Tim Lincecum has been talked about and looked at and put under a microscope for the past 2 seasons. Does that mean everybody has to stop doing that? No, since the alternative is writing about A-Rod and I'd rather strap myself to a spinning wheel while a blindfolded monkey threw knives at me than write about that debacle. I don't know if there is anything new, but there are graphs with bright colors. Come look at the graphs with bright colors!
For the most part, Lincecum has been a legitimate ace until last year when he imploded spectacularly. This season, he's had those moments where his past brilliance shows through before ducking back into the rabbit hole with Alice for his next start. What in the world happened? You can point to a possible injury, lack of confidence, what have you, but all we have are numbers. So numbers we shall look at, which is where the graphs come in to play. Mostly for velocity and pitch selection. A quick thank you to Pitch F/X from Texas Leaguers who you can find by clicking the link.
For all of Lincecum's failings, there have been two glaring problems and maybe some underlying ones as well. The first is his home runs per 9 innings. 2012 and 2013 are the worst its been since his career started in 2007. Before 2012, the worst HR/9 rate Lincecum carried was a 0.76 in 2010. In 2012, that number had jumped to 1.11. To give you a better idea of how many more home runs that would be, multiply his worst year HR/9 rate by his second worst and divide by 9. So in 2010, Lincecum gave up 18 home runs in 212 1/3 innings compared to 23 in 186 in 2012. Taking all of this into account, what if Lincecum's HR/9 rate of 1.11 were applied to his 2010 ERA of 3.43?
Lincecum gave up 18 home runs in 2010, but if his HR/9 rate were 1.11, that number would have jumped to 26. For the sake of argument, we'll split the number of runs per home run right down the middle, with each home run being worth 2.5 runs. I realize there's a lot more to it, but I'm not a statistician. With 8 more home runs that year at 2.5 runs per home run, his ERA goes from 3.43 to 4.28 in 2010. Along with a strand rate nearly 10% higher than it was in 2012, his ERA would climb even further. So what have we learned? Home runs bad. Fewer home runs good.
Okay, but why more home runs than in years past? The one thing I can tell you for sure is that it has to do with something. What that something is, I have no idea, but I can tell you that his velocity has dropped quite a bit since he first started. With the exception of 2011 when there was a slight uptick in his velocity, his average pitch velocity has decreased since 2007. Every pitch has dropped with one exception: the changeup. Everything from the 4 seam fastball on down to the curve has seen a dip in velocity except the change. Here's the graph I promised:
There are a few pitchers who can get away with a small gap between their change and fastball, like Felix Hernandez, thanks to the massive amount of movement it has despite there being a 2-3 MPH difference. Thanks to Fangraphs, who provide a "movement" category for pitches, it shows his change had steadily gotten worse until this season. From a high of 8 in 2007, a low of 3.8 in 2011 and a bounce back to 4.9 in 2012. This may be one of the reasons Lincecum has featured his slider more and more, bringing it to about level with the rest of his pitch selection in 2011. And this is where graph #2 comes in:
His pitch selection has leveled out with slight variations from 2011 on. The biggest movement between 2011 and 2013 may be his curveball, going from 6.4% in 2011 to 10.9% in 2013. That percentage is still recovering, however, from a massive drop between 2010 and 2011, going from 15.9% to 6.4%. The pitch that took over was his slider, going from 8.1% to 24.2% from 2010 to 2011. I would imagine this would put a massive amount of stress on the arm and that contributed to the hit his numbers took in 2012. I can't and won't say definitively whether that's the case or not. All I can say is there was a massive jump in his slider selection and then ran into a brick wall the next year, as evidenced by a drop in velocity with every single pitch in 2012. Its a subjective thing and you can form your own opinion.
Lincecum may have suffered an injury, but that's not really what I'm looking at. The thing that stands out to me is his home run rate took a big jump, his LOB% dropped nearly 10% from his career low, his walk rate is slightly outside his normal fluctuations, velocity dropped on every pitch in 2012 and his pitch selection saw a massive swing the year before. All of this may have created a perfect storm that, as a pitcher, he's still trying to escape from. There's no question Tim Lincecum has struggled the past nearly two seasons, but there are already signs of improvement. The problem with it is that he still hasn't quite escaped the rabbit hole, but he's getting there. 2 steps forward and 1 step back, but he's getting there. With any luck, whoever signs him can get a version of Lincecum closer to what he was before 2012 and not the one struggling to find the light.
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