Checking in on Tim Lincecum

A month ago I wrote an article looking at changes in San Francisco Giants' starting pitcher Tim Lincecum's pitch command and velocity this season.  In particular, I found that the velocity on his fastball and slider had decreased by about a mile per hour, and that the average distance of his pitches from the edge of the strikezone had increased--assuming that, generally, pitches near the edge of the strikezone are better than those in the middle or nowhere near it.

Since the all-star break, though, Lincecum's ERA, at least, has been a respectable 3.66.  Have his command and speed improved as well?

It turns out that his speed is the same as earlier this year, with a fastball averaging around 90.4 mph, and about a mile per hour slower than last year.  So, no improvement on that front.

His average distance from the edge of the strikezone, on the other hand, has gotten a bit better--it's been at .940*, as compared to .923 last year and .961 for the first half of 2012**.

So, long story short, there are some signs that his pitching might be picking up but nothing conclusive.


By the way, I'll be announcing results from the second contest and introducing the third one in the next day or two.

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The value for the second half of this year is only statistically significantly different from the value from last year, and from the value for the first half of this year, at the p= .30 level--so the jury's out on this one.

Some calculations about Tim Lincecum

Tim Lincecum is a starting pitcher for the San Francisco Giants.  For the first five years  of his career he was one of the best pitchers in the majors, with a cumulative ERA of 2.98.  This year, however, he has been atrocious, with an ERA currently at 5.93.  I decided to take a look at pitch-by-pitch data to see if I could make anything of it.

I noticed that he had an unusually large difference between home and away ERA--3.43 at home, but 9.00 on the  road.  Coupled with the source of home field advantage, I decided to investigate something: could his difference in play this year come from umpires restricting his strike zone?

As it turns out, no.  In both 2011 and 2012 about 10% of his pitches that batters didn't swing at were balls miss-classified as strikes by the umpires, and about 2.5% were strikes that were called balls; umpires were no harsher this year than last.

I then took a look at placement.  In particular, all else equal better pitches are generally around the edge of the strikezone, and worse pitches are generally either right down the middle or way outside the strikezone.  So, I decided to look at the average distance from his pitches to the vertical and horizontal edges of the strikezone; this time there was a difference.  In 2011 the sum of the vertical and horizontal misses from the edges of the strikezone averaged .923 feet; in 2012 it averaged .961 feet.  It doesn't seem like a huge difference, but it is statistically significant, with just a 2% chance of occurring randomly (having a t-test value of -3.23).  So, it does seem like his control is down from last year.

I also looked at the velocity of his pitches.  There's been a lot of talk about his velocity decline; the decline, as it turns out, is real but not that precipitous: his fastballs and sliders have slowed down by about a mile per hour on average, though his changeup and curveball are still at roughly the same speeds there were in 2011.

So Lincecum's pitches are slower and less controlled than last year; in the end it just looks like Lincecum is pitching worse this season.

Is there anything else I should look at?