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.
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This could possibly be related to some recent comments Lincecum made regarding a “flaw” he’d located in his delivery this year:
http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090415&content_id=4290128&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf
Just might be.
Could that random cluster of 4 pitches on the release point graph just be an intentional walk?
Those are release points, not locations, but that would make some sense.
Intentional walk or he Stretch Armstrong-ed four pitches I guess. Looking at his stats, he has issued one IBB this year, which matches his total for IBB’s from last year.
That .491 BABIP against he’s got sorta sucks. Maybe they should get some defense. Obviously, he’s giving up too many walks… but that’s pretty bad luck.
Yeah, I’m not concerned about his BABIP whatsoever. The outfield defense has been questionable, I hear.
From 4/12 box score of Padres/Giants:
IBB: L Rodriguez (By T Lincecum)
Should explain the outliers.
I’d think those four points would be the IBB, since you assume he is releasing the ball up and away from his body since there’s no need to get velocity or keep the ball down in the zone.
I freaking love pitch-fx data.
Where do you get this year’s pitch f/x data? I’ve searched around, and I can’t seem to find it. Sorry if this is a stupid question.
Hey Josh, here’s the link to Gameday’s 2009 map:
http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/year_2009/
From there just go to April, the day, the game, etc.
I’ve come across those 4 pitch clusters in previous analysis. They’re usually an IBB. Check the game log.
excellent post
Tim Lincecum agrees with you, RJ.
http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090415&content_id=4290128&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf
I was watching one of his games the other day with my family and they wanted to know why he was doing so badly – I told them his delivery looked a bit different. They didn’t believe that I’d be able to notice something like that.
So here’s a big thank you to RJ for the Graphs Of Proof.
This is very good stuff, R.J. And also to those who picked up on the different release point for the intentional walk.
I am actually a bit more concerned about the lower release point than you. On the telecast, anaylst Mike Krukow mentioned that Tim might be sitting down on his pushoff leg more, causing him to miss high with his pitches.
I do know that the first spring training start in which Tim struggled with his command came against the Japanese National team. Tim’s landing was bothered by the hole created by the Japanese pitcher, so he attempted to sit down on his back leg more, but felt he was unable to do so consistently.
I would think that sitting down on the back leg would be a positive, since it should give Tim even more push toward the plate, further relieving stress on his arm. But it might also be contributing to the inconsistency of his pitch location.
Looking at the movement on Tim’s pitches between 2008 and 2009, I would describe the greater movement (more sideways movement on the fastball and more downward bite on the curve) as positives. However, they could be contributing to his lack of control and could possibly be the result of decreased velocity.
I think you hit the nail on the head, R.J. Let’s look at several future starts before we get too wound up in all this.
As for the high BABIP, Tim suffered from the same syndrome early last season — although not to quite the same extent. Tim’s 10 hits yielded on Sunday were a career high, but three of the 10 came from misplays from outfielders. And the homer he yielded found the :”Jury Box” that juts out onto the field from the right field stands.
I see both negative signs and reasonable excuses with regard to Tim’s performance thus far. That his strikeout rate per inning is slightly higher than last season is a plus — although his strikeout rates per batter and per one hundred pitches are clearly down.
My guess is that Tim will work through his problems rather quickly. We probably shouldn’t forget that he has cut his walk rate nearly in half from 2005 in college to 2008 in the majors. Nor should we forget that he added a change up in 2007 and a slider in 2008. By the end of the 2007 season, the change up was Tim’s most effective pitch and continues to be so.
Tim credits his higher strikeout rate in the second half of last season to his regaining command of his curve, which has been called “snap nasty” by former Giant F.P. Santangelo. His curve was clearly better in his last start than in his season-opening outing.
Incidentally, the Giants are developing a very strong left-handed complement to Tim as their #2 starter in Madison Bumgarner. I first saw Mad Bum pitch live last Friday. He yielded two hits and no walks in six innings — and matched his hits allowed with two double plays in addition to striking out five batters (including four in his first two innings).
At just 19 and pitching in High A ball, Mad Bum doesn’t have nearly the secondary pitches as Tim and his fastball was mostly in the 91-93 range, but he just throws strike after strike. Exceptional control for a southpaw.
Tonight Mad Bum makes his second start of the season for the San Jose Giants, and for the first time a dozen or so SJ Giants games are being televised to the Bay Area on Comcast cable. The season opener featured the other top Giants pitching prospect, Tim Alderson, and the second telecast is tonight.
The San Jose Giants are likely one of the top High A minor league teams in recent memoryj, featuring all five of the Giants’ top five prospects as chosen by Baseball America and seven of their top nine. San Jose is 5-2 thus far in the season.
Catcher Buster Posey is hitting over .400 with three homers. Slugging first baseman Angel Villalona is also over .400 with one homer. And Bay Area bred shortstop Brandon Crawford is hitting over .500 with two blasts.
Bay Area fans need to get out to watch Bumgarner, Alderson and Posey fairly quickly, since the warmer weather will likely see them in AA Connecticut. Amazingly, only 1605 fans watched Bumgarner’s San Jose debut last Friday night.
Of coiurse, they could just wait a year or so and watch the trio in San Francisco.
Although I don’t think Fan Graphs has included Tim Lincecum’s first start of the season in their data, I went back to take a look at it.
First, while Tim’s velocity was higher than in his second start, it was indeed down a bit in his first start, as well. 95 mph was his peak, and usually his peak is 96 or 97.
Second, Tim missed with his first SEVEN curve balls, but threw strikes on two of his last three, including the final out off his three-inning stint. Tim used breaking balls more often and more effectively in his second start.
I suspect we’ll see a bit more speed from Tim in future starts, and even more importantly, far better control. 39.1% first-pitch strikes is horrendous. I think batters will be trying to put the ball into play early in the count against Tim this season. But he’s got to throw strikes to make that happen.
Despite Tim’s having thrown only 8 1/3 innings in his first two starts, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him lead the NL in innings pitched. Hopefully he will do so even while throwing fewer pitches than last season. That will depend mostly on his control.
I was able to find lots of info, but which one is release point?
And was Tim’s release point higher today? He looked at film (as he has done most of his life) and realized he was out of timing with regard to his push forward and his body torque, resulting in different plant locations.
Today, he obviously had it all back, as his control was perhaps the best it has been in any game. His velocity was still down (perhaps in part because he was quite sick on Thursday and was actually examined for any serious problems), but his location was clearly much better. Even when he missed, he often missed by just a little (although he threw several curves and change ups in the dirt).
The result was only one hard-hit ball, a single to deep left center, 13 strikeouts (five curves, three fastballs, three change ups and two sliders), and no walks. Tim was extremely efficient, throwing only 98 pitches in his eight innings.
Does the PITCH/fx data indicate Tim’s release point is back closer to 2008?
By the way, Upton got a hit against Tim by grounding a ball past third base — on a pitch that hit the dirt before Upton hit it. IIRC Tim gave up one such hit last season.
I’ve got to think this circumstance is quite rare.
the whole “sitting down on the back leg” thing is something that Lincecum and his dad see as essential to his delivery, isn’t it? i thought that (along with him having the flexibility of a gymnast) is what helps him get that extra-long stride.
You are correct sir.My personal feeling is that Tim’s core is more vulnerable to injury than his arm, since the object of Tim’s motion is for his upper body torgue and his lower body push to catapult his arm forward. With that in mind, Tim has worked since he was young to increase the strength and flexibility of his core.Both Tim and his dad agree that Tim’s issue was the rhythm between his leg push and his upper body torque. It is possible that issue developed when Tim pitched against the Japanese National team and tried to adjust to landing in a hole created by the Japanese pitcher.When one read about the problems Tim has experienced this spring — which include being quite sick on three different occasions, the last of which was two days before his start on Saturday, having a split fingernail that greatly reduced his throwing between starts, and a blister — it isn’t surprising he got off to the slow start.Saturday he appeared to be back on track, quite possibly having the best control (75 strikes in 99 pitches) of his career. Tim did benefit (particularly with his illness) from an extra day’s rest before his last start, and he will actually get two extra days’ rest before his next start, which will again come on Saturday.Tim is very thin, of course, and fans who have seen him on the field believe he has lost some weight, but if you saw the picture of him with his shirt off, he’s really ripped. And look at his forearms. They start thin at his wrist, but they are surrounded by ever-widening ropes of muscle. He’s one of those skinny guys you wouldn’t suspect could crush your hand with his vice-like handshake.Although I haven’t seen this confirmed, it seems from a PITCH/fx analysis I saw (here?) that Tim is throwing more four seamers this year. Almost all his fastballs in previous years have been two seamers. Visually, the way his fastball has ridden in to right-handed batters doesn’t make it appear that he is throwing many four seamers, though.
I was hoping he would add the four seamer, since I saw one in his final start of 2008 that just exploded off the plate away from a righty hitter, almost causing catcher Bengie Molina to miss it. Perhaps it was actually a slider, but the lack of downard movement and the apparent speed made it appear to be a fastball.
With Tim, it is really about control. When he has it, he’s DARN hard to hit. And he’s no picnic even when he doesn’t have it. Would YOU want to dig in when his fastball is exploding up and in? :)
You know, I think Tim is just going to get better.
Me too. K/BB ratio of 25/1 his last two games is above average.