cy Young Award candidacy entered his mind. Lacking a complete game, Bochy reasoned, might hamper Lincecum’s chances against Arizona’s Brandon Webb, the other top contender for the distinction.
“I didn’t want that in the record when they talk about Cy Young votes,” Bochy said.
And this is my biggest problem with Lincecum’s game. The Giants are valuing short term rewards — a possible CY Young Award — over the long term benefits of Lincecum’s health. When you make decisions based on an award, you’re doing it wrong.
Now, it’s true that Lincecum may be a different beast and that the waters are murky when it comes to pitching loads like this, but the Giants — Bruce Bochy, Brian Sabean, Dave Righetti, etc. — were doomed the minute they valued short term benefits over the long term positives that Lincecum can bring. Lincecum could very well turn out to be fine after this start, or it could be the beginning of injury problems, or he could have always been heading towards injury problems. If you extend the time line long enough, everyone gets hurt, I get it. But, those scenarios aren’t necessarily the most troubling part of this equation to me. My problem is the mindset that’s buried in that Bruce Bochy quote. It’s the mindset of being unable to look towards the future.
It’s a mindset that’s plagued the Giants for the last few years.
So, while I wasn’t a fan of the actions of Bruce Bochy on Saturday, I’m still a fan of baseball. And it was exciting to see Lincecum dominate for 9 innings and throw his first complete game. I’m not arguing against that. I don’t think anyone is. But, after the game was finished I immediately wanted to examine it through the scope of PITCHf/x for a couple of reasons:
1. To examine the composition of his first career complete game. Looking at: the pitches, velocity, location, break, outcomes, and all the other good stuff that PITCHf/x data can tell us.
And, maybe more importantly
2. To see if I could detect any changes in Tim Lincecum’s delivery as the game progressed. “Changes” is a nebulous word, but I wanted to look at his arm angle to see if he was lowering it as the game moved into the later stages. Pitchers will often lower their arm angles when fatigued and I did notice, with only my eyes, that Lincecum seemed to drop down a few times during the game.
Also, be warned that this post includes a ton of plots. Let’s check out the first plot.
| Pitch | # | Velocity | X-Break | Z-Break |
| Fastball | 90 | 94.3 | -4.01 | 11.81 |
| Changeup | 29 | 84.45 | -4.58 | 4.2 |
| Curveball | 10 | 79.03 | 5.03 | -4.19 |
| Slider | 4 | 83.72 | 0.19 | 0.84 |
Lincecum came out firing heat and quickly started to mix in his offspeed pitches. Lincecum’s average FB velocity on the day was 94.3mph. He topped out at 96.6mph. Much like the last velocity plot we looked at with Tim, he really mixes his pitches well. His fastball is in the 95mph range and then he’ll drop his changeup — a change that he sells incredibly well — in the 85mph range, giving that pitch a good 10mph separation in velocity. Anything below 80mph should be Lincecum’s curve.
I’ll note here that if you look at the table, you will notice that the pitch total only adds up to 133 pitches. That’s because PITCHf/x had missing data on 5 pitches and as a result, the following percentages are taken out of 133 instead of 138. Lincecum threw his fastball 68% of the time, his changeup 21% of the time, his curveball 8% of the time, and his slider just 3% of the time.
Now, let’s examine his break plot, both horizontally and vertically:
Tim Lincecum throws four pitches: a 2-seam fastball, a sharp curveball, a changeup, and a slider.
Lincecum runs his fastball in on RHB’s, and that might be because he throws a 2-seamer which has more horizontal movement in on a RHB than your standard 4-seamer. On average his fastball broke in 4 inches on RHB’s. His changeup broke in even slightly more at an average of 4.58 inches in on RHB’s. Because Tim is a right-hander, his curve breaks down and away from RHB’s. His slider should move away from RHB’s, too. Our plot indicates that it did move slightly away, but mostly stayed centered.
The changeup and the fastball both work themselves in on right-handed batters, meaning that it breaks away from LHB’s. RHB’s will get the curve and slider and LHB’s will get the changeup. Both will get the fastball. Lincecum threw 24 of his 29 changeups to LHB’s. He threw 6 of his 10 curves to RHB’s. His slider was thrown 1 time to a LHB and 3 times to a RHB.
Lincecum gets the most vertical break on his curveball, it breaks 4.19 inches on average. You’ll notice that the curve is a much tighter break than a Barry Zito curve. This is because Lincecum throws his curveball at just under 80mph, or the average velocity on a Zito fastball in 2010. The greater the speed produces the tighter break, where as Zito’s curve is in the low 70’s or uppder 60’s. The slider is getting the next best vertical break and the changeup and fastball are separated even more vertically.
Now that we’ve seen the movement on Lincecum’s pitches, let’s check out a couple of location plots. The first being where Lincecum threw his pitches by type and the second being results of what happened after Lincecum threw his pitches.
You’ll notice that Lincecum peppers the strike zone with his fastball. High, low, down the middle, inside, and outside, it didn’t matter, he threw his fastball to all portions of the zone. Why can Lincecum do this when Barry Zito can’t? It’s simple; velocity. Remember, Lincecum threw his fastball on average at 94mph. His velocity combined with some deception he might be creating in his delivery, and the running movement of the pitch, allow him to throw it repeatedly and without hesitation. The FB is a plus-pitch for Tim.
While Lincecum threw his fastball all over the zone, he was more selective with the location of his offspeed pitches. You will notice that the majority of his offspeed pitches are either down or out of the zone. The large group of changeups in the lower left hand corner of the zone were thrown to lefties because the pitch moves down and away from them. A good portion of his changeups are down and out of the zone. Those are great pitches because they are harder to elevate. The curve was mostly placed in the lower half section of the zone.
Now let’s check the outcomes by location:
Swinging strikes were distributed pretty evenly throughout the strike zone. Lincecum had 19 swinging strikes total. 7 on the change, 7 on the fastball, 3 on the curveball, and 2 on the slider. If you examine the location plot by pitch-type above, you can see where each of the pitches were swung at and missed. Padres’ hitters fouled off 29 of Linecum’s pitches and you can see them spread throughout the strike zone. Of the 29 fouled pitches, 24 of them were fastballs, 4 were changeups, and 1 was a curveball. In total, 32% of fastballs thrown by Lincecum were fouled off. Another 16% went for called strikes and 8% went were swung at and missed. If you totaled it all up, 56% of Lincecum’s fastballs created a strike. A good strategy for Lincecum would be to pound away with the fastball and then drop in his offspeed pitches.
Lincecum’s release point:
Lincecum’s release point is an oblong grouping. You’ll notice that it’s different than Matt Cain’s more circular grouping that we plotted a couple of days ago. I mentioned earlier that I thought Lincecum might have been dropping his arm slot during the game and the release point plot shows us that he dropped down a couple of times to throw his curveball and fastball. Most of his curves came out of the similar release point that his fastball, changeup, and slider came from but he did alter his arm slot a couple of times. Lincecum’s overall release point is pretty consistent, he’s not changing his release point drastically for any of his pitches which mean that batters will have a harder time picking up on what’s coming. Certain pitchers will drastically drop their arm when throwing a breaking ball and hitters will be able to pick up on that.
To see if Lincecum was altering his release point in the later stages of the game, I plotted each pitch-type’s release point by game stage. I decided that splitting the game up into 3 sections would be the easiest way to look at segments of his release point. I used innings 1-3, 4-6, and 7-9 as a way of splitting things up. Let’s examine the plots. I didn’t include the slider in these plots because Lincecum only threw 4 of them.
Lincecum’s release point with his fastball was the most consistent in innings 1-3. It expanded some in innings 4-6, the red grouping, and remained similar in innings 7-9. Lincecum did slightly lower his arm slot between innings 4-9 when compared to his initial innings 1-3. I’ll note here that I have no idea if this is a common occurrence for Lincecum — the lowering of his release point for his fastball as the game progresses — or not because I haven’t looked at many of his individual games, but he did alter his release point some. I think the good news is that it didn’t drastically change from innings 4-6 in innings 7-9. I would assume that if fatigued, his release point would have widened and lowered even more by innings 7-9. Not much to worry about here.
This release point plot has a smaller sample size than the fastball, Lincecum threw just 10 curves in the entire game. I’m not sure you can draw much from this plot but I wanted to include it anyways. Lincecum’s release point for his curve changed a couple of times, most drastic are the two pitches around -2ft on the horizontal axis and 5.5ft on the vertical axis.
The changeup release point looks pretty consistent, too. Nothing sticks out, to me, as a huge difference in the release point of his changeup. Most changeups fell between -0.5ft to -1.5ft on the horizontal axis and between 5 and 6ft on the vertical axis.
Thoughts
Lincecum is an amazing, fantastic pitcher. And I’ve stressed repeatedly on this blog of how much of a tremendous value that Giants are getting from him this year. The quality of his pitches, especially his fastball and changeup, are off the charts. He’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball this year and he should win the CYA, hands down.
But, I think the Giants have bordered on careless with his usage at times this year. This isn’t about pitch counts, they are a proxy at best, but this is about the entire year and the way this team has handled Lincecum. I heard a great quote from another Giants blog — sorry I can’t remember which one and who said it — but it boiled down to: “The worst thing that can happen after pulling Lincecum is 1-2 innings of Tyler Walker”. At this point, it’s not about building his stamina, or workload, he’s met all of those goals this year but in his past 4 starts, the Giants have pushed him like a playoff team in contention.
The line between building stamina and growing as a pitcher is a fine line. We don’t know where it is, but that doesn’t mean we should totally ignore it and run headlong the other way. Put it this way: I might pass out after drinking 10 or 15 beers, who knows when I will actually pass out, but that doesn’t mean I should go drink 30 beers to find my limits.
The good news: Lincecum did maintain his velocity as the game went on. Looking at the velo plot at the top of the page shows that he was still getting it up to 95mph in the last stages of the game. I was also concerned about his release point but the release point plots show that he remained pretty consistent throughout the game. There were some slight changes in his fastball and curve release point. From a “stuff” viewpoint, Lincecum seemed to maintain his pitch quality throughout the game.
At the end of the day, the question still remains: How did this game effect Lincecum, if at all? And the answer is: We won’t know yet, if ever. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to err on the side of caution, even if you don’t exactly know where that side begins. One thing I can say is that the Giants do not need to make their decisions based on petty short term rewards like a CY Young Award, which is what I fear they are doing right now. It clouds judgment and reasoning abilities and I’m afraid that it will lead to problems down the road.
Disclaimer: Do not consider this a post as an open invitation to discuss the merits of pitch counts or to haul along some classic misguided viewpoint of “you must finish what you start”. Again, I’m not interested in hearing them right now. This is an issue that’s been beaten to death since Bruce Jenkins’ terrible article. Do not drag them into this post. Thank You.
Porcelain.
Tim isn’t made of it.
Great post.
Great post, starting with those idiotic Bochy quotes that I had missed.
“I didn’t want that [lack of CG] in the record when they talk about Cy Young votes.”
No, now they can talk about how he threw a CG but it took 138 pitches against the league’s worst team fielding a half-Triple A lineup even though he had a 7-0 lead because his manager has given up on managing and is focused instead on marketing.
Have any of you ever thought that Tim Lincecum wants this and Bochy is helping him reach his goal/dream? If you read all the Bochy quotes, he was very worried about how it was going with Lincecum, how it might affect him, but, as the parent, at some point you need to let go and let them go do things. And it’s not like circumnavigating the world with a map that shows dragons at the end of the world, he did have a great gauge to guide him: Tim Lincecum.
Lincecum knows what’s at stake, he has a long term view of his career and all that goes with it. He would not jeopardize his future by pitching while overly stressed or strained, he has a multi-million dollar pot of gold waiting for him at the end of the arbitration rainbow, and he knows it and he wants it, else he would have taken the safer route (good thing Lowry did) and signed a long term contract covering his pre-free agency years like Lowry and Cain.
Nor has he acted overly stressed or strained, he still doesn’t ice his arm, he still does his long-throwing THE DAY AFTER from POLE TO POLE (not to be yelling, but I don’t know how to underline). He wouldn’t be able to do that the next day if his arm was hurt or tired in any way. He has been very conscious about how his body reacts to the process of pitching and knows his body more than any of us can ever hope to know because of his father’s training.
So all this complaining is ultimately aimed at Tim Lincecum. You are saying that he’s being petty. You are saying that he’s risking his career. You are saying that he’s being stupid doing this when the Giants have nothing play for.
However, they do have something to play for. Some pride and celebrating what they can in a losing season. Tim Lincecum is one of those things, and he’s close to the Cy Young brass ring. As much as we hope he can do this year in, year out for the next 15-20 seasons for us, we don’t know what the future brings, but we do know that he’s close to the Cy Young. And every last accomplishment he can do and show to the voters is another thing that brings him closer to his goal. That’s very existential, but that’s the truth.
As much as we fans think it’s all about us, the players are human too and they have goals and dreams that are separate from our goals, other than winning it all. Some want more money (OK all). Some want to hit .300. Some want to hit 20/30/40 HR. Some want 100 RBI. Some want 30 SB. Apparently, Tim Lincecum wants to win the Cy Young.
Some players will do things to their body, damn the consequences, in order to achieve their goals. Tyler Walker has admitted to just laying it all out there each game and then see what happens; in his case, TJS. Jesse Foppert wanted to be a major leaguer so badly that he continued to pitch even though his body was not up to it; he also had TJS. Tim Lincecum has shown no such tendencies.
He has shown no sign of wear. His arm does not need icing after a game and he’s able to throw (and a lot at that) the next day. No other pitcher can do that. If he was really being stressed, wouldn’t that show up in his body somewhere? He is also able to go more pitches in-game because he does not need as many pitches as other pitchers to get warmed up. If I recall right, he probably saves 5-10 pitches with that. So a 130 pitch game is much like a 120 for someone else.
He knows his body and what he is capable of doing. Tim was confident enough to turn down a high 6-figure bonus from the Indians, even though he was being “abused” in college like many other collegiate hurlers, because he felt he was worth $1M, and the next draft he extracted an extra $200K from the Giants in bonus because, again, he was worth it and would not sign otherwise. Gillaspie, Kieschnick, and Crawford showed no such confidence in their abilities, despite each thinking they were round 1 worthy, when they could have went back next season and, ideally, show their real worth and get that bonus by getting drafted higher. He would not have held out for $1M if he thought his arm might fall off with the next 160 pitch start in college. So if he says his arm is not hurting him and that he can pitch more than other pitchers, then why can’t people believe him?
Athletes don’t always tell the truth about their health.
Unless you’re actually inside Lincecum’s head, you really don’t know any of this.
No, I’m really not saying any of that.
My point is that there is nothing but cost and little benefit for having him throw 138 pitches in September against the Padres.
Whether you or Tim Lincecum like it or not, he doesn’t run the team and the decisions aren’t always up to him. He’ll have to learn that and I’m sure he already has.
So, maybe we shouldn’t always listen to players now? How do you know that Lincecum’s arm wasn’t sore in the 9th inning but wanted to pitch anyways? How do you know that he felt fine? How do you know his tendencies until after he breaks down? You probably won’t.
I’m not sure the “no icing his arm” is carte blanche for the Giants to be able to push him out to 130+ pitches in September for a team that has no chance of contention.
Throwing in the bullpen =! throwing in a live game scenario. The stress levels have to be completely different when you’re throwing to Billy Hayes (little stress) than when you’re throwing to Molina with Adrian Gonzalez (potential for high stress) at the plate.
Please quote me where I said I don’t believe Lincecum is telling the truth about his arm.
I’ll wait right here.
[waits]
—
It’s the Giants job to evaluate the risks and benefits associated with letting Lincecum throw this much. Not Tim’s job, but the Giants. I think they’ve done a poor job with evaluating those risks. You disagree. For this teams sake, I hope you’re right.
Also, thanks Delorean! And welcome to my side of the ‘net, Gigantor.
But Chriiiiiiiiiis, I WANNA talk about manly complete games of yore with Bruce Jenkins and Robin Roberts!!!!
I’m usually alarmed by groupthink, and I’ve seen an amazing convergence of minds agreeing that the Giants are idiots after The Link’s shutout. But I can’t find my way out of the damn group! I like a good contrarian take on things, but I can’t find a way to agree with OGC. Lincecum may indeed be a freak, an unusual athlete who sets his own bar. Like Barry Bonds, for example. But that is a longshot. The Giants, if they are over-careful with The Franchise, risk being crticized down the road for being too cautious, even over-protective. If they aren’t, they risk his career and their 21st century meal ticket. Which risk would you pick?
I’d love to see Tim win the Cy. But that ain’t the point. Building a winner is the point. The team hasn’t learned that Lincecum will put butts in the seats whether or not he has “CYA-winner” in front of his name. Everyone knows this kid is the best. We don’t have to get a seal of approval from BBWAA.
More great recent examples of players not being 100% truthful about their health.
From Rotoworld:
It’s been bothering him for some time, but he had been keeping it a secret, even from the Brewers. He probably figured that he wouldn’t get his September callup otherwise.
It makes one wonder whether there was anything at all to the “groin tightness” that caused him to leave a start two weeks ago. Sheets said he underwent an MRI, though he didn’t say when it happened, and that it showed no structural damage. He’s optimistic that he will pitch again this season. “It’s been so up and down that I would think it’s very possible,” he said. “There’s been really good days and really bad days. There’s been days where it’s hard to move it and it’s stiff. Then the next day it’s great. So we’ll see.” Manny Parra would probably go back into the rotation if Sheets misses his next turn.
Do you think these guys “knew their bodies” or what?
WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION THEM!>!>??!
I DON’T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE
But I do know that asking players to be 100% truthful about their health is dumb and risky.
[...] that’s right! But, I think the Giants have bordered on careless with his usage at times this year. This isn’t [...]
Is it time to trade Timmy?
I can’t believe I just wrote that. But I think it’s time to ask the question; is it time to trade Timmy?
First of all, his trade value will never be higher. In fact, it’s hard to imagine us having any player with a higher trade value. He’s just come off the Cy Young, he’s pitching great this season, he’s on the MLB video game cover. And there are potential trading partners: i.e. teams with a) a need for starting pitching, and b) loaded minor league systems. AND, his replacements are, right now, tearing up AA ball.
Here’s why I hate the thought of it: I love the guy. He’s my favorite Giant. Heck, he’s everyone’s favorite Giant. He’s the ace of our staff. He’s an amazing pitcher.
He’s a skinny kid who generates great torque without hurting himself because his mechanics are perfect. And his mechanics are perfect because he’s got a gymnast’s body; that kind of balance and control. So how long do Olympic gymnasts last? And, as this post points out, Bochy’s overworked him. And he’s losing velocity off his fastball. So his trade potential is enormous–and it will never be higher.
So what am I talking about? Who do we trade him to and for?
One possibility might be Tampa Bay. They’re still in the AL East race. They need starting pitching. And they have what we would have to have for a Timmy trade to make sense–one superstar talent right now, plus at least two Grade A prospects, one who can play immediately and one who will be in the majors within two years. Tampa would have to start by giving us either Upton, Joyce or Longoria. They won’t trade Longoria, so Upton or Joyce. I’d rather have Joyce. Then, they’d have to add Tim Beckham and maybe Desmond Jennings. So do we make that trade: Timmy, for Joyce, Beckham and Jennings?
Another possibility would be Texas. Same thing: they’re in a race, they’re loaded with prospects, they have a superstar and they need pitching. Number one, Josh Hamilton. I assume that, just as the Rays wouldn’t give us David Price, the Rangers wouldn’t give up Neftali Perez. But what about a package of Justin Smoak, Angel Beltre and Josh Hamilton? (We’d obviously need a med report on Hamilton.) So do we make that deal? Would they?
I don’t know. And I do know any deal for Timmy would have to be that good or we don’t even consider it. But maybe, just maybe, it makes sense.
In order for the Giants to contend, we need young offensive talent. Matt Cain is a staff ace. Sanchez should continue to improve. Zito . . . is Zito, we’re stuck with him, and he is pitching well lately. Then there’s Alderson and Baumgardner, and Henry Sosa, and Pucetas, and Dan Otero . . . we’re kind of loaded for young pitching. So . . . maybe.