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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Poison to others’ dreams, the Rockies began Wednesday with a chance to move five games back of the division lead for the first time in four months. Two pitches and one of baseball’s brightest stars prevented it.
The Rockies fell 4-1 to the San Francisco Giants at raucous AT&T Park, nudged six games behind Arizona in the National League West.
...
Lincecum (15-3) surrendered just five hits, while reaching at least 10 strikeouts for the seventh time this season… And yet for all of Lincecum’s mastery, Livan Hernandez was poised to turn him into a loser, factually speaking. Hernandez, who has laid an egg since joining the Rockies, strung together Faberges for six innings.
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Bengie Molina crushed an 86-mph fastball into the left-center field seats. Unnerved, Hernandez grooved a fastball to rookie Pablo Sandoval… Sandoval kept his hands back and drove the ball just inside the left-field foul pole.
The scoreboard panels in the upper deck inspired hope. Lincecum had thrown 118 pitches after seven innings. There was a realistic thought that he might not return. Lincecum finished with a season-high 132 pitches, leaving Jack Taschner and Brian Wilson to vanquish the Rockies’ last breaths.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/26/SPJV122RC3.DTL
I would agree with you if there were any empirical evidence at all in support of the notion that the pitch-count protocols as generally practiced across MLB in the current era actually have a positive impact on injury reduction. Given that there isn't, a 132-pitch effort from a guy who doesn't appear to be laboring, not throwing many of the pitches from the stretch, isn't anything to become alarmed over.
I think I know when a pitcher is laboring but mainly it's from them starting to miss the spots that they were hitting earlier in the game and the body language / facial expression. Of course, the latter two could be caused by the missing of the spots.
Given the difference in the numbers of decisions each has put up (Lincecum is 15-3, while Webb is 19-5), I thought Webb had thrown a lot more innings, but his advantage is just one start and three innings. Meanwhle, Lincecum's ERA+ is 176, while Webb's is 153. So yeah, he's going to get hosed.
Not to mention the "Let's give it to CC!" movement.
Well, one clear indication of laboring would be mechanics being off later in the game. Someone who is tiring will not be able to have the same clean repeatable movements. This is probably especially useful in looking at a guy like Tim who does have the same motion all the time.
So how well (or much) do folks think CC has to pitch in the NL before he should be considered a legitimate canddidate? Should his overall numbers be considered as part of his resume or should voters strictly limit themselves to what he's done in the National League?
I've seen multiple mainstream types (foremost among them Steve Phillips) say that CC is not a contender for NL Cy Young, but could get their hypothetical vote for NL MVP. Phillips' explanation was particularly strained ... he said Webb will have 20-some wins, so he's the Cy. For MVP, he explained that if the Brewers make the playoffs by a couple of games, it will be clear that CC's addition was crucial in putting them over the top. Because his mouth was running faster than his brain, he started to say something along the lines of, "Of course, Arizona could also make the playoffs by a couple of games, and of course Webb will have more wins ...," at which point his brain caught up and he just continued to hype CC without making any further reference to his trip down that cul de sac, which revealed his analysis to be completely devoid of any logic.
But this season there are too many full season candidates to make CC a viable option.
And while I could see CC garnering some MVP votes I do NOT advocate he win the award.
The NL MVP is Albert Pujols. Period. End of discussion. It's a nonsensical discussion to have if the topic is NOT who is finishing second to Albert.
Dave Wright is a nice young man and some day if he has the year of his life and Albert has had a leg amputated then maybe David will be the better player.
Right now? Pujols laps the field.
As much as the assumption is there the last few years the voters have more often than not ignored Wins as a primary Qualification for the Cy Young...
Probably the best comparison is 99 when Randy Johnson beat out Hampton....despite having 17-9 record compared to Hamptons 22-4...the 2003 and 2004 votes also show a preference for better performance over wins...
And as for CC...yeah he is helping the brewers win...but his numbers since he came over is not that much different from Lincecum's in that span, and especially in the last month or so...who gets pitcher of the month of the month for august? CC is 4-0 with a 1.37 ERA in 39.3 innings (39 hits, 5 walks 40 k's), Lincecum is 4-0 with a 1.27 ERA in 42.7 innings (21 hits, 19 walks, 54 k's).
For the sake of my blood pressure, I've almost convinced myself that I should listen to Phillips and revel in the inanity rather than get mad because he's making more money than me at a job that is more fun than mine that he has no talent for and does no apparent work to improve himself. Yes, he did make it to GM and I didn't and he is supposed to be blandly handsome or something and I'm decidely not, but he still shouldn't hold down that job. At least he has a nice voice and speaks in moderate volume.
They could end up both fading in September too. We've all seen the CY suddenly shift in the last month plenty of times.
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