Give 'em Some Stankeye!

I was all ready with a big rant about how I really don't care at all about award voting in major league baseball, then I realized that I was about to follow up said rant with my own picks for who should win each postseason award, so I guess that means I care a little. Still, the BBWAA voting on these things is just amazingly idiotic. Only a boob would think that Ryan Howard belongs anywhere near the same conversation as Albert Pujols, but somehow he's a favorite.

But, wait! Howard had 146 RBIs! He's mad clutch! Yes, this is why I've stopped caring about who wins MVP and whatnot. If the majority of voters can't figure out that the reason Howard has so many RBIs is that he has three players who are better than he is getting on base for him all the time, the whole voting process is just worthless.

And don't even get me started on the whole MVP-should-be-from-a-winning-team bullshit. I love how the voters use the "if his team sucks, how valuable can he be?" moron-speak to justify not voting for a guy on a losing team who is clearly more valuable than their pet player. Newsflash: No matter how great a player is, he can't help it if the pitching sucks and the hitters around him are garbage. According to this logic, if you put Josh Hamilton on the White Sox instead of Carlos Quentin they would be a losing team and would miss the playoffs.

Ugh, see what this award voting stuff does to me? It gets me riled up, and I'm a laid-back, even-keeled guy! It's just that when I have to open the paper and see Bartolo Colon winning a Cy Young or Justin Morneau winning the MVP, it makes me turn green and go on an unstoppable rampage. Paulie smash! Any-hoo, here are my personal MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year picks, along with who I think will actually get the award.

NL MVP
Who Should Win: Albert Pujols

Pujols was ridiculous this season, leading the league in OPS, total bases, OPS+, VORP, and finishing second or close to the top in just about every other offensive category. His .357/.462./653 line is like something you'd see on the back of Barry Bonds' baseball card. He walked 104 times against just 54 strikeouts! Do you have any idea how crazy that is? Add all that to the fact that he's a tremendous fielder at his position and I think he's far and away the best player in the NL.

Who Will Win: Pujols

Maybe I'm giving the BBWAA too much credit here, but I can't believe even that collection of relics can screw this up. Even though Howard has the lead in homers and has the huge, shiny RBI total, I think enough voters will be put off by the low average and high strikeout totals that common sense will prevail and Pujols will win the award. The fact that the Cardinals were in playoff contention for most of the year will help Pujols's cause as well. Then again, never underestimate a sportswriter's lack of intelligent thought process.

AL MVP
Who Should Win: Joe Mauer

This is sort of a controversial vote, as there are a lot of viable candidates, but I think the hardware should go to Mauer. He plays the toughest position on the diamond at a Gold Glove caliber and led the AL in hitting while doing it. He's just one hell of a hitter, with a .328/.415/.453 line, and he led all catchers in VORP and OBP. Plus, my uncle says I look exactly like him, which gives him extra points in my book. His counting stats, though, probably won't be sexy enough in the voters' minds to give him the award, which is also what killed his MVP chances in 2006.

Who Will Win: Dustin Pedroia

I'd have chosen Morneau if the Twins had made the playoffs, but they didn't, so thankfully we'll most likely be spared that retarded pick. As for Pedroia, the media loves those small, scrappy white guys who supposedly play above their talent, so he'll probably win since he makes a good story. That's not to say he didn't have a great year. He was awesome, hitting .326/.376/.493 and playing a tough defensive position well. I think there are better candidates, but if Pedroia does win, I won't have any quibble.

NL Cy Young
Who Should Win: Tim Lincecum

Duh. He was second in ERA, first in strikeouts by a wide margin, and just an unhittable force all year long. Another point in his favor, as a poster on McCovey Chronicles pointed out, is that he didn't get to face the Giants' lineup at all.

Who Will Win: Lincecum

Again, perhaps I'm giving the writers too much credit, but I think even they can look past Brandon Webb's 22 wins and see that Lincecum was a much better pitcher. Then again, we did get Colon over Johan Santana because of this same stupid thinking in 2005, so maybe I shouldn't get my hopes up.

AL Cy Young
Who Should Win: Roy Halladay

Who Will Win: Cliff Lee

I was going to give my vote to Lee, but upon further review, Halladay was a monster this season. He faced tougher competition than Lee, pitched more innings, and had a lower WHIP, which is a better indicator of individual performance than ERA. I was also all ready to fawn over Lee's K/BB ratio, but Halladay's is even better. Still, Lee has that eye-popping 22-3 record and that should get him the Cy.

Side note: If Francisco Rodriguez wins the AL Cy Young or, even worse, the MVP, which is a very real possibility, I'm denouncing baseball and moving to Nepal to become one of those monks who protect Yeti scalps.

NL Rookie of the Year
Who Should Win: Geovany Soto

Who Will Win: Soto

Just a no-brainer. The rookie catcher OPSed .868 and was a major reason the Cubs blew away the competition in the NL Central.

AL Rookie of the Year
Who Should Win: Evan Longoria

Who Will Win: Longoria

Another easy pick. Perhaps Alexei Ramirez will pick up some idiot votes and make it close, but Longoria's 27 homers and .874 OPS, coupled with his amazing glove, make him the clear winner.

Labels: bad predictions, stupid award voting, Tim Lincecum

I'd like to take a quick moment here to look back at some preseason predictions I made and see if my ability to see into the future is legitimate or just a poorly conceived scam to take money from idiots like Sylvia Browne's. At the very least, I can almost certainly say that I'm a better prognosticator than those damned Web Bots that predicted a global catastrophe today (maybe they were just talking about John McCain's debate performance...oof).

Here's a list of my predicted leaders in a number of categories for the Giants this season, re-printed here from this small post back in March.

BA: Randy Winn, .295
R: Winn, 80
2B: Winn, 36
3B: Dave Roberts, 9
HR: Aaron Rowand, 17
RBI: Rowand, 71
SB: Roberts, 43
BB: Ray Durham, 61
OPS: Durham, .825

W: Tim Lincecum, 12
K: Lincecum, 205
IP: Matt Cain, 223
ERA: Lincecum, 3.12
SV: Brian Wilson, 23

Um, who exactly predicted Dave Roberts to lead the team in steals and triples?

(points finger and whispers) That one.

Uh, yeah, anyway. Here are the actual 2008 Giants leaders. Let's see how well I fared.

BA: Randy Winn, .306
R: Winn, 84
2B: Winn, 38
3B: Fred Lewis, 11
HR: Bengie Molina, 16
RBI: Molina, 95
SB: Winn, 25
BB: Winn, 59
OPS: Lewis, .794

W: Tim Lincecum, 18
K: Lincecum, 265
IP: Lincecum, 227
ERA: Lincecum, 2.62
SV: Brian Wilson, 41

I honestly gotta say, I think I did pretty well for myself here. My advanced powers of the mind are finally manifesting themselves. Uri Geller, eat your heart out. I was almost dead on with the batting average, runs, doubles, and walks, and very close on the home run total. I expected to just be way off across the board. Also, Durham would have led the Giants in OPS if he had enough at bats to qualify, and he also probably would have led the team in walks had he not been traded.

I thought my preseason forecast for Lincecum was wildly optimistic, but he proved me wrong and shattered I think everybody's expectations. It goes to show just how talented the guy is. I thought he'd need another year or two of adjustment before he broke out completely.

I would also like to pat myself on the back a little for this shrewd comment back in March about Brian Wilson:

>>There won't be a lot of wins for Wilson to save, but any Giants victory will probably be low-scoring, so if he can handle the closer's role, a 30-save season isn't out of the question.<<

(pats back as shit-eating grin spreads over face) Wilson didn't save 30; he saved 40, and my theory was absolutely right. The Giant offense wasn't very good, obviously, and when they did win the score was usually 3-2 or 2-1, so Wilson got a ton of save opportunities. In reality, Wilson actually wasn't very good and his season served as a perfect illustration of why the save stat is so freaking stupid, but he did show the ability to "rear back, fill his pants, and throw" 100 mph, as Mike Krukow would say, and there's a quality reliever hiding in there somewhere.

--Over on Bugs and Cranks, I've started a position-by-position recap of the Giants in 2008. Yesterday I talked catchers, and had some flattering things to say about Bengie. Today I talked about first base, and it got ugly. Second base tomorrow and more in the coming week. Check it out.

Labels: bad predictions, brian wilson, Tim Lincecum

I finally snapped my personal Dodger losing streak at Mays Field yesterday, as the Giants beat L.A. 3-1 to give Tim Lincecum his 18th win in a very fun game. It was about as thrilling as any game could be when it's the last game of the season and everything is decided. Knowing that the Cy Young was at stake, everybody was hanging on Nate Scherholtz's at-bat in the seventh inning, praying he'd knock in the run and give Timmy the chance for the win. Fortunately for us all, Nate came through and Lincecum ended up earning the victory. Lincecum solidified his Cy case by absolutely dominating for seven innings. The first nine outs he got were all on strikeouts, the first time that's happened since 1986 (when Sid Fernandez did it for the most awesome team of all time that year).

I am also happy to announce that I am the proud owner of a Tim Lincecum Giants shirt. Walking around Mays Field yesterday, I was just overwhelmed by how pumped up everybody was about Lincecum and the season he was having. In a 90-loss season, it was great to see Giants fans revved up about something. When they could have just stayed home and watched the, ugh, Raiders, they turned out en masse to watch and root on the most exciting Giants pitcher in a long time. With the Lincecum love so infectious, I decided I just couldn't leave the stadium without dropping 25 bucks on a Timmy shirt. Needless to say, there won't be any disparaging photos involving the Lincecum jersey on this site any time soon.

The 2008 season ends on a high note, and honestly, how many of us would have ever thought that coming out of Spring Training? If you're a Giants fan and, at the beginning of the season, you told me that you'd be excited about the team on this day, September 29, I've have called you either a liar or assumed you were perpetually high on pain killers. I think most of us just assumed that by this time Lou Seal would have hanged himself from the Coke slide and we would have all developed writer's cramp from the endless hate mail we were sending Brian Sabean.

No such misery, though. As opposed to last year, when the roster was stocked with a bunch of boring veterans with seeming death grips on starting jobs in 2008, now we have a group of young players who might actually be good major league players. Pablo Sandoval can rake, Fred Lewis is fun, Sergio Romo looks freaking awesome, Emmanuel Burriss is an interesting find, and Eugenio Velez is...well, a pretty bad player. OK, I guess all the young guys can't be good, but there's suddenly a lot of promise in the Giants organization, especially with Tim Alderson, Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey, and Conor Gillaspie not too far away from the bigs. I can't believe I'm saying it, but I think I'm almost excited to be a Giants fan again.

Leaving the ball park yesterday, it became clear that I'm not alone. On the way back home, I was listening to Michael Urban's show on KNBR, and caller after caller chimed in raving about the team and the positive direction it was going. Most of the comments were typical mindless sports talk blather, with the usual ridiculous trade scenarios thrown in for good measure (someone proposed an asinine trade involving Aaron Rowand for Brandon Phillips, illustrating why I just refuse to listen to sports talk anymore), but whatever. It was just cool to hear such enthusiasm from so many people about the team, a far cry from the days when listening to KNBR post-game shows would only get you Larry Kruger making racially insensitive comments about the team's collection of bad hitters. One caller basically professed his undying man-love for Urban on the air, so things got a little, uh, carried away, but the fun never stopped.

Urban did drop one little nugget of insanity during the proceedings, though. Perhaps he was still high from the Lincecum 13-K performance and scintillating win, but at one point in all the post-game revelry, Urban said that he expected the Giants to improve by 15 games next season. Whoa, there, buddy. I'm excited about the Giants in '09 too, but let's not start waxing each other's bikini zones just yet. 15 games? I'm not sure Urban realizes how drastic an improvement that is. That essentially means that the Giants would be strong playoff contenders next season and, brother, I don't see it.

The Giants aren't the Tampa Bay Rays, a team overloaded with talent that just needs a tweak here or there before they become a title contender. There are still a lot of problems here. Even when the youth movement gained steam in August, the team offense still wasn't very good. The team OPS was just .720 in September and was only four points higher in the second half of the season than it was before the Break.

There are still a ton of lineup questions to be answered. I'm not convinced Travis Ishikawa is the answer at first at all, Sandoval seems like a stretch playing third base every day, no one knows if Burriss's plate patience is for real, and the team is kidding itself if it thinks Velez is an everyday player. They need to find some room for Nate Scherholtz, but that would involve trading Randy Winn and how easy is that going to be? Will Aaron Rowand find the bat that he lost in May?

Behind Lincecum and Cain, there are just as many worries with the pitching staff. Is Zito going to put it together? Is Jonathan Sanchez anything but an injury-addled tease? Kevin Correia was a mess this year and the fifth starter spot is wide open with no appetizing in-house options. The bullpen is basically a Magic Eye poster; look real hard and maybe something is there, but it certainly just looks like a big jumble of crap at first glance.

Expectations should be tempered a little, is all I'm saying. The Giants made it clear in the second half that they're committed to building the next winner through their system and not with crappy short-term fixer-uppers, and that's all we really asked for in 2008. If the Giants can improve to 80 wins next year I'd say that's a reasonable goal. With a little luck, they might outwit ol' Pythagoras and sneak into the playoffs in a poor NL West.

What I don't want to see are misguided moves to acquire veteran stopgaps, led on by the idea that the Giants are a hairsbreadth away from being a contender. This only sets the franchise back, but it seems that the front office has finally learned from its mistakes and won't go that route. If the Giants stay good on their commitment to developing the young guys and don't make any dumb free agents signings this offseason, then it's clear that 2009 will be the most anticipated Giants season since 2004.

--Omar Vizquel was brought out of the sixth inning yesterday and received a huge ovation. I have to admit, he wasn't my favorite Giant. In the last two of the four years he was here, he was flat out awful, and in 2005 he didn't exactly set the world on fire either. You can make a great argument that signing him wasn't nearly the priority that the Giants made it out to be.

All in all, though, he was a Good Giant. His defense was still good and his acrobatics were fun to watch, and it's always neat to have a guy finish up a terrific career with your favorite team. He was loved by fans and teammates alike, and it's easy to root for a player like that. I certainly stood up and joined in the thunder.

Labels: dodger hating weekend, finding solace in a bad season, season postmortem, Tim Lincecum

First things first. My take on Tim Lincecum's disappointing outing last night is over on Bugs and Cranks. Check it out here. I have tickets to Sunday's game and, while it's probably better if Lincecum doesn't make that start, well...I spent a lot of money on those tickets. I guess I should have known better.

--I didn't watch or listen to a single minute of tonight's game, but the box score tells it all. Jonathan Sanchez has done two things with his rough second half. He's put his spot in the rotation in danger for 2009 and he's also destroyed a lot of his trade value. Potential trading partners are going to look at Sanchez's high ERA, his second half breakdown, and his history of DL stints, and they'll think long and hard about giving up something of any value.

Sanchez always comes up in the "let's trade this guy for hitting" strategy that pops of every week on various Giants message boards, and it does make sense given the quick ascent of Tim Alderson and Madison Bumgarner. However, there are red flags flying everywhere right now and it's not clear if any team would be willing to trade a good hitter for the honor of waiting to see if Sanchez can ever put it together. It might have been better off for all involved if the Giants had just shut him down altogether when he got hurt in August.

--This is really cool. The Giants are going to bring J.T. Snow out of retirement and have him start on Saturday so he can officially end his career as a Giant. This is pure ceremony and the more cynical of us might call it sappy, but Snow was one of the mainstays in the team's 1997-2002 glory years and I always loved him, even when his bat went south in his later years with the team. When a guy shows this kind of loyalty to the Giant franchise, how can you not love it?

--Lastly, we all know that it's been a little rough being a Giants fan for the past few years. Losing sucks, but at least there's some hope on the horizon. We should all thank our lucky stars, though, that we're not Washington Nationals fans. Goodness gracious.

Labels: blast from the past, jonathan sanchez, jt snow, shameless plug, Tim Lincecum

I was down in San Luis Obispo (i.e. Dodger territory, the only blemish in such a wonderful area) this weekend, so I was unable to catch Tim Lincecum's domination of the Padres (I did catch Francisco Rodriguez breaking the saves record on TV...more on that later). Lincecum threw his first career complete game shutout, a 12-strikeout masterpiece that should cement his hold on the Cy Young. I didn't have any access to the Internet on Saturday so I had to check the box score on my cell phone. When I saw Lincecum's line, I nearly let out a girlish squeal. It was a beautiful work of art, that game, something that should be displayed in the Louvre. If a pitching line could be embodied by a woman, Lincecum's shutout would be Monica Bellucci.

So why is this exquisite work of art generating so much controversy? Because Lincecum's 12-strikeout masterpiece just happened to be a 12-strikeout, 138 pitch masterpiece. Um, yeah, that's a lot of pitches. As in, no one has thrown that many this season, or for a very long time. Lincecum is 24, so thus he is still in that pre-25 danger zone when a lot of young pitchers tend to hurt themselves. So naturally, he is being worked like a dog, for a team not in contention. This is a tad precarious.

Once again, I'd like to reiterate that I'm not a pitch count nazi, but letting Lincecum go back out there to finish the game with a 7-0 lead was just flat out retarded. I'd like to think we're past the point in our baseball lives where our eyes mist over because of that shiny "1" in the shutout column. Bruce Jenkins may have shat himself at the sight of Lincecum "finishing what he started", but the Giants are risking the future of the franchise because of some old-fashioned macho bullshit. It's that simple.

If the Giants were battling it out for a pennant and Lincecum was hanging on to a shutout with a slim lead, then yes, I sure as hell would rather have him out there than Brian Wilson. A 7-0 lead for a team with a stranglehold on fourth place, though? Start mass-producing the pink slips please, with the first one sent via express mail to Bruce Bochy.

Some have chosen to froth at the mouth over the team's handling of Lincecum, some have decided to just hide under some coats and hope everything works out. My opinion? Well, those coats are awfully cozy. Perhaps Timmy is just a freak whose unorthodox mechanics will keep his arm relatively healthy and protect him from moronic managerial decisions. We can certainly hope and pray that he's one of those guys who comes along once in a blue moon and never has a serious injury, despite a heavy workload, like Nolan Ryan or Roger Clemens. If, however, there comes a day that Timmy has to leave a game complaining of tightness in his arm and suddenly goes the way of the Foppert, don't say it couldn't have been prevented.

Labels: monica belucci is hot, obligatory nerdy simpsons reference, pitch count madness, Tim Lincecum

Quick story for you. This past Sunday I was in Berkeley for the Dave Matthews Band concert at the Greek Theater, a show that just kicked all kinds of ass. At one point during the opening act I left my seat to make a restroom run. As I was getting in the ridiculously long line for the men's room, I accidentally bumped shoulders with another guy my age as he passed by in the other direction. When I looked up I recognized him as Noah Lowry. Now, as much as I would have loved to have introduced myself and talked to Lowry, I didn't. Two reasons: 1) I was drunk, and 2) I'm not sure where drunkenly accosting a complete stranger while standing in line to take a piss ranks on the weirdness scale, but I imagine it's pretty high.

If I had spoken to Lowry I would have definitely wished him good luck and a speedy return to the mound. While he probably won't pitch at all this year, he's slated to throw in Winter Ball and be back in the rotation in 2009, hopefully in place of the increasingly awful Kevin Correia. In a perfect world, Lowry regains the bite on his changeup and puts together a year more like 2005 than 2006 or 2007. If Jonathan Sanchez can build on the promise he's shown and if Zito (who, as we speak, has just finished six terrific innings) can be average-ish, then the Giants should have one hell of a rotation. Hopefully the nerve problem that sidelined Lowry all year was the cause of his one ghastly start in the spring and he won't be doing Nuke Laloosh impressions the next time we see him. Hopefully he also enjoyed the amazing DMB version of The Maker as much as I did.

--If I had bumped into Tim Lincecum instead of Lowry, not only would I have gone out of my way to shake his hand, but I'd likely have bowed to him and chanted "I'm not worthy!" Geez, how good is this kid? Another dominating start has put his record at 16-3, and he leads the National League in pretty much every category that matters. He should, should, be the odds-on favorite to win the Cy Young, but sadly a lot of writers still stick to the sad, old-timey belief that pitching wins are a true determinant of pitching performance, and thus Lincecum is in a neck-and-neck battle with Brandon Webb, who has 19 such wins.

Even adjusting for ballpark, Lincecum kicks Webb's butt in just about every category (his ERA+ is almost 40 points higher). If this disparity in performance holds up, it'll be a crime if Lincecum doesn't win. I've said before that most of the major award voting is a sham (don't even get me started on the Gold Gloves) and normally the writers give out the awards to the best story instead of the best player. Just the fact that Carlos Delgado is even in the MVP conversation serves to illustrate how far the insanity has gone. When the BBWAA completely fucked up and gave Bartolo Colon the Cy over Johan Santana in 2005, based on Colon's 20 wins, I just stopped taking this stuff seriously.

However, when a Giants player becomes involved, I'm forced to care again. The Giants haven't had a Cy Young winner since 1967 when Mike McCormick won it, so it's been a long enough wait. Jason Schmidt was robbed of the Cy in 2003, and that pissed us all off royally, but this season if Lincecum loses it'll be an even more egregious snub. If the writers can't even recognize the (far and away) best pitcher in the league then they should just scrap the Cy Young. Seriously.

Labels: noah lowry, stupid award voting, Tim Lincecum

Is it just me, or did Bruce Bochy's decision to leave Lincecum in last night in the 8th inning seem like a direct response to this game? You know, the one where Lincecum was dominating the DBacks, but with 111 pitches through seven innings was taken out by Bochy, setting off a firestorm of bitching and whining from irritating drive-time sports talk radio hosts and their knee-jerk, intellectually-challenged callers. Many people were pissed that Lincecum didn't come out for the 8th in that contest because he was utterly dominant, pitch count be damned.

Last night, I was enjoying the game at my favorite little corner sports bar, when in the bottom of the 7th inning the Giants went ahead on back-to-back home runs by Bengie Molina and Pablo Sandoval (the first of his career, and it was an awesome opposite field shot). Lincecum had been pretty much untouchable since the first inning, and now he was in line to bring in his 15th win. With 118 pitches through seven innings, it looked like his night was done. Job well done, Tim. Hit the showers, rest that arm, and prepare for win number 16 next week.

Then the game came back from a commercial break and...whaaaaaa???? There was Lincecum, trotting out to start the 8th inning. If I had been in mid-swig, I would have done a colossal spit take. Here he was with 118 pitches already under his belt, trudging out to the mound to put some extra mileage on his arm, all to aid the Giants in their scintillating battle for...third place in the NL West. Pitch count nazis were sharpening their stilettos.

To add an extra touch of foreboding to the proceedings, when Lincecum starting throwing to the first batter in the 8th, the jukebox in the bar we were sitting in starting playing "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins. It was just eerie, and didn't seem like a good omen at all. This is a song that drove a guy to hang himself in a bathroom, after all. My friends were commenting that at the exact moment of the song's signature drum crescendo, we expected to hear this ear-splitting shriek on the game broadcast, then look up to see Lincecum hop-scotching off the mound and grabbing his arm in pain.

Luckily none of that happened and Lincecum was fine. Brian Wilson came on to get a four-out save, the Giants won, Lincecum did some bizarre calisthenics on the dugout railing, and the world didn't cave in after all. Lincecum's final pitch count came in at 132, which tied him for the highest any pitcher has thrown all year.

There has been a lot of talk about pitch counts lately. I mean, a lot. McCovey Chronicles has been talking about it. Bay City Ball has been talking about it. Andrew Baggarly has been talking about it. El Lefty Malo wrote about it and touched off a mini-debate in the comments section, in which I participated a little. Things got heated, mothers were insulted, people got pwned (no, not really). Bruce Jenkins of the SF Chronicle even got in on the fun, although his articles on the subject should really just be retitled "An Idiot's Guide to Bad Dinosaur Journalism." All the fuss has started because Lincecum is near the top in the majors in pitches thrown per game and, after last night's start, has vaulted up to the top in BP's Pitcher Abuse Points (PAP)*.

I'm a guy who is firmly of the belief that different pitchers have different limits, and a lot of times it just comes down to asking a pitcher if he's good to go back out to the mound. Pitch counts are a good way to measure when a guy is getting to the point where he can't. Obviously, if Lincecum is out there throwing 132 pitches a night that's insanity and someone needs to be fired. Last night was just one instance though (with a day off in between starts), and I don't think it's something to get too up in arms about.

That said, while I'm not a fascist or anything when it comes to pitch counts, last night was a little extreme. I personally don't think Lincecum has been overworked this season, but bringing him out to start the 8th last night was pretty silly. When you're not in a pennant race and you have the future of the franchise on the line, why even take the risk? So he can come in and get two outs, and then you take him out? What's the point?

Since the Giants aren't fighting for anything at this point, enough of this! There is just no reason to stretch out Lincecum and even risk an injury. What do the Giants have to gain from leaving him in and possibly putting extra stress on his arm? A pointless win in a lost season? Hey, I'm all about beefing up this year's win total, but certainly not at the risk of Lincecum's right arm. I'm not saying limit him to a strict pitch count from now on, but if he's thrown 118 pitches through seven again, make his ass stay on the bench.

*Okay, a little mini-rant here. I've never been a fan of PAP at all, for a variety of reasons, but here's number one. Click on that link and check out the list of pitchers who are in the Top 10 in PAP. Notice anything? Yep, that's a list of the best pitchers in the major leagues. Now, I understand that you want to be careful with your pitchers, but don't you want the best pitchers throwing the most innings and staying on the mound as much as possible? Otherwise, they wouldn't be the best.

Plus, how do we even know that the guys at the top of the list are even being "abused"? Maybe they just have the highest workload; that doesn't necessarily constitute abuse. It all just seems very subjective and I have trouble with anything that tries to put a number on "abuse" when the definition of "abuse" can vary wildly from pitcher to pitcher.

Labels: pitch count madness, Tim Lincecum

Getting swept sucks. Getting swept by a Rockies team that the Giants used to own at Mays Field in bygone years is just depressing. The Rocks went to the World Series last year on the strength of the best pitching staff in their franchise's short history, but they've seen that pitching staff fall completely apart this year. Of course, that hasn't stopped them from holding the Giants utterly at bay the past two games. The latest no-name to baffle Giants hitters was Jorge de la Rosa, a guy whose great strikeout rate belies his unsightly career ERA.

Tonight the Giants try to avoid the sweep against Stankeye Most Hated List mainstay Livan Hernandez, whose season so far has been a train wreck of epic proportions. With Minnesota this season, Livo gave up an unreal 199 hits in 139.2 innings to go along with 18 home runs, a 1.63 WHIP, and a 5.48 ERA. He was bad, and to make matters worse, the Twins, a team in contention, for pete's sake, refused for the longest time to promote Francisco Liriano because they didn't want to bump Livan and his 10 wins and veteran presence (or maybe it was for more crooked reasons).

Anyway, Livan was signed by the Rockies a few weeks back, and was plugged right into the starting rotation. Now, examine once again the flaming wreckage that is Livan's pitching line with the Twins, and then remember that the Rockies play in the best hitter's park in the world. This just isn't destined to go well. Livan's line in three starts with Colorado reads like a gruesome story you tell around the campfire to scare kids. Hell, I'm scared, too scared to type that line on this page. Whichever Rockies executive thought it was a good idea to bring Livan into this environment is either on a Costanzian mission to get fired or is a complete sadomasochist.

Anyway, Tim Lincecum goes tonight for the Giants, so it's a must watch, and I'll be planted at my favorite sports bar for the proceedings. Did you know that Lincecum has a home ERA (3.07) considerably higher than on the road (1.98)? I mean, that's not saying much, because a 3.07 ERA is shiny anywhere, but you'd think it'd be the other way around. Most pitchers are better at home than on the road, unless they pitch in some huge bandbox like Coors or Chase Field.

The reason behind the home/road shenanigans is that Lincecum has given up seven homers in 82 innings at Mays Field, as opposed to only two in 95 on the road (both at Shea Stadium). That's just odd. Mays Field is notoriously stingy on home run balls, and Giant pitchers have traditionally had low home run totals because of it. It's likely a complete fluke. Timmy will probably see a slight uptick in his road home run numbers while Mays Field will squash the home taters more than it has thus far, but really, what am I complaining about? He's given up a measly nine home runs all year, and that's a major reason for his dominance.

Lincecum has now also become the first Giant to strikeout 200 in a season since Jason Schmidt in 2004, and he's only the third Giant since 1975 to reach the mark. That's right. I had no idea until perusing this list at Bay City Ball, but from 1976 to 2002, the Giants never had a pitcher with 200 strikeouts. It's true that for most of the 1980's strikeouts as a whole were down (I think Len Barker led the AL with 187 one year), but still, you'd think the Giants would have one fireballer who could reach the plateau. The closest anybody came besides Schmidt was Shawn Estes in his magical 1997 year (sigh, what could have been...).

Lincecum is sitting right at 200 and, with a month to play, has a legitimate chance of breaking Schmidt's San Francisco-era record of 254, which he set four seasons ago. I'd say he should also easily notch his 15th win, what with Fat Livo going, but with this offense, you just can't make any assumptions.

Labels: livan, strikeout feats, Tim Lincecum

It's time for everybody's favorite...TGIF links! Here's a collection of random tidbits, most baseball-related, some not. I've also concluded that January sucks, at least in a baseball sense. Only one more month until pitchers and catchers report. One...more...month.

--Today on ESPN.com, Rob Neyer chatted with fans about which pitcher would be better, our own wunderkind Tim Lincecum, or Brewer uberprospect Yovani Gallardo. Lincecum has hellacious stuff and destroyed everything in his path in the minors, but Gallardo is younger and has shown better control. The answer of who will be better isn't exactly as clear-cut as we Giants fans might like.

It makes for an interesting read, and some good points are made, especially in counter to all the people freaking out about Lincecum's small frame, and the injury risk involved, and also just about the general unpredictability of pitchers. He's a pitcher and he exists, therefore he's an injury risk. It happens. Some chatters brought up the example of Mark Prior, who was considered a brilliant physical specimen who could never get hurt, then...got hurt.

Another point raised is that just because Lincecum's delivery is bizarre doesn't mean it's dangerous. It seems like most of his power comes from his lower body, which would take a lot of strain off of the arm. Power pitchers like Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens had notoriously strong legs, which enabled them to throw hard as hell, and both those guys pitcher forever.

I also realize from reading this chat that some fans just don't live in reality. A majority of the people submitting questions come from the Bay Area, understandably, and some think Lincecum is a top ten pitcher right now. I'm just as excited about Timmy as anybody else, but let's get a hold of ourselves here. He's still young and he's thrown just 146 major league innings. Given the adjustments hitters are likely to make against him, and again given that pesky (knock on wood) injury risk just by him being a pitcher, there are bound to be some bumps in the road before true greatness.

--I try to stay away from Baseball Think Factory, really I do. It's not because the site has a bunch of bad baseball writing or anything. Au contrere, BTF is home to some of the richest baseball analysis out there by some of the most amazing fans of the game. It constantly blows my mind how smart a lot of these guys are.

No, I try to stay away because once I get on, I can't get off. First there are the front page articles, then there are Dan Szymborski's ZiPs projections, then there's the News Blog, which points out some really crappy articles from around the country, then skewers them. One interesting baseball thread leads to another, and before I know it, I've wasted away five hours, my complexion has developed that pasty-white sheen, and when I go outside I hiss at the sun like the Nosferatu or some other denizen of the night. For the sake of a healthy dating life, I try to stay off.

So I basically take it in small steps, kind of the Atkins Diet of baseball stat nerdery. During my 12-step BTF recovery process, I came across this writeup by Chris Dial, where he presents his choices for who should have won the NL Gold Gloves (because the real GG voting is a joke), using a number of (confusing) defensive metrics.

According to his analysis, Pedro Feliz was 2007's best defensive third baseman, which comes as no surprise. I've harped about that before. No, the real shocker is that he rates Omar Vizquel as the best shortstop. We all know Omar is still pretty good, but it seemed like common wisdom that he was declining rapidly. Not so, says Dial. In fact, check out this quote:

>That (outstanding defense) could have been enough to make Omar an average player in 2007, shocking as that sounds.>

Whoah. Omar must have been one hell of a wizard with the glove to make him average, as his bat reached Neifi depths of putridness. I'm not sure I agree, as this is the only bit of analysis that I've seen that rates Vizquel as the best (whereas just about every defensive metric has Feliz as the top 3B), but if true, it gives his re-signing a more positive outlook.

--There was an article today on the Giants official website about the Giants apparently letting Ray Durham and Kevin Frandsen fight it out for the second base job, but I think Chris Haft is just scratching for things to write about. When is the last time the Giants actually let a young player compete, fair and square, for an everyday job against a veteran? Remember the Jamey Wright vs. Brad Hennessey "contest" that really wasn't a fight at all, because Wright had the job as long as he didn't completely mess himself in the spring. Same with Russ Ortiz this past season. Do you really think the Giants are going to give Frandsen a fair shot at taking the starting job from the savvy veteran making $7 million? Please.

For the record, though, I do want to see Frandsen start at third base (assuming the Giants don't upgrade that position in the interrim), and I expect Durham to be considerably better this year. His track record is is just too good for him to fall apart this much, this fast. Plus, how could he be any worse?

--I discussed the lunacy that can go hand-in-hand with Hall of Fame arguments last week, especially involving Jim Rice, but if you want to take a head-long plunge into the darkest depths of the stark-raving-mad HOF argument, I direct you to this bit of wisdom from everybody's favorite Curly-Haired Boyfriend. FJM tears into poor Dan quite nicely here.

--Ten years after my Freshman English teacher in high school sent the class into a baffled stupor by citing it, I think I finally get this joke. Or do I?

--Ah, TGIF video, how I've missed ye. I'm not sure I can really explain this, but...just check it out.

Labels: awful sportswriting, defense, Hall of Fame, link drop, omar vizquel, Tim Lincecum

There's a smoking hot trade rumor rolling around that involves the Giants, and it's not particularly good. The team is apparently seriously considering a Tim Lincecum-for-Alex Rios trade, which currently has the lunatic fringe in quite the uproar. Apparently the deal is "sitting on Brian Sabean's desk" right now, and I saw one horrifying rumor that Sabean was ready to pull the trigger, only to be thankfully talked out of it by his cohorts in the front office.

My reaction to the Timmy-for-Rios babble can be summed up simply with this. The reasons not to make this trade are so obvious that I just can't believe that the Giants didn't pooh-pooh it at first mention. Has Sabean really lost his mind? Is his mission the next two seasons going to be to make as many stupid moves as possible just to spite those of us who wanted him fired? I can picture him now at a press conference, announcing the Lincecum/Rios trade, waving his two-year contract extension around and cackling with glee while flipping us all the bird.

Grant at McCovey Chronicles brilliantly sums why this move would be miserable here and here (and apparently Tim Kawakami didn't take too well to that second one). Rios is a very good player and might even improve into a 30-homer guy, but he's not going to turn a franchise around. Not even close. He might, might, have another two or three All-Star seasons in him, but he's definitely not a guy you build your team around. If he's the third-best hitter on your team, then you're on to something.

Lincecum meanwhile, with the way he blew away hitters in the minors and showed signs of dominance this past season, has the ability to be the best pitcher in the National League in the next few years, and that has way more value, obviously, than a 26-year-old corner outfielder who hits free agency in two years. There are players who I would trade Lincecum straight-up for (Jay Bruce of the Reds being one, but I can't see that happening), but Rios is definitely not one of them.

Here's what I think is going on. In Moneyball, Billy Beane famously referred to Brian Sabean as the "master of the dry hump", and hopefully that's the case here. Sabean might just be feigning interest in the hopes that, if he leads them on enough, the Blue Jays will keep going further and further until they offer something crazy and Sabes makes off like a bandit. At least, I pray that's the case. I think the fact that the whispers of this trade turned so quickly into shouts means that the dry humping has given way to full fledged Mile High Club status, as lurid a mental picture as that analogy will give you.

What I do know is that if this trade does happen, and the guy who so many dubbed "The Savior" is wearing blue and speaking French next season, prepare to see Mays Field burned to the ground, with me at the front lines, kerosene in hand.

--I'll go into this more on Monday, but...we're free. Is this really real? If I pinch myself, will I wake up to a cold reality of clueless hacking and sub-.290 OBPs?

--Didn't get the time for the usual TGIF video yesterday, so we'll put one up for TGIS, I suppose. If you grew up on Nintendo games and you haven't been enlightened to the AVGN, you're missing out.

Labels: prayer for an intelligent sabean decision, Tim Lincecum

I'm not sure what to make of this article by Tracy Ringolsby, which mentions that the Giants may be willing to trade Tim Lincecum for a "quality bat". Perhaps Ringolsby has just confused Lincecum for Noah Lowry, as Rotoworld speculated (the rest of Ringolsby's article is littered with factual errors), or maybe he's just had a little too much of the drinky-drinky, but this has touched off some shockwaves throughout the Giants community, and rightfully so. This is the sort of unthinkable doomsday scenario that should have hordes of murderous Giants fans breaking down Brian Sabean's front door with pitchforks and torches in hand (or they could just hire this guy to nuke Sabes's house).

Let me come out and say that I'm not in the "Lincecum-as-untouchable" camp. I think that the Giants should certainly be open to trading him, if the right deal comes along. If it takes Lincecum to get a potential star-quality bat, a guy who can turn into a franchise player, it's worth strongly considering. After all, I still believe that a team can return to contention quicker by rebuilding the offense than by focusing more on pitching, as the Giants have, for the simple reason that hitters are just less likely to get injured. Pitchers are just unpredictable animals, especially pitchers built like high school A/V geeks, and sometimes you just have to hold your breath and take some risks in order to improve (okay, at least risks that have some chance in hell of working out).

Lincecum, of course, looks like he might be one of the best pitchers in the league very soon, and he's under the Giants' control for the next five years or so. All of this means that if he's going to be traded, the Giants need to just demand the hills. I mean, go crazy. Screw it, ask for Carl Crawford and Reid Brignac. It might make the DRay front office harumph, but that's what it's going to take, baby.

No, the problem here isn't the idea that Lincecum might be used as trade bait; it's the idea that Brian Sabean is using him as trade bait. Look, I don't mean to keep knocking the poor guy (well, yeah I do), but I just have no confidence whatsoever that Sabean can get a good enough return if he does choose to put Timmy on the table. This is the guy, after all, who traded Francisco Liriano, a Lincecum-caliber talent, for a middling catcher, all the while feeling the need to throw in an All-Star closer and...well, let's not bring back those old sordid memories.

Another scary bit is this nebulous "quality bat" that Ringolsby talks about. Is he talking "Evan Longoria" quality or "Miguel Cabrera" quality? Or is it far, far worse? Once again, Sabean's definition of "quality" is sketchy at best, but I'd like to think he hasn't fallen so far from his pre-2002 trade acumen that he'd entertain an offer of anything less than a player who is one step away from being a superstar. If the article had said "potential franchise cornerstone", then maybe I'd feel a little safer. Maybe.

All in all, it's probably completely irrelevant. While it is a little scary that BP has picked up the rumor (with Carl Crawford potentially coming this way...meh), I still think this is probably just a bit of goofy Internet speculation churned out by a bored writer with too much writing space and way too much JD. The hysteria will probably wear off, just like it did when those crazy rumors of a Mike Matheny signing floated around a few years back.

Oh, wait...

Labels: Tim Lincecum, trade stuff

Brutal loss last night, but I'm well past the stage of where this kind of thing has any effect on me this season. If the Giants were in a pennant race, then last night's ninth-inning choke job against the Cubs would have been utterly heart-wrenching, kinda like this game ten years back. As it is, it's just another day in a lost season. I can move on without too much trouble. I've become comfortably numb, to quote the great poet Roger Waters. Or is that opera writer?

I've been hearing a lot of naysaying (mostly from talk radio nitwits) about Bochy's decision to leave Lincecum in the ninth, but come on. Lincecum was only on 90 pitches going into the final inning and the Cubs hadn't been hitting him all night. If the Giants had scored some runs for him, it wouldn't have been an issue. The Giants let Jason Marquis off the hook in the first after he walked the bases loaded, then for the rest of the game simply couldn't take advantage of the fact that he's Jason Marquis.

A bad loss, but all in all yet another very encouraging outing from the kid. Tonight Barry Zito tries for his second consecutive quality outing. Cue the Sideshow Bob/rake sound. Actually, to be fair, Zito dominated the Cubs in his start at Wrigley this season. It's just that the whole contract-to-subpar performance equation instantly triggers a gag reflex at this point in time.

My only plea is please, please keep giving Rajai Davis more playing time. Even if he doesn't keep up this torrid streak, there's really only so much more of Dave Roberts that I can take. A lefty starts tonight for Chicago, so Davis is surely in the lineup, but it'd be silly for him to lose at-bats to Roberts over the rest of the season against righties. What do the Giants have to lose by giving him a shot every day and seeing if he's really this good?

I didn't get to catch much of the Giants' sweep of the Marlins this weekend, suffice it to say that it was easily the most impressive the team has looked all year. From what I could hear on the radio, it sounded like the games were being played in a library.

Labels: chicago cubs, rajai davis, Tim Lincecum

It's time to revisit one of my favorite pastimes here at Stankeye, the use of the bad movie analogy to illustrate what is going on with the Giants or one of their players. We've been down this barely inspired road before here and here, to name just a few examples, so let's get crackin' again.

There's this movie from the 80's called Legend, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Cruise. I'm sure you've heard of it for one reason or another, maybe because of the mini-controversy that surrounded it after the producers scrapped the original music score (by the great Jerry Goldsmith) in favor of a more kid-friendly one by Tangerine Dream.

Anyways, it's really bad. The idea was to tell an old-fashioned fairy tale, in the Brothers Grimm mold, I suppose, and that's a novel premise, especially for a modern film audience. Unfortunately, the movie just plain blows. The plot involves some hot chick who is the embodiment of innocence, which means some evil creatures want to kill her, and they also want to kill the last unicorn, because if they do, then all light will be vanquished forever, and darkness will rule, blah, blah blah. Some fairies try to save her, but it's really hard to care because the movie is really boring and stupid, and Tom Cruise looks totally embarrassed throughout the proceedings. Again, it's a very bad movie.

Except...

There's one redeeming quality, and it's a big one. The villain, known as the Lord of Darkness (aka the big horned guy), and played by Tim Curry, is awesome. As in, one of the greatest villainous concoctions in movie history. I'm not kidding. He's huge, imposing, evil as hell, and every time he appears onscreen, he bursts into an eloquent soliloquy in which he basically just brags about what a bastard he is. Curry's performance (under a mountain of makeup, you can only recognize him from his trademark sneer) is a Shakespearean delight. It makes the film worth watching, at least if you have nothing to do and catch it on TV or something.

So think of Tim Lincecum as the Lord of Darkness (yeah he looks innocent, but, brother, his fastball is sinister), and think of the Giants' team as the shitty movie he's stuck in. Right now, the rise of Lincecum is pretty much the only thing exciting about this team. Just look at his performance today. He still needs to cut down on the walks, but pitching in a historically tough ballpark on pitchers, against a good Cubs lineup, he dominated.

Watching Lincecum make good hitters look foolish is worth the price of sitting through the usual horrible at bats by the Giant offense. In my days when the Giants were contenders, I'd make time during my day to be sure I could watch every game or listen to every broadcast. Back then the team was a can't-miss, like Aliens.

Now? Not so much, except on the days when Timmy pitches. Seeing his name penciled in as the game's probable starter is enough to make me fit my day around the Giant game. You see, watching him rise to the top ranks of NL hurlers amidst the grating sub-mediocrity around him is like watching Tim Curry's brilliant performance in an otherwise immensely crappy movie. Stop and watch his scenes, then turn it to "Dancing With the Stars" when he leaves the screen. With Lincecum, watch him pitch his game, then turn on the apathy when Barry Zito goes up against a Cub lineup full of righty sluggers (ugh).

All right so I realize that this analogy could have been made using any movie with a good villain, but the ratio of villain badassness to movie shittiness in Legend is just too great to pass by. I guess the comparison would also be apt with Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, or Powers Boothe in Sudden Death, or Patrick Stewart in Masterminds. Wait, check that last one.

Labels: bad movie analogies, Tim Lincecum

Sunday was, hands down, the Giants' best game of the season. For nine wonderful innings, everything was clicking. Let's go down the list: Utter beatdown of a division rival? Check. The Boy Wonder showing the kind of badass unhittable-ness that could make him the league's dominant pitcher for the coming years? Check. Ryan Klesko windmilling another home run into the arcade seats in right field? Give me a C! Give me an H! Give me an E! Give me a C! Give me a K!

The Diamondbacks just didn't have a chance against Tim Lincecum. He had that insane 97-mph two-seam-fastball-from-hell going and the Dback hitters couldn't even touch it. They got maybe three good swings all game, if I can recall. The fact that Lincecum struck out twelve batters in seven innings without even breaking the 100 pitch barrier is the most impressive part. It'll probably be a cold day in hell before we hear Mike Krukow giggle like a school girl on air, but as Lincecum was mowing down one perplexed hitter after another yesterday, I think he came damn close.

Now all that's left is for Timmy to do this consistently. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking the lad, and I know that young pitchers go through rocky stretches, but all that's keeping Lincecum from being the best pitcher in the league, right now, is consistent command. Remember, he was due to get this start skipped because he had been bombed in four straight starts before dominating the Padres last Monday. In three of those four starts (the start against the Phillies wasn't so bad; his bullpen tacked on some extra earnies after he left the game), he just didn't have any control and had to resort to throwing meatballs across the plate.

For those of you familiar with JoeChat, the favorite pastime of the FJM boys, Joe Morgan is always harping about consistency, as if it were some all-encompassing skill that will turn you from a crappy player into a star. Most of the time it comes across as mindless fooferah, but in Lincecum's case, it probably applies. Once Lincecum learns to get batters out on the days when he doesn't have his best stuff (like he didn't against the A's, Blue Jays, and Brewers), he'll be the uber-stud we've all been looking for. That'll make the days when he does have his best stuff all the more fun, like yesterday.

Labels: giants with the beatdown, Tim Lincecum