TUESDAY: Lincecum has accepted an outright assignment to Triple-A, Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register tweets. That means Lincecum will continue his career with the Salt Lake Bees, hoping to eventually get another shot in the Majors. As a former MLB star, that likely means Lincecum is swallowing his pride, but he also likely believes that heading to Triple-A provides his clearest path back to the big leagues at this point.
SATURDAY: The Angels have designated right-hander Tim Lincecum for assignment, reports Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). The club’s hope is that Lincecum will stay in the organization and accept an assignment to Triple-A Salt Lake, tweets Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register. Indeed, the Angels are under the impression Lincecum will head to Salt Lake, per Alden Gonzalez of MLB.com (on Twitter). In the meantime, Los Angeles has recalled righty Jose Valdez to take Lincecum’s roster spot.
[RELATED: Updated Angels Depth Chart]
Lincecum joined the pitching-needy Angels as a free agent in May after undergoing hip surgery and then showcasing himself around the majors in somewhat ballyhooed fashion, but his stint with the organization has been a disaster. In possibly his final start of the season, Lincecum surrendered six earned runs on nine hits, two walks and a strikeout in 3 1/3 innings of a 6-4 loss to the Mariners on Friday. That outing increased Lincecum’s ERA to a hideous 9.16 through nine starts, and manager Mike Scioscia was wary of committing to him afterward. Lincecum averaged just over four frames in those nine outings and recorded only one quality start, which came in his June 18 season debut.
A lofty walk rate (5.4 per nine innings) and a decrease in ground balls (40.7 percent rate, down from his career 46.4 percent mark), the latter of which helps to explain his unmanageable 22.9 percent home run-fly ball ratio, are largely behind Lincecum’s run prevention issues. So is a .432 batting average on balls in play, though FanGraphs indicates that Lincecum has been quite susceptible to hard contact, and the 32-year-old’s high-80s fastball velocity hasn’t helped his cause.
Struggles aren’t necessarily anything new for Lincecum, who posted a subpar 4.68 ERA in 615 1/3 innings with the Giants from 2012-15 as his mean fastball velo fell from the low- to mid-90s to the upper 80s. However, he did manage an impressive K/9 (8.4), a playable BB/9 (3.9) and a 45.9 percent grounder rate. Still, the version of Lincecum everyone has seen since 2012 is a far cry from his heyday, in which he was a dominant member of the Giants’ rotation from 2008-11 and took home a pair of National League Cy Young Awards.
The fact that Lincecum wasn’t able to hold a rotation spot, let alone a place on the roster, for an Angels team without fellow starters Garrett Richards, C.J. Wilson, Andrew Heaney and Nick Tropeano – all of whom are on the disabled list – obviously bodes poorly for his future. Barring a significant turnaround this year, his days as a starter could be over. Fortunately for the Angels, they only invested a prorated $2.5MM in Linceum upon signing him.
RIP TO HIS CAREER / COMEBACK
EPPLER…. PLEASE PICKUP OGANDO BEFORE THE RANGERS SNATCH HIM….
Seattle should at least look.
They did they seen his name and surly looked away.
I respect that and DiPoto but Seattle should pass on this.
Maybe a possible set up your out of the bill pen; but not as a starter.
Best of luck to Lincecum
Why do some people think Dipoto is spelled “DiPoto”? Where did that originate?
Most of his baseball cards have it written that way (often as DiPOTO), I can’t find an image of the back of this uniform, but I seem to remember his named spelled DiPOTO on the back of his jersey as well (could be wrong though).
They did look they watched a lot of his pitches especially in the first inning the other night find grass and one find their bull pen. I wanted them to sign him but I was there and even though he looked better after giving up 6 runs and 8 hits in the 1st I think he still gave up 5-6 more hits. There would have been more runs if almost anyone not named Trout was playing CF on a couple of the outs he got too. Not sure about how many total hits he gave up the Mariners got 16 for the game and I don’t want to look it up. Sorry to say but I believe Tim is done too.
Sad we went over the luxury tax for this
What’s sad is that roster with it’s plethora of DFA’s and journeyman is costing the owner $189 million. All that for 46 wins which is over $4 million he’s paying per win.
Is it time for Lincecum to admit that he is no longer a starter and begin working on reinventing himself as a RP?
If he can start throwing max effort for 1 inning as an RP, maybe his velocity and K/9 numbers go back up? Just an idea. It’s that, try to find a way to Pittsburgh to get fixed by Searage, or retire.
Why do you even care how much it’s costing him? If he couldn’t afford it he wouldn’t risk it nor pay it. He’s a billionaire who isn’t afraid to invest and take risks.
Dad: Money doesn’t grow on trees, son.
Son: I know it doesn’t. Because it grows on Arte Moreno…
I don’t care. It’s just interesting with their payroll being so high compared to the rest of the league. You would think they’d be a winning team spending that kind of money but they just struggling to be 4th place. Meanwhile Houston’s payroll is nearly half of ours and they’ve been in the wild card race.
Well, the Angels have had some miserable luck with injury, a big chunk of their payroll is going to three guys – Pujols, Trout and Hamilton. One is the best player in baseball, one is a league-average player and one doesn’t even play for Anaheim. He doesn’t play at all actually. The Dodgers have a similarly large payroll but used it to build depth, which is a big reason why they are still in a race while the top-loaded Angels aren’t.
thank you!!!! hope Tim accepts minor leagues and fixes it, but Angels couldn’t keep letting him start
well that’s unfortunate
O’s should pick him up, and dump either Gallardo or Jimenez. Maybe a bad contract for a bad contract.
No. Lincecum’s contract has about a million dollars left on it. Those pitchers have tens of millions of dollars left on their deals and negative trade value.
I didn’t mean Gallardo or Jimenez for Lincecum. I meant Gallardo or Jimenez dumped for another bad contract. Then, pick up Lincecum to fill the hole in the rotation. A bad Lincecum for the minimum is better than Gallardo or Jimenez,
You clearly haven’t seen lincecum pitch the last four years. Gallardo was good just last year and owned the Jays. The guys coming off an injury and I would still take him over the former freak Tim lincecum.
You obviously haven’t seen Gallardo pitch this year. He is nibbling at the corners with little to no success. The O’s are lucky if Gallardo can get through 5 innings, and the team sweats and suffers through every pitch he makes. I’d rather roll the dice with a desperate Freak.
Wow
As a minor note, I’m pretty sure it’s LHP José Alvarez, not RHP José Valdez, taking Lincecum’s spot
no Jose Valdez is correct. Alvarez is already on roster, he pitched last night
nope. Alvarez was already up seeing as he pitched last night.
I
Valdez is a hard throwing RP we got from Detroit.
Oh ok I see. Thanks for clearing that up
Ok, I gotta ask those who have watched him the most. What happened to him?
When he was drafted scouts believed because of his short stature and slight build that he would never hold up to a starter’s workload. He had four great seasons then just broke down completely. Small pitchers tend to not last long. The scouts were right. His body couldn’t hold up to the work. He might be able to reinvent himself as a reliever but I doubt he wants to. He’s made 100 million dollars in the majors. He’s probably done.
Then it seems to me Lincecum is a self fulfilling prophecy. He used to be known for his cavalier attitude so my question is does that extend to conditioning? Pitchers with slight frames have worked hard and dominated for more than four years. For instance Peavy was one and yet he at least worked change from a star to a decent pitcher. Or better yet Pedro Martinez was traded away by the Dodgers because they thought his frame meant he could never be a decent pitcher and yet he’s a HOFer.
Lincecum was well known for his sweet tooth and all the crap he’d eat. It’s cumulative but diet and exercise, injuries, and wear and tear on his body are all contributors to his fall from grace.
Peavy is 6’1, 200 pounds, not quite in the same class as Lincecum although a similar career, just longer and a little better, but Peavy’s had a ton of injuries too. Peavy had four excellent years and a couple pretty good ones, but also had much more traditional mechanics than Lincecum, although early in his career he threw across his body .
Pedro is, of course, a total outlier in this discussion, like most Hall of Famers are outliers. He was an absolute freak of nature. His 1999 season, given the context, is the best season for a pitcher of all time, and his stretch from 96-2005 is pretty much unmatched by any pitcher in baseball history. He won three Cy Youngs, got robbed out of a fourth because voters were in love with pitcher wins and could have easily won two more. But even Pedro was basically done by the time he was 34 and missed most of 2001 with injuries.
That’s really not close but ok. We’ve seen this been it truly didn’t matter his size but his delivery. If you can’t repeat that’s when you run into trouble. Prime example was Dtrain. You become less flexible you become less effective. Your deception is eliminated plz stop speeding false rumors. Hip injury and reoccurrence was demise. It doesn’t matter your size as a P was matters more is your repeatable delivery and actual stuff
Smaller-frame pitchers are apt to develop more elbow and shoulder injuries at least in part because of the proportionally greater strain on their upper body relative to bigger Ryan, Seaver, or Clemens types with longer torsos and proportionally stronger backs and lower extremities.
However, I believe as Visions does that Lincecum’s career-threatening hip injuries have as much to do with his delivery and flexibility as they do with the size of his frame.
David was pretty correct, I just wanted to elaborate. With Tim the problem stems from his relatively short stature and body. He compensates for this by using his body as a whip or spring with a late rotation, which increases his velocity. The problem with this is it adds stress to both his Torso, and particularly his back. There is also some evidence that he may have been throwing harder with his arm than he should have. He began losing armspeed at a very young age, in 2012 when he was only 28. In 2013 you can see that he actually increases the rotation of his body to compensate for his decreased armspeed. At this time he still has quite a lot of flexibility, more than most people, but flexibility is one of the first things to go and that is where he is generating his power from.
tl;dr, his “bad” mechanics allowed him to throw harder and succeed early, but made it so he couldn’t last.
This is exactly it: The reason why guys like Ryan and Clemens lasted forever was because they used their lower bodies more efficiently and their arms less. Obviously Lincecum had crazy arm action because of that delivery and even Peavy, who wasn’t nearly as small as Lincecum, threw across his body for most of his early career. But guys who are all arm action don’t tend to last long, and small guys tend to use arm action rather than activating their lower half and whole body into their delivery.
Pedro is, of course, the outlier, but Pedro was a freak of nature. And even he was done at 34.
Maybe the SF Giants can convince him to take a bullpen assignment. At least he could retire a Giant and get the send-off from the Giant’s fans he deserves.
Yes and it’s RJ Alvarez.
His ERA is already over 20.00, could not get anyone out. Brought up the wrong guy.
I think that it would not surprise me to see Timmy walk and then play for the Giants AAA team with a hope that they would call him up to a place where he is comfortable. Giants really have no pitching depth at all.
Well at least he gave it one more shot.
The picture with this article is just perfect.
Come on braves claim he we need a starter
Maybe it’s time for Tim Lincecum to transition into a setup or closer role since basically he is good for 1 or 2 innings anyway.
The thing about him as a reliever is that he’s really slow to the plate. So if you bring him on with runners on, they are going to steal on him all day. Not to say he can’t find a way to be an effective reliever it just makes it harder for a manager to bring him in with the tying run on 1st knowing that the running will easily get into scoring position.
In Lincecum’s career he’s never shown a huge propensity to give up stolen bases, certainly he’s been about league average in attempts and success rate. He has to pitch out of the stretch as a starter too.
RJ Alverez has an ERA over 20, maybe they selected the wrong reliever. No they bought up the wrong guy.
Like everyone else, I’m surprised he accepted the assignment… and I also respect his commitment to iron things out. He’ll probably never be an overpowering guy anymore, but I believe he’ll find something to reinvent himself as a productive pitcher. I wish him well.
Goodnight sweet prince.