Looking for a forum of his old friend, he had a nickname once qfilier

Has anyone can contact with him? Do not be granted on this board?

First, although Mike Krukow keeps saying Tim didn’t have the pitch until 2008, it was actually his best pitch by the end of 2007 according to the metrics here at Fan Graphs. Tim threw mostly his fastball and hammer curve in 2006, but said after his first start at Fresno that he had used mostly the fastball and change up.

Tim actually threw enough curves in that Fresno opener to strike out three batters with the curve, three with the new change up and two with his fastball.

Tim worked heavily on the change up between the 2006 and 2007 seasons, and added a slider between 2007 and 2008.

Tim’s change up is indeed somewhat of a split finger pitch, although it might more accurately be called an abbreviated forkball.

And as mentioned in the comments above, it is the drop that makes the pitch so devastating. It is very hard to pick up Tim’s let up, so its speed takes the sting out of the bat and the drop often causes the bat to miss the pitch altogther. With two stikes batters have a good idea the pitch is coming — and they usually STILL can’t hit it.

Three primary factors have contributed to Tim’s thus far having even more success in 2009 than in his Cy Young Award season of 2008. The change up just keeps getting better, Tim is using it more, and his control keeps improving.

Tim is having more success keeping his pitch count down now (about a pitch per inning lower than in 2008) not only because of the decreased walks, but also because batters are tending more and more to seek fastballs early in the count.

Tim’s a tough guy to hit even on the first pitch though. He has faced over 2000 batters now, and only 13 of them have managed an extra-base hit on any one of those 2000+ first pitches.

There haven’t been many pitchers who have gotten off to career starts as good as Lincecum has. I’m sure there are others, but the only ones I came across today in a rudimentary search were Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Tom Seaver, Vida Blue and Dwight Gooden. That’s rather elite company.

Dave, you posted the whiff rate of his curve — how about his split/change?

I’ve seen about every pitch Timmy has thrown this season and the change seems to result in a swing and a miss as often as all other outcomes combined. It almost surprises me when a batter puts the change in play (very few hit squarely too). I’m fairly certain that no one hit a homer off of it this year and am curious to see the number of liners/doubles etc. Anyone know how I can look this up?

On a side note: Tim’s struggles early in ’09 were due to: poor defense, lack of command and an 88-92 fastball. Still, he was quite successful because of the change — posting solid #s through april/may. But for the past month or 2, the fastball has been flying out of his hand and painting black at 92-96.. giving hitters even less of a chance against what might be the best pitch in the majors.

Its long standing tradition to teach over-hand curves and change-ups initially to younger pitchers for a couple of reasons. First, as mentioned above, those two pitches combine deceptiveness with off-speed qualities which in general are more desirable. Second, there is a perception that splits and sliders are not quite as effective and they are elbow shredders. Whether that 100% true is questionable but there is some anecdotal evidence backing that up. In Lincecums’ case, there has to be some rotation to the ball even with a grip that looks closer to a choked fork ball that plays off of the fastball which in his case has that late hop that makes it so effective.