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Thursday, January 17, 2008

ESPN: Chat with Rob Neyer: Tim Lincecum vs. Yovani Gallardo

Overseeing the Cum Lardo Society…Registrar General Rob Neyer.

Eight pitchers younger than 24 pitched more than 100 innings, and only three of those eight made their major-league debuts last season. Those three? 21-year-old Yovani Gallardo, 22-year-old Kyle Kendrick and 23-year-old Tim Lincecum. Which one of them has the most promising future?

With due respect, we’re going to summarily eliminate Kendrick from the competition. Why? Because while Gallardo and (especially) Lincecum feature overpowering stuff, Kendrick struck out only 3.6 batters per nine innings, which ranked 73rd among the 76 National Leaguers with at least 100 innings pitched last season. Granted, Aaron Cook ranked 76th and Cook is a pretty good pitcher. But you have to look at strikeout rates when comparing young pitchers, and Kendrick just doesn’t stack up with Gallardo and Lincecum.

...The Choice

Entering last season, Lincecum and Gallardo both were listed among the top five or six pitching prospects in the minors, and both justified their status after reaching the majors. Perhaps we should be frightened by Lincecum’s small frame—he’s listed as 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds—but I find his strikeout rate irresistible, and he’s also past the age at which we might be particularly concerned about a serious injury. But what do you think?

Repoz Posted: January 17, 2008 at 10:59 PM | 20 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
Tags: brewers, giants

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1. Willie Mayspedes Posted: January 17, 2008 at 11:53 PM (#2670724)

In my keeper league I kept Lince and let Gallardo go. K rate and home park, wins be damned!

Edit: Oh ya and Lincecum's hit rate is pretty ridiculous.

2. ChuckO Posted: January 18, 2008 at 12:50 AM (#2670768)

Lincecum might be a pretty interesting player to keep track of injury-wise. I was watching him pitching against the Braves last season and the announcers said something interesting about him. They were talking about how little stress he seems to put on his arm, and they claimed that he had never had to ice down his arm after a game, either as a pro or an amateur. If true, that's quite interesting.

3. Eugene Freedman

Posted: January 18, 2008 at 12:57 AM (#2670776)

I love how they are debating players who are older and not clearly better than King Felix (including Joba and Buchholtz and these two) rather than actually picking the best young pitcher. Felix has so much time under his belt and has been successful, although not dominant. Plus, he's actually younger than every young stud who has been considered.

4. Steve Treder Posted: January 18, 2008 at 01:01 AM (#2670778)

They were talking about how little stress he seems to put on his arm, and they claimed that he had never had to ice down his arm after a game, either as a pro or an amateur. If true, that's quite interesting.

I don't know that he's never iced down his arm, but eschewing the ice-down is part of the regimen he's followed at least for the past few years.

5. Too Much Coffee Man Posted: January 18, 2008 at 01:21 AM (#2670802)

If I'm remembering correctly, Carlos Gomez (as Chad Bradford Wanna Be) posted an analysis of Phil Hughes that included a comparison to Lincecum, stating that Hughes' mechanics looked liked they would likely lead to injury, Lincecum had a really stress-free delivery that would be unlikely to lead to injuries
(to the extent that you can predict that kind of thing from someone's delivery)

6. The Artist Posted: January 18, 2008 at 01:26 AM (#2670804)

Lincecum might be a pretty interesting player to keep track of injury-wise. I was watching him pitching against the Braves last season and the announcers said something interesting about him. They were talking about how little stress he seems to put on his arm, and they claimed that he had never had to ice down his arm after a game, either as a pro or an amateur. If true, that's quite interesting.

Yup - never had an arm injury of any kind. Really, Lincecum is a freak, and while the conservative view is to run away from it (thus him dropping to 10th), this Giants fan is thrilled that he will be (along with Cain) the only thing worth watching. Lincecum and Cain and pray for rain.

7. joker24 Posted: January 18, 2008 at 01:32 AM (#2670807)

Felix's ridiculous 15.2% career HF/FB rate is...interesting. Really if that moves down to league averageish (technically could expect even further given Safeco's a pitcher park), he's giving up ~13 bombs instead of 20. Extremely roughly calculating and not taking into account how that'd affect his IP/K/BB numbers, that'd have put his FIP around 3.2 last year. Of course he's carried that ~15% for 2 years and change now so who knows...

8. zonk Posted: January 18, 2008 at 03:07 AM (#2670868)

Perhaps we should be frightened by Lincecum’s small frame—he’s listed as 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds—but I find his strikeout rate irresistible, and he’s also past the age at which we might be particularly concerned about a serious injury

Is that true?

I think the age 25-26 timeframe was when we were able to settle on the health prospects of a ...ummm... prospect.

9. Don Guillote (The Cheat) Posted: January 18, 2008 at 03:45 AM (#2670900)

Eight pitchers younger than 24 pitched more than 100 innings, and only three of those eight made their major-league debuts last season. Those three? 21-year-old Yovani Gallardo, 22-year-old Kyle Kendrick and 23-year-old Tim Lincecum. Which one of them has the most promising future?

John Danks says hi.

10. BeanoCook Posted: January 18, 2008 at 03:58 AM (#2670912)

Lincecum has the best stuff in that fastball and curve of any young pitcher. But Gallardo also has great stuff, at the top of the list too.

Watching Gallardo, I have to say that I have never seen a 21 year old know how to pitch at such an advanced level. Lincecum has a few fundamental things to work on where he is not just getting by with stuff. Every 3rd or 4th game where Tiny Tim was short on stuff, it seemed to be a long night for Lincecum where he hit 100 pitches in the 4th or 5th.

I have to give the slight edge to Gallardo, however these are two of the top three young pitchers in baseball, along with King Felix.

Hughes is still behind Garza in my book.

11. Rich Rifkin I Posted: January 18, 2008 at 04:41 AM (#2670932)

The Giants may well have drafted Yovani Gallardo in 2004. They probably should have drafted Gallardo.

The Brewers took Yovani with the 5th pick of the second round (46th overall). Unfortunately for San Francisco, they did not have a pick until late in the 2nd round, when they drafted Eduardo Martinez-Estevez, who was a total bust. The reason the Giants didn't have a first round pick (which would have been the 29th pick that year) was because Brian Sabean signed Michael Tucker for 1.5 very mediocre seasons and they subsequently gave the 29th pick to the Royals. (The Royals used in to take some pitcher named Matt Campbell.)

Granted, you never know who the Giants would have picked, and a lot of picks, even first round picks, end up as busts. But Brian Sabean and other GMs should be wary of signing players like Michael Tucker for a short spell, when the cost is a potentially very good pitcher like Gallardo.

12. Francoeur Sans Gages (AlouGoodbye) Posted: January 18, 2008 at 06:39 AM (#2670981)

Yes, but Tucker was traded for Kelvin Pichardo, who's definitely a live arm and I recently saw ranked as the Giants' #15 prospect. Admittedly I wouldn't want to use my #29 overall pick on a relief prospect, but considering the Giants didn't have to pay any bonus for Pichardo, the whole thing is far from a disaster. Let's put it this way - I would much rather have Pichardo in the system than Matt Campbell.

13. Russlan will never be fond of Jason Bay Posted: January 18, 2008 at 07:17 AM (#2670989)

It's way too early to be calling Lincecum a "freak". He has yet to have a 200 inning season. I am not saying he is going to be injury prone because I have no clue.

14. Keith Law Posted: January 18, 2008 at 03:54 PM (#2671121)

Campbell had one of the best curves I've seen in an amateur pitcher, but his fastball was short and I believe he blew his shoulder out within a year of signing.

15. Alex meets the threshold for granular review Posted: January 18, 2008 at 04:05 PM (#2671130)

Lincecum has the best stuff in that fastball and curve of any young pitcher. But Gallardo also has great stuff, at the top of the list too.

I don't know how anybody can say Lincecum has better stuff than King Felix. Felix throws 98 MPH fastballs that move 6 inches horizontally, hammer curves in the mid-to-upper eighties and a slider that he can get up over 90.

16. TFTIO who can remember his past lives Posted: January 18, 2008 at 04:08 PM (#2671132)

It will be interesting to see how badly Johanito was served by blowing out his arm. If he hadn't gotten injured, this whole conversation would be about the second nastiest young arm.

But of course if wishes were horses, &c;., &c;., &c;.

17. wcw Posted: January 18, 2008 at 05:43 PM (#2671217)

Now, as I never tire of saying, I love me some King Felix. Any time the Mariners want to get stupid and trade him to my team for a bucket of balls and some Veteran Savvy is fine with me.

That said, Hernandez's 1-mph advantage isn't showing up in the hit rates (noted above): KF in the majors has given up 9 H/9, TL in his abbreviated first season was at 7.5. Maybe +1 mph and +2" movement (KF's splitter is 96 and moves 6"; TL's FB is 95 and moves 4") alone isn't enough to make you better. Deception? Luck? Something has made TL's stuff work better so far.

18. Alex meets the threshold for granular review Posted: January 18, 2008 at 06:10 PM (#2671227)

I think USS Mariner showed that part of Felix's problem was pitch selection.

19. wcw Posted: January 18, 2008 at 09:08 PM (#2671401)

Interesting. Link?

TL throws his fastball something like 65-70% of the time, so his not being hit hasn't been from clever pitch selection. If you can hit his fastball, just wait for it -- you'll see it a lot. As I said, my going hypothesis is some mixture of luck and stuff. How much of each, we'll see after another season or two, barring injury.

20. XV84 Posted: January 23, 2008 at 09:28 AM (#2674520)

Lincecum and Gallardo have the virtually the same mechanics. If anything, Gallardo is the closest thing to Lincecum, mechanics-wise.

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa173/xvue84/pitching clips/lincecumVSgallardo.gif
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa173/xvue84/pitching clips/lincecumVSgallardoarmactionslow.gif
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa173/xvue84/pitching clips/lincecumVSgallardoarmaction.gif

Why do baseball people not see this? Gallardo puts as much torque on his back as Lincecum does.

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Thursday, January 17, 2008

ESPN: Chat with Rob Neyer: Tim Lincecum vs. Yovani Gallardo

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