Tim Lincecum and the multi-award pitchers

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Tim Lincecum‘s 2012 regular season was so poor that many folks believed he had to be hiding an injury. The speculation began in April, after just two rough starts that followed a rocky spring training, and intensified through June and July, as the Giants’ erstwhile ace lugged a 6.42 ERA into the All-Star Break. As far as I’ve heard, no injury was ever disclosed; Lincecum never missed a start, and his second half was passable, with a 3.83 ERA. But his final numbers remained unsightly enough — a 5.18 ERA despite a friendly home park — that I wondered:

“Was that the worst full year by a multi-award-winning pitcher?”

Pretty clearly, the answer is yes.

Nineteen pitchers have won multiple Cy Young or MVP Awards. In order of their most recent awards:

To be sure, a few of these guys had an injury-shortened year with worse numbers than Lincecum posted this year. But we’re approaching this question assuming that Lincecum was not injured. So I put together the following table showing the worst season ERA+ for each multi-award pitcher, in a season of 20+ starts. I’ve included the bWAR and age for that season; note that, in one or two cases, the pitcher’s worst WAR season did not make this list, due to the 20-start minimum. The seasons listed all occurred either before or after the award-winning years; none came in between.

[table id=72 /]

Lincecum’s 67 ERA+ is tied with the worst of Seaver, who made just 21 starts in ’82 before injury shut him down. Seaver was also 37 years old, although he proved good for four more solid seasons. Pedro had a 75 ERA+ pitching with nothing but guile in his last full year, and the rookie Maddux had a 76 with a poor defensive team and before he found his control.

Considering their career arcs along with their numbers, just one of those 18 other pitchers is remotely similar to Lincecum. Like The Freak, he was an offbeat right-hander with a musical bent, who won his awards back-to-back at age 24 and 25. His name is Denny McLain.

There are important differences between them. One, McLain helped sink his career with childish behavior not yet evidenced by Lincecum. Two, McLain’s early workload may have led to the injuries that finished him by age 28; he hurled over 1,500 innings in the majors through age 25, plus over 200 IP in the minors at age 19. Lincecum had about 600 IP through age 25; he didn’t top 180 IP in a season until age 23, and has never thrown 230 in a regular season.

The bigger point is that none of the multi-award pitchers just lost the magic in mid-career and later got it back. Almost to a man, once they started having good years, they never had a truly bad one except when injured or old.

This study is far too small to say much about Tim Lincecum’s prospects for regaining his All-Star form, but it does heighten curiosity about his next season, which is the last of his current contract.

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Hartvig

11 years ago

Wow. He really is in some pretty uncharted territory. The only 2 other seasons that were at an age near when most pitchers are at the peaks were Randy Johnson’s & Gaylord Perry’s. Johnson, of course, was still in the process of getting his mechanics ironed out. But Perry had already had one really good season and would go on to fashion a decade and a half long string of really good ones after his little detour. But Perry and Lincecum are hardly the same type of pitcher. My guess is that there is some sort of physical problem behind… Read more »

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Doug

11 years ago

I suppose the other question is “How deserving was Lincecum of the awards he received?”. However, by looking at multiple awards, it drastically reduces the suspicion that the voters were unfortunately beguiled by a fluke season.

MikeD

11 years ago

Reply to Doug

Always good to ask the question, although I certainly don’t see him as undeserving. He led the league in ERA+ in 2008 at 168, along with K’s, K%, HR% and other categories. The following year, although he didn’t lead the leauge, his ERA+ rose to 171, while continuing his high strikeout ways. He led the league in WAR both years. His dropoff has been quite spectacular. Looks like the Giants were wise not to sign him to a much longer-term contract. That said, I do like his chances for a comeback on some level in 2013, simply because 2012 was… Read more »

bstar

11 years ago

JA, James Gentile at Beyond the Box Score looked at Lincecum’s season in June and determined it was the worst 1-year drop-off ever using the prior three years’ ERA+ average as the comparison point. He put the cut-off at age 30 and below to eliminate older declining pitchers. It’s easy to scan if you want to take a quick look:

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/6/21/3095177/tim-lincecum-and-other-epic-collapses-in-history

MikeD

11 years ago

Reply to bstar

I guess it’s worth adding, though, that Lincecum pitched better the second half of the year to roughly a 3.80 ERA if I remember correctly. I wonder if that impacts Gentile’s evaluation from June.

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John Autin

11 years ago

Reply to MikeD

Also worth noting that Lincecum’s 3.83 ERA in the 2nd half would have scored about a 92 ERA+ (estimated by means of others in the SF rotation) — so, an improvement, yes, but still below average for an NL starter.

MikeD

11 years ago

Reply to John Autin

And also a reminder of how a few years ago during the height of the hitting boom, an ERA of 3.80 would have scored an ERA+ of more than 100, where now it’s still below league average. I came of age in a generation where an ERA of 4.00 led me to wonder if the pitcher would have a job the next year. Then after I grew up and watched way more AL and AL East baseball in a DH, PED-powered world, I finally grew to accept an ERA of 4.00 as not a bad thing. I now have to… Read more »

bstar

11 years ago

Reply to MikeD

Mike, it did bring Lincecum’s drop-off down a little bit but not enough for him to avoid having the worst dip in ERA+ ever according to JDG’s criteria. Lincecum’s 3-yr avg. for 2009-11 was 135, but only 67 in 2012 for a drop-off of 68 points.

MikeD

11 years ago

Reply to bstar

67, yeah that’s, uhh, quite bad. Stunning to see it attached to Lincecum, especially since he’s not 40-years-old at the end of his career, or coming off of a substantial injury.

My generally positive or hopeful outlook on these things leads me to believe he’ll figure it out to be at least get back to league average, if not better. Still misses bats. Not that I have much to base that on beyond hope.

JDGentile

11 years ago

Reply to bstar

His 4Y/1Y drop-off is even more catastrophic, as that would also include his first Cy Young Season.

Nice of you to wipe the dust off that old post, bstar!

bstar

11 years ago

Reply to JDGentile

It was a different approach but reached similar conclusions, so I thought it was relevant to the discussion.

11 years ago

Lincecum’s single worst month remains August 2010 when he want 0-5 with a 7.82 ERA. So he’s had some struggles before.

Jeff

11 years ago

I’m thinking Lincecum is suffering specifically from: 1. A drop in velocity(His fastball usually hit 94-95 just a few seasons ago, now it’s never higher than 92-93 and that’s only one or two times per start if that. 2. Mixed with lost velocity his changeup(strikeout pitch)is now less effective due to the greater similarities in ball speed. 3. His control has completely disappeared. His landing foot(left foot) seems to land sometimes awkwardly(to the left or right)which pushes the ball to one side of the plate or another resulting in his high walk rate/pitch count. Barring an injury no one knows… Read more »

brp

11 years ago

Reply to Jeff

I seem to recall Lincecum getting HAMMERED in the early innings this year. There were numerous starts (at least early in the year, not sure if it continued) that he gave up 3,4,5 runs in the first or second innings but would then throw the next 4-5 innings with nothing allowed. This happened probably a handful of times and struck me as odd… I thought hitters were supposed to adjust to pitchers?

11 years ago

Reply to brp

His 1st inning ERA was 7.64. Second inning was 2.45. (after struggling in the first he was probably facing the bottom of the order in the 2nd).

Next innings go like this:

3rd: 5.57
4th: 7.04
5th: 2.02
6th: 8.38

Not really sure what conclusions you can draw from that.

Another odd split is by batting order position. He was hammered by the #4 spot (.998 OPS). Next highest was .867 by….wait are you ready for this….the 7th spot in the order. Weird.

Steven

11 years ago

Denny McLain: Two years before he won thirty-one games, he was the starting pitcher for the AL in the All-Star Game in St. Louis, opposite Koufax. He was 13-4 at the time, then tailed off badly in the second half, but still got twenty wins. He and Tony Conigliaro were the two big “what-ifs” of the late sixties.

11 years ago

How about Vida Blue’s 1979 season as a comp for Lincecum’s 2012 season? Oddly, it also happened with the Giants. Blue wasn’t a two-time award winner but he did have a Cy Young/MVP season and finished 3rd in the Cy Young balloting the year before. His change in ERA was almost exactly the same as Lincecum. Tim went from 2.74 to 5.18. Vida went from 2.79 to 5.01. Home/Road splits were also nearly identical. For Lincecum, 4.15/6.43 home/road ERAs. For Blue, 4.10/6.29. Blue also pitched better in the second half (4.22 ERA). Blue’s ERA+ of 70 was nearly identical to… Read more »

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John Autin

11 years ago

Reply to Ed

Very nice find, Ed. Another Blue/Lincecum parallel is their walk rates in the focus year, both career highs to that point — 4.2 BB/9 for Blue, 4.4 for Lincecum.

Blue’s rate was 2.4 the year before and 2.5 the year after. But in 1981-82, even though the bottom line remained good, you could see he was walking a very fine line, averaging 3.9 walks and just 4.9 Ks per 9 innings. Success is hard to maintain on that base.

e pluribus munu

11 years ago

Reply to John Autin

I agree that this is a great comparison. In Blue’s case, I’ve always wondered whether that erratic performance may have been related to drug issues that didn’t emerge till a few years later. (No suggestion that Lincecum’s case is related there.)

If Blue had not handicapped himself early by holding out in ’72, and gotten involved with Pnon-EDs later, I think he could have been one of the greatest pitchers ever, especially since he ultimately proved to have a lot of durability despite the dramatic over-use at age 21.

11 years ago

Ryan Vogelsong for Cy Young.

Chad

11 years ago

I know it doesn’t meet the criteria, as he only started 13 games with 19 games total, but Roy Halladay’s 2000 season immediately came to my mind. ERA of 10.64 and a ERA+ of 48 for the year, with a WHIP of 2.202 and a WAR of -2.8

Max

11 years ago

I fully expect the Mets to decide to spend money again in 2014, overpay Lincecum despite another subpar 2013, and pay him $20 million a year until 2022 to go 10-10 with a 5 ERA (while deciding not to sign a much better pitcher with a far better track record). I am not bitter nor disgruntled at all, I swear.

11 years ago

Reply to Max

I think this is the most interesting aspect of Lincecum’s 2012: it seriously raises the prospect of the Giants not offering him a contract in 2014. Before this year you would have assumed a huge contract was a given, but now you wouldn’t be so sure. Next season will be fascinating.