Watching Tim Lincecum this season has been like watching a band like Motley Crue on the last legs of what’s hopefully their final farewell tour. Each show is a grind. Sure, there might be the occasional moment of brilliance when you think, “Hey, these guys still got it.” Yet ultimately attempting to reach every note is a struggle, and there’s just no way the overall performance matches the greatness that came years before.
After signing with the Angels at the beginning of June, the artist formerly known as “The Freak” has been awful. Despite a promising debut, he’s 2-5 with an ERA north of 8. His last two starts in particular have been atrocious. On July 24th in Houston, he lasted only an inning and a third while allowing eight earned runs. This past Friday, he opened his start against Boston by throwing eight straight balls–he took the loss after issuing six walks in just five innings.
The last few seasons have been a shocking turn of events for Lincecum, who used to be one of the nastiest pitchers in the league. Back in 2008–Lincecum’s first Cy Young-winning season–he was sixth in average fastball velocity and he had the ability to touch 99 miles per hour. Yet aside from having one of MLB’s better fastballs, Lincecum had a deadly arsenal of off-speed pitches as well. Consider this: Batters hit a combined .153 against his changeup, curveball, and slider in 2008. Moreover, in 2009, Lincecum’s changeup measured as the best pitch among starters in baseball according to Fangraph’s Pitch Type system, which assesses how well batters fare against a certain type of pitch.
Now, Lincecum can barely touch 90 mph. His average fastball velocity so far in 2016 is only 87.7 mph, and at times Lincecum’s two-seamers sit at just 84. With batters hitting an absurdly high .333 and .519 against his four and two-seam fastballs respectively, Lincecum has lost so much confidence in these pitches that he has resorted to using his changeup as his primary pitch. This hasn’t worked, either. Batters are pounding this once great pitch to the tune of a .348 batting average.
It’s hard to imagine it now, but Lincecum was once on track for a Hall of Fame career. His WAR of 25.9 through his first five years compares very favorably to many other elite pitchers. Clayton Kershaw’s WAR through five years, for instance, was only 23.6. Roy Halladay and Felix Hernandez, two other potential Hall of Fame pitchers from the past ten years, had respective WAR’s of 18.0 and 18.6 in their first five seasons.
But after a stellar start, Lincecum’s career took a nosedive. By 2012, Lincecum was essentially a middle reliever for the Giants during their second World Series run. And even though he did throw two no-hitters during the 2013 and 2014 seasons, Lincecum was so shaky that San Francisco nearly left him off their postseason roster altogether before the 2014 playoffs (he only ended up pitching 1.2 innings).
What happened? I suppose the fact that Lincecum lost many miles per hour off his fastball explains most of his decline. However, Lincecum never received Tommy John surgery or had any notable injuries, which makes me wonder why he lost so much zip off his fastball to begin with. But while the latter half of his career is a mystery, what I do know is this: Tim Lincecum has had one of the strangest careers of any Major Leaguer.
Here are three other players from the 2000’s whose career trajectories are as odd as Lincecum’s.
David Ortiz
In contrast to Lincecum, Ortiz had arguably the worst start to a potential Hall of Fame career in history (failed drug tests aside). Before joining the Red Sox in 2003, Ortiz produced a WAR of 2.2 in his first six seasons with the Twins. Based on other Hall of Fame players who have had similarly pedestrian beginnings, Ortiz stands out. Brooks Robinson, who was regarded as the Hall of Fame position player who got off to the slowest start in that article I linked, still had a WAR of 7.5 through six seasons. Nellie Fox, Willie Stargell, and Roberto Clemente–three of the other slow-starters that author mentioned–had respective WAR’s of 7.5, 12.2, and 23.6.
Ortiz’s sudden dominance at the dish once he joined the Red Sox, along with a few clutch moments, helped spark an unexpected thirteen year run of greatness. Since ’03, no one outside of Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera has been more productive at the plate than Ortiz. Not bad for someone who was waived by Minnesota. Moreover, as if things weren’t already strange enough, Ortiz is having perhaps his best season at forty years old: His current slugging percentage of .652, if it holds up, will be a career-high.
However, you want to know what the most perplexing part of Ortiz’s career really is? Despite the fact that he morphed from a replacement-level player to one of this generation’s greatest hitters, he has escaped all condemnation for a failed steroid test back in 2009.
Julio Franco
The fact that Franco’s MLB career lasted until his 48th birthday isn’t strange as much as it is impressive. Even at 45, Franco still hit .309 in over 350 at bats for the Atlanta Braves.
But what was really odd about Franco was that he lasted for an additional ten years even after he looked as if he was washed up by the end of 1997. After hitting only 7 home runs in 120 games that season, Franco’s career, at least at the highest level, appeared to be over at age 38. Until he returned to the Majors full time in 2001, Franco bounced around from professional leagues in Mexico, Japan, and South Korea. Even after seeing Franco succeed in those leagues, I don’t really understand why the Braves would’ve been interested in him as a player. It’s not like Franco was never productive: He won a batting title in 1991 and even appeared in three consecutive All-Star games at one point. But wouldn’t you rather give a utility role to a younger player who might have more potential than a forty-year-old whose best days are clearly behind him? And yet, contrary to what I would have expected, Franco produced more than enough over those next six seasons to justify his spot on an MLB roster.
Having said all this, forget everything I just mentioned: The strangest part of Julio Franco’s baseball career is that it’s still not over: At 57 years old, he’s a player-manager for some semi-professional team in Japan. Apparently he’s still raking, too.
Rick Ankiel
I’m sure some baseball fans might remember Rick Ankiel, who was last seen in the Majors in 2013 after several productive seasons as a hitter. His best year certainly came in 2008, when he clocked 25 home runs in what was his first full season in the Majors since 2000, when he finished 2nd in the NL rookie of the year voting as a pitcher…wait, what?
That’s right: Ankiel was a highly-touted flamethrower who was regarded to have a devastating sinker and an untouchable curveball in addition to his high-90’s heat. In his first season in the starting rotation, Ankiel looked like he was the real deal, striking out over a batter an inning. The problem was that Ankiel was a headcase on the mound who had trouble locating his pitches. No, I mean, he really had trouble locating his pitches:
Things became so bad, particularly after that playoff outing against the Braves, that Ankiel never recovered. He tried to fix his command issues in the minors during the 2001 season, but it didn’t work. Then, as Ankiel started to get on the right track in 2002, he injured his elbow and had to get Tommy John surgery. After he finally made enough progress to make a late-season appearance for the Cardinals in 2004, Ankiel’s control woes resurfaced in early 2005. At that point, Ankiel abruptly announced he was done as a pitcher.
He hadn’t completely called it quits, though. Ankiel decided to make a go-of-it as a position player as casually as you or I might announce that we’re going to the movies on a given night. It took him a few years, but seven seasons removed from the time Ankiel was pitching in Cardinals playoff games, he developed into a good enough power hitter and center-fielder to start consistently for two seasons in St. Louis. He may not have achieved the stardom that many expected him to, but Rick Ankiel’s unconventional career at least concluded on a more positive note.
Lincecum Angels photo courtesy of Fox Sports;
