The Sky is Falling: Lincecum Pitching After Rain Delay

There has been much consternation over the Giants usage of Tim Lincecum in yesterday's game. The media coverage has been virtually the same: Giants were careful all last year plus this spring with his groin problem, then, CRAZY MOTHER OF GOD, they re-use him again after the long rain delay. Even the evil spawn of hell, the L.A. D-gers, didn't trot out their starter again after that delay, they basically burned one of his starts.

I can understand why people are upset. It goes against the grain of what's taught today about how to handle pitchers. Lincecum is "the Franchise (tm)". The Giants are losers anyway (so their thinking goes), why risk our best pitcher.

This Orange is Not an Apple

Here's where I disagree with the herd mentality that sometimes runs roughshod over anyone who disagrees in baseball. They forget that each player is an individual and that each season is different, and generalities, while nice for judging things in general, can fail when examining an individual player. They don't know how to figure out for themselves when things don't follow the "rules".

The Giants weren't just being careful with Lincecum last season, they were studying him and how his body seems to react to things and trying to figure out exactly what they had with him. They worked with him to learn how he does things, and they shared what they thought were best practices but, from what I can tell, deferred to Lincecum and his father on other matters regarding how they do certain things. Particularly once things went south, there was not a lot of urgency to just throw him out there for just a couple more starts just for the purpose of throwing him out there.

So once they figure that they had a good bearing on what they got and reached a trust level of what Lincecum was saying about his body, why not pull him out of the last two starts? Particularly since it allowed them to evaluate other starters for 2008?

Plus, it was his first full professional season: why not give him some added rest? A lot of young pitchers get overused early on, why not shut him down early if you can? I recall Bochy talking about a study that showed that overuse of young pitchers in their first season can cause problems in the future.

But that didn't mean that the Giants will do this forever or that you can't use your pitchers. They were spending his first season learning about the wonders of Lincecum. At some point the learning ends and you take the training wheels off and see what you can do with this young buck. That is this season. People don't seem to realize that.

And guess what? This season is not like last season. He has a year under his belt now. The Giants have a better understanding of what they got and what he can do. They point out his groin problem in spring, but really, what player DOESN'T get shut down, particularly a player they are counting on greatly for the regular season, when they have a groin problem, or even a hint of a groin problem?

Different Does Not Always Mean It's Bad

So I understand how easy it is for the media and fans to criticize. The Giants are not following the "tried and true" path and in life, when you do that, you get criticized. But if they had followed that road in the first place, they would have passed on Lincecum just like the 9 teams ahead of them, and probably picked up Daniel Bard like all the experts were saying they would.

Lincecum is different from most any other pitcher. It's time for people to realize that. If you always treat him like a porcelain glass, you won't ever find out what he can do, what his full potential is. That is the danger of the trend to babying pitchers, you get more and more restrictive that you don't know whether the pitcher could do more. There are silly risks and there are calculated risks. Letting Canseco pitch was a silly risk. Letting Lincecum pitch was a calculated risk.

In addition, they didn't force him out there. They consulted with him. Ultimately, he's putting himself and his career at risk if he does something that don't feel right physically, like Foppert did when he didn't admit to his pain and continued pitching until he was left with no choice but to get TJS. If The Kid felt like he could do it, why not let him, he's been doing it for years now.

He's a Super Freak, He's Super Freaky

And that's the thing that has bothered me from the moment, almost, that the Giants selected him. He's clearly like no one before. He long throws the next day after starting a game. Nobody does that but he's been doing that apparently forever. He doesn't feel enough pain to need to ice his arm. Almost all pitchers need to ice their arms after starting - the only pitcher thus far that I have heard could get away without icing his arm is the pitcher many often compare him to, Roy Oswalt.

As he said after the game, "People have called me a freak of nature before," said Lincecum (1-0). "Now they have another reason to call me that."

So if he says that his arm feels good and that he is good to go, that he had done this before when he was in college without ill effects, why not let him go? Why not pitch him? If he is a freak of nature, we should take advantage of it, not baby him.

Sign On the Dotted Line Please

One thing that I hadn't beaten the drum much on this off-season, and for that I apologize, was the Giants signing Tim Lincecum to a long term contract that buys out his pre-free agent years, like they did with Noah Lowry and Matt Cain. And I don't think that is going to happen, which is probably why Sabean hadn't said a word about it all off-season, because he probably broached the subject with Lincecum and was re-buffed. That wouldn't surprise me.

While Lincecum is not super-greedy - else he would have had Scott Boras as his agent - he does want good money because he thinks he is worth it - and there's nothing wrong with that, none of us can argue with that. That's why he held out to get the same bonus money as the #10 got the year before - if he held to slot, he would have gotten about $200,000 less. The Kid wants to be paid what he thinks he is worth.

And Lincecum revels in showing up people by outdoing expectations. He's been doing that much of his life now, judging from the chip on his shoulder that shows up in interviews when they ask about his size. I think any of us would be the same, having others publicly doubt you and your abilities. Like in the movies when two people are talking about a third person and then the third person yells at the two of them, "HELLO! I'm still in the room!" It must feel like that to get burned in public by the media.

But he's not dumb either, he's actually very smart and hard-working. He knows what he wants and he works hard to get it. He did that all through college, figuring out how to improve on the main complaint about him, which mainly dealt with him walking too many. He wanted a certain dollar figure (I believe it was $1M) in the amateur draft before we picked him (I think it was Cleveland) and they wouldn't give it to him, so he just came back and won the Golden Spike award for the best college player in the national.

And I see him doing it in the majors too. The latest example being him adding another pitch to his repertoire this spring when he pitched well enough last season to be a top pitcher in the league. Adding another effect pitch could push him from "only" being a top pitcher to being one of the elite in the majors. How many other pitchers would rest on their laurels and be content with just being very good. He aspires for greatness, much like Cain does too, that's why I think it's stupid for anyone to talk about trading either one.

So I can see him having a dollar figure in his head and the Giants probably were pushing a contract similar to Cain and Lowry's plus some inflation, and I would bet that the chasm between those numbers were great enough that Lincecum said, "hey, I believe in myself and that's too low. I'm going to add another pitch and show you that I'm worth every freaking dollar that I am asking for."

Of course, it could be that the Giants don't totally buy the freak act either, at least at the GM level - the rumors were strong this off-season that some in Giants management think that it would be better to switch Lincecum to being a closer like Papebon - and so they don't want to offer such a big contract to a player whose arm and/or shoulder could blow out just like that. Perhaps it is they who want another year of "kicking the tires" to see how Lincecum's body holds up to two years of major league baseball before they commit to a long term contract.

In any case, I think that there will be no contract, because if he becomes as good as he appears to be capable of, he will probably get the highest contract ever given any second year player, whatever that is. It will be "shades of Barry Zito" but I think it will be worth every penny and more. He not only thinks differently, but he is different, and should not be treated like he is like anyone else ever in history: he isn't, he is as unique as they come.

Body Whisperer

The key thing to me is that he listens to his body. He has, with his father's immeasurable help, crafted a pitching motion that puts relatively less stress on his body than other pitchers. So less that he is able to long throw the next day if he felt like it. If his body breaks down, it will not be because of him being small, it will be because that's just the limits of his body.

Just like it is just the limits of his body when any pitcher 6' 5" or taller has his body break down. Being big doesn't mean that he gets a pass on physical problems: being bigger just means he can take more punishment, he is built more like a horse and thus can get away with more stress on his body, given that most pitchers today don't pitch like they did 40-50 years ago. Lincecum's body clearly takes very little punishment compared to others, else he would not be able to throw the next day, else he would have to ice his arm immediately after a start. Why can't everybody see this?