A New Lincecum? Probably Not.

Sometimes it is hard to remember that Tim Lincecum used to be one of baseball’s best pitchers. The back-to-back Cy Young Award winner in 2008 and 2009 enjoyed two more excellent seasons immediately after with Cy Young finishes in both, but fell off a cliff at age-28 and has remained in the canyon with Wile E. Coyote ever since with a 4.76 ERA in 539.3 innings over the last three seasons.

The early returns have been Vintage Lincecum from a results standpoint (2.00 ERA, 1.19 WHIP), but is there change we can believe in or is this just a solid run for him? After all even in the midst of a 4.74 ERA in 155.7 innings last year, he still had a random six-start run of 1.49 ERA in the early-summer. Of course it did feature his no-hitter and another outing against the offensively-challenged Padres (15.3 IP of 3-hit, 1-run ball in those two outings alone).

Are we seeing something different or is this something that would barely hit our radar if it came in mid-June as his run did last year? Let’s see what we’re dealing with here.

Pitch Mix

The first place I look when I see drastically different performance from the previous year(s) is a guy’s pitch mix. Is he doing things different to draw these newfound results? Maybe one or more of his pitches has gotten better or he scraped a previously poor pitch to refine his arsenal and drive success. Lincecum has seen some big shifts within his mix.

First off, he has shifted his fastball focus from the four-seamer to two-seamer with an eight percentage point drop in four-seamer usage that has all gone to the two-seamer. According to Brooks Baseball, it’s his highest sinker usage since 2008 when he threw it a third of the time en route to the first of those Cy Young Awards. If only it still had the velocity and movement of 2008, or even one of the two.

The slider has ranged in usage from 20% to 24% (via that same BB chart linked above) in each of the last four seasons which is somewhat understandable given how devastating it used to be, but the usage has dropped seven percentage points to 15% so far this year. It was last great in 2011 when it held batters to a .193 AVG, .506 OPS, and 31% K rate in 193 PA. It completely cratered in ’12 (.800 OPS, 20% K in 178 PA), returned to viability in ’13 (.608 OPS, 31% K in 143 PA), was again below average pitch ’14 (.718 OPS, 22% K in 151 PA) and so far this year (.732 OPS, 23% K in 17 PA). Righties across the league have a .594 OPS-against with their sliders since the start of last year.

The bulk of those sliders have been funneled into the curve with a handful going to the splitter. The curve was filthy in his prime, but we haven’t seen it at that level in quite some time. The results suggest it has been great so far this year, but I’m a little skeptical. The .458 OPS (17th among SPs) feels like a mirage as it’s paired with an 11% K rate. However, it’s worth noting that it has the same 11% SwStr rate from the last two years when he generated a 27% K rate so maybe some more punchouts are in order from the curve?

A two percentage point jump in splitter usage (26%) continues a four-year trend of increased usage. It used to be his best secondary pitch by leaps and bounds, but as it faded, so does his effectiveness. The splitter completely went to pot in 2012 and was a big reason for the horrific 5.18 ERA he posted that year. It rebounded brilliantly in ’13 (.482 OPS, 35% K), but leveled off as essentially average last year.

Despite a similar line to last year (.616 OPS compared to .676 last year), this year’s iteration of the splitter looks a lot more like the plus pitch of yesteryear. His 23% SwStr rate with the pitch is sixth-highest, yet has yielded just the 14th-highest K rate (31%). If he continues to generate this kind of swing-and-miss, it should produce 2013-level results the rest of the way.

Velocity

The early season success hasn’t stemmed the tide on Lincecum’s velocity decline. For the fourth straight year, his fastball velocity is down and it has finally dipped below 90 MPH on average. Lincecum’s four-seamer is checking in at 88.9 MPH while the two-seamer is at 88.4, down from 90.4 and 90.1, respectively.

His splitter velocity has dropped a tick as well, though, leaving him with a 7 MPH difference, the same as it has been for the last four years. At his peak, he was toting a healthy 10-11 MPH difference that made the splitter so ridiculous and made him a three-time MLB strikeout rate leader (2008-2010). He led the league in raw strikeouts in the first of those years and had to settle for merely an NL crown in ’09 and ’10.

Skills

When someone is excelling, I think we just expect that the skills have improved and thus we look at other factors first to see what’s driving the success and skills change. Alas, Lincecum’s hot start hasn’t come as a result of him recapturing his previous strikeout ability or morphing into a control artist who doesn’t give up the free pass. In fact, his strikeout and walk rates also identical to last year with the former down 0.5% and the latter up 0.3%.

The small changes leave him with a slightly above average strikeout rate (19.4%, compared to the 19.1% avg.) and well below average walk rate (9.7% is 18th-highest among qualified SPs and a good bit off of the 7.4% avg.). Lincecum has walked at least three in four of his six starts (tied with seven others for the second-highest total; three have five such outings) and has yet to drop a walk-free outing. Obviously this wasn’t a huge issue when he was at or well above a strikeout-per-inning, but it has been a big burden during his downturn.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in Lincecum’s game since he fell off has been the longball. He allowed 66 homers in 1028 innings over his first five seasons, but then allowed 63 in just 539 innings spanning the last three seasons prior to 2015. Four of those first five seasons saw throw at least 212 innings, too, while he’s ranged from 156 to 186 in these last three. The result is near-doubling of his home run rate from 0.6 HR/9 to 1.1 HR/9. Early in 2015, he’s down to 0.3 HR/9 thanks in large part to substantial spike in groundballs.

His 54% groundball rate is a career-best and 17th-highest among 112 qualified starts. So while we look at a 3.6% HR/FB and understand that it almost certainly won’t stay that low, there is a discernible change fueling the HR suppression. As the HR/FB rate inches closer to his 9% career mark, the 2.00 ERA will become a distant memory, but if continues to keep the ball down then he should be able to avoid the monstrous HR/FB rates from the last three seasons: 15%, 12%, and 14%.

Unsurprisingly, this surge in GB rate marries well with his increased sinker usage, though the four-seamer is more than pulling its weight, too. Lumping the heaters together, we see a 65% groundball rate from the pair, up from the low-40s each of the last four years. The only real approach change with his fastballs has been a slight boost in those up in the zone. He threw 41% of them up in the zone last year and it’s up to 45% so far this year.

Hard stuff up in the zone doesn’t typically lead to groundballs (34% rate across the league last year) and while there are some exceptions, no one throwing at least 40% of their heaters up in the zone maintained anything close to a 54% groundball rate. The closest were Madison Bumgarner (51% up, 44% GB), Johnny Cueto (44%, 46%), and Chris Archer (41%, 46%) and I don’t think I’m stepping on a flimsy limb when I say that present-day Lincecum is a good bit away from the level all three of those guys.

If he is going to maintain this groundball rate, it’s either going to require an approach change with the fastballs or the secondary stuff will have to pick up the regression that is definitely coming from fastballs. And it will probably have to be the splitter given both its usage and the fact that it’s been a key groundball weapon throughout his career.

Runners On

When perusing Lincecum’s profile as a whole, one thing that really jumps out is the decline is his LOB% rate. He went from one of the league’s veryt best at stranding runners to one of the very worst. In his first five seasons, his 76% LOB rate was fifth-best in baseball, but in the last three years, his 69% LOB has sent him to the other end of the spectrum as the league’s fourth-worst at stranding runners.

Unsurprisingly, this is all about the fastball. Without the threat of 94-95 MPH, he has to be much finer with the fastball when he does use. Additionally, the degradation isn’t lost on the rest of the league so hitters also know that there won’t need a major adjustment to get on the secondary stuff. The tide really started to turn after 2011.

He experienced his largest velo drop after ’11 (~2 MPH), but he still tried to use his fastballs just as frequently with runners on (51% of the time). He has since tried to get away from the heat with runners on, but it hasn’t stopped the onslaught of damage. After a .578 OPS in these situations back in ’11, he has allowed a combined .877 OPS from ’12-’14. He’s down to a .538 OPS with the heat so far this year and .588 with all of his pitches resulting in a career-best and unsustainable 82% LOB rate.

Every year a handful of guys will finish with 80% or higher LOB rates, but determining who those guys will be is virtually impossible. Sure, studs like Johnny Cueto (83%) and Clayton Kershaw (82%) were up there last year, but so was Chris Young (80%). I guess Lincecum could stay up there, but there just hasn’t been any sort of change in approach that backs the sharp decline in OPS in these situations.

The secondary stuff has also been much better with runners on, but it’s gone from horrible to great to just OK in the last three years yet his LOB% has lived in that 68%-70% range during that time, further suggesting that the fastball will determine his fate once we see runners on base.

Summary

Looking at the results from the first six starts from Lincecum might’ve conjured up some memories of how good he used to be, but looking at the skills associated with the great results doesn’t do the same. Not by a longshot, unfortunately. There are some things within the profile that suggest he could be better than last year and even maintain some form of fantasy viability in at least some formats. But those holding out hope for a return to greatness will likely wind up wholly disappointed.

The WHIP is already pointing toward some impending regression. At 1.19, it’s hardly bad as a standalone number, but when paired with a 2.00 ERA, it puts further strain on that LOB% we discussed earlier. We know Felix Hernandez won’t sustain an 89% LOB rate, but he’s not putting anyone on, either. With a 0.84 WHIP, achieving a crazy LOB% isn’t nearly as difficult.

Hernandez has allowed just 41 men to reach base in about 49 innings of work. Lincecum has allowed 43 base runners in 13 fewer innings. A lot more is going right for Lincecum (i.e. luck) to maintain his LOB% whereas guys like Hernandez or even a low-strikeout guy like Dallas Keuchel (85% LOB) are doing a lot to contribute to their rates, even if they, too, are unsustainable over the long haul.

If you found a willing buyer for Lincecum, I would certainly entertain selling. I wonder if you could sneak someone as good as Anibal Sanchez, maybe not in a 1-for-1, but with another mid-level or worse piece. I bet you could get Phil Hughes straight up and I’d prefer him. I’d take Mike Fiers, James Paxton, and even Shane Greene to name a few other guys toting high ERAs that might be made available for Lincecum’s services. There are a host of names on the buy-low end of the hitting spectrum that I’d be interested in – too many to name, in fact – but I’d be curious if I could get any of the buy-high guys like Adam Lind, Mark Teixeira, or Marcus Semien. Even guys like Brandon Crawford, Kendrys Morales, and Trevor Plouffe would be more than adequate returns in a 1-for-1 situation.

Don’t get suckered by the name value tied to Tim Lincecum. Outside of the groundball rate, he hasn’t been that much different than Colby Lewis. Lewis actually has a slightly higher strikeout rate and markedly better walk rate to offset the groundball differential. And yet, nobody is buying Lewis’ 2.40 ERA and 1.02 WHIP through seven starts.

 

The sweet, sweet pictures were done by me… clearly not a Photoshop expert. BTW, has “Photoshop/Photoshopping” just become the generic verb for any sort of picture-making? I didn’t use Photoshop (I’m sure it shows) and yet everyone knows what you mean when we say something was “Photoshopped”. OK, I’m rambling. Again.