Lincecum on Another Level
When San Francisco Giants starter Tim Lincecum broke into the majors back in May of 2007, he was a mop-topped, rail thin kid firing mid-90′s bullets toward home plate. While he still might fit the physical description of a high school freshman, his pitching approach has changed drastically over the years.
During the 2007 season, Lincecum averaged 94.2 MPH with his fastball, throwing the pitch about 67 percent of the time while mixing in 81 MPH curveballs (thrown 20 percent) and 84 MPH changeups (13 percent). Take a look at his pitch selection since that point:
Lincecum’s fastball velocity has dipped nearly three MPH since 2007, and he’s going to the heat far less often. Instead, he’s increasingly relying upon what can only be described as a toxic changeup.
According to our pitch type run values, Timmy’s change has been worth +3.27 runs per 100 pitches over the past three calendar years. It’s the sort of offering that can cause batters to have an existential crisis at the dish: Lincecum has thrown the pitch for a strike 75.9 percent this season (60.7% MLB average). It has a 34.3 percent whiff rate (12.6% MLB average). The pitch has been swung at 69.9 percent of the time (48.1% MLB average), to no avail.
While the Pitch F/X data differs somewhat from the Baseball Info Solutions data in the chart above, we can see that Lincecum is going to a two-seam fastball a little over 16 percent of the time in 2010. Previously, Lincecum tossed a four-seamer with little horizontal movement but a good deal of “rising” action, relative to a pitch thrown without spin. That may help explain Lincecum’s career-high 50 percent ground ball rate this year.
Lincecum, sitting 91 MPH with a four-seamer and two-seamer and going to his change over a quarter of the time, is even harder to hit than his previous, higher-octane self. His contact rate, between 74 and 76% from 2006-2008, is just 70 percent this season (80-81% MLB average). That’s tied with rotation mate Jonathan Sanchez for the lowest mark in the majors. Lincecum’s swinging strike, which ranged from 10.3-11.8% from ’06 to ’08, sits at an obscene 14.4. Opposing hitters just can’t lay off his stuff: Lincecum has a major league-best 35.8 outside swing percentage in 2010. That blows away his 24-27% marks the previous three years, as well as the 27% big league average.
In 42.1 innings so far, Lincecum laps the field with a 1.98 expected FIP (xFIP). The closest competitor is Roy Halladay, at a still-ridiculous-but-distant 2.78. Lincecum is punching out 11.91 batters per nine innings (best among starters) and has issued just 1.7 BB/9. Aside from his cap (the only thing nastier than his than his changeup), Lincecum has changed just about everything since he debuted. And right now, he’s pitching at a different level than the competition.
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He’s mastered the corner painting great pitchers with lesser fastballs are known for (think Maddux in his prime). Yesterday vs. the Marlins, he had four nasty looking Ks with fastballs that caught the bottom corners perfectly. And of course, his usually nasty changeup had batters falling down trying to hit it. Ubaldo will fall back to earth and Timmy will win a third straight Cy.
Ubaldo? Who said anything about Ubaldo? The article correctly notes that Lincecum’s only competition (distant as it may be at the moment, though it’s a long season) is Halladay. But that’s in the real world; from a fantasy perspective (and the brown decor here reminds me we’re on the Roto-, not the Fan-, part of the ‘graphs site) yes Ubaldo is currently his closest competitor on most of the metrics like Ks that get used in typical roto leagues (though when it comes to rate stats like WHIP, try to ignore that Fister guy for a little longer)
You must be as high as Lincecum right now.
A large chunk of Ubaldo’s walks came out of one game: His no hitter! 6 BB’s in that game, and he was able to correct himself in the 6th. As long as he can continue to adjust like he’s shown us so far this season he’ll be hard to top.
No one is as high as Lincecum. (He’s won two CYs in a row and is making millions.)
Tim still struggles a bit with his control, as I guess is the case with almost every pitcher from time to time. But for a guy who was walking over six per nine innings in college just five years ago, he now has his walk rate below two.
My point is that while he did indeed do some fine corner painting Tuesday night, he also has had a season-long issue with missing the strike zone high and inside to right-handed hitters. He has thrown fewer than half his pitches in the strike zone and has thrown just over half his first pitches for strikes.
I have felt since he first came to the majors that most of his improvement would come from better control. In reality much of it has come from his developing his change up into the best pitch in the game.
I have been impressed in recent starts that he has occasionally shaken off the fastball into the change up despite having three balls on the hitter. The good part of that is that he is increasing his confidence in throwing the change up for strikes. The negative part is that his confidence in throwing his fastball for strikes isn’t quite as high as we would hope he could pitch to.
If Tim has indeed turned the corner, so to speak, on corner painting, it will indeed help him be even better than what he has accomplished already in becoming the best pitcher in baseball. I do think it is something he is still working on, but you are correct that he got some nice results in doing so Tuesday.
David,
Great article and analysis! It’s true, Tim’s been pretty unreal but can he sustain it? I’d like to hear your thoughts on how you think he’ll perform going forward. This is RotoGraphs after all, I need to know how much to give up for him!
Also, do you think Tim’s a better pitcher than me? Of course he’s been this year, but if you were starting a new franchise and had to pick either me or Lincecum to be your ace, who would you pick?
Lincecum
what he said.
Sorry, Greinke. But i don’t think it’s particularly close.
I’m sorry to vote against you, Zach (and at least I’m finally spelling your name right). I think you’re also a great pitcher, but I am overcome by Tim’s ability to continue to improve,even as great as he has become.
His walks will almost certainly go up a bit as the season goes on, but right now his walk rate is only about a quarter of what it was as a college sophomore. His major league walk rates have dropped from 4.0 to 3.3 to 2.7 to 1.7 so far this season — after being over 6.0 his first two years in college.
Although his giving up a three-run homer to Hanley Ramirez after two soft ground ball hits preceded it Tuesday was unfortunate, Tim struck out 13 in seven innings — primarily by changing his strikeout pitch.
As another poster indicated, Tim did a good job with a few corner fastballs to give him more called third strikes on fastballs than in any game this season. But the biggest development is that he changed his primary strikeout pitch from his great change up to his slider.
Tim has been saying since the spring that he wanted to use his breaking balls more, and on Tuesday he did so in spades. Whereas in previous games I would estimate that over 80% of Tim’s strikeouts came on the change, Tuesday night over half his K’s were on a slider he really hadn’t been throwing all that much.
Tim had been throwing a high percentage of change ups with two strikes. Now in addition to trying to sneak a fastball by, it appears he is quite confident in the slider.
When Tim left college, his best pitch was a waterfall curve ball. In his rookie season he felt batters began to pick up the pitch. So before the 2008 season he developed his slider to complement the curve.
This season Tim has been using his curve mostly to steal strikes early in the count. He’s throwing more of a 10 to 4 curve now, whereas his original curve was more 11to 5. I also saw it described as 12 to 6 and even as 13 to 6, since that particular commentator said 12 to 6 didn’t do it justice.
Sometime along the way, Tim may bring back the curve ball as his strikeout pitch.
Even though he has been great since 2008, Tim keeps on improving. Did you know that no right-handed starter who has pitched as many innings in the past 80 years as Tim has has put up a career ERA as low as Tim’s?
And his FIP, xFIP and tERA seem to indicate it’s no fluke.
Take a look at Tim’s strikeouts yesterday http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=7831477&topic_id=8879100&query=%26game_pk%3D264202 Incredibly, most of those swingthroughs are on sliders, not the split-change. If his slidepiece turns into another legitimate out pitch, I think Halladay will have his work cut out for him in the Cy Young race.
Currently Halladay is averaging almost one additional inning per start compared to Lincecum. That’s fairly significant if it can be maintained, though I do doubt Doc will continue to finish out 50% of his games.
Roy Halladay is a very formidable competitor for the Cy Young Award. He’s an excellent pitcher, and with the Phillies’ hitting behind him Roy has an outside possibility of winning 25 games in a time when winning 20 is rare.
If Roy posts a mid-two’s ERA and wins 25, I think Tim will need to go sub-two, win 20 and lead the league instrikeouts in order to have much chance to beat Roy. And if Halladay wins 25, even the numbers I indicated might not do it.
The Giants’ bullpen has blown wins for Tim in his last two starts, so while his 4-0 record is still very impressive, he is chasing Roy’s 6-1 and Ubaldo Jimenez’s 6-0.
I believe Tim will be the best pitcher in baseball this season — but amazingly even that might not be quite enough to win the award if Roy Halladay keeps winning.
The Giants of all teams have reached Halladay for five runs each of the t three times he’s faced them. Surprisingly, they gave him his only defeat of the season. Aside from his game against the Giants, Roy is 6-0 with an 0.74 ERA. Roy also has been impressive with three complete games including two shutouts.
Doc won’t win 25. One heckuva start to his season all the same.
Talking heads were discussing who was NL Cy Young frontrunner on ESPN the other day, among Ubaldo, Halladay, and Timmy. I guess those are the types of things you discuss when you have to fill 24 hours of sports programming across like five different all-sports networks.
While we’re at it, who will be AL ROY in 2014? I surely don’t know, but sportwriters in four different time zones want to rant about it for 45 seconds apiece…
I’ve heard it said many times that it took Lincecum just a few bullpen sessions to develop his dominant change-up. Freak, indeed. Maybe next he’ll mix in a knuckleball just for fun…
Tim does have a knuckle ball. I don’t see him using it until his dotage and I’m not sure how consistently he can control it, but he has had the knuckler for some time now.
A guy I met watched Tim and Matt Cain throwing knucklers to each other during spring training two years ago. Tim threw a nasty one that Matt missed, and the ball hit this guy on the foot. Tim was nice enough to come autograph the ball for him.
Tim added the change up before the 2007 season, striking out three batters with the pitch in his first game for AAA Fresno, and then his slider before the 2008 campaign. He hasn’t added a pitch the past two winters to the arsenal he is using, so now it’s merely a case of developing the four he has.
If Tim brings back as a strikeout pitch the curve he used when he began in organized ball, all bets are off for opposing batters.
I have Lincecum, Greinke and Ubaldo in a Roto League. I took over this team and had to keep Lincy and Greinke.
Which of these three SP would you trade away for some big bats?
180 start limit
Ubaldo is the most overvalued pitcher of the three. Not saying hes not awesome but you can probably get the most value extracted from him.
I disagree. Greinke is in the AL, he’s on the worst team by far, and he doesn’t pitch well in meaningless games. By his own admission, he lost focus mid-summer last season because of the Royals losing ways. I agree that Ubaldo may be the most overvalued, but Greinke is overvalued as well. I’m a Royals fan, and I’d trade Zack.
Has Grienke ever pitched in a meaningful game?
I don’t know if i’ve seen that many strikeouts in a game where they had to throw to first to complete it. 3?
Watch a Felix Hernandez start. Between Felix’s off-the-table sinker and Rob Johnson’s inability to block the plate, batters have lots of opportunities to attempt a “steal” of first.
I’ll post more on Tim on Friday, but since it still Thursday (sort of), I wanted to mention that in addition to Willie Mays’ 79th birthday, Thursday was the 3rd anniversary of Tim’s major league debut.
I’ve got lots more to add on Friday, so stay with me. (And Tim will be pitching again on Sunday.)
Thanks for the stats that show the evolution of a talented pitcher into a master craftsman in just three years. The stats don’t really indicate subtle changes in delivery, better ability to conceal the ball, etc. but this is a great baseball geek graphic to show young pitchers wanted to elevate their game.