The “hump” you are talking about is something that really needs to be studied. I hear a lot about pitchers curve not having a hump or having a hump and I have yet to see that in the data. It is on my list for things to track down but it might be a bit. Any other thoughts would be welcome as well.

Thanks for the great site. Bornby Bits is #1 on my favorites. It also helped me big-time in my fantasy league (your site pretty much showed that Corpas was a time bomb and Fuentes was a two dollar closer.)

Timmy has been throwing the slider and change more. The slider, in particular, seems effective. He commands it really well, and because his other pitches are so good, who’s going to be looking for the slider?

In return for the great knowledge you have provided me, Josh, let me try to reciprocate by giving you my take on Tim Lincecum and his pitches.

Tim threw only the fastball and curve when I first saw him pitch for San Jose, although he had thrown other pitches - including a knuckle ball - at other times before he became a professional. Two winters ago Tim added a change up to his professional arsenal, and this past winter he added a slider.

As you note, Tim throws about two-thirds fastballs. This season he has thrown a few sliders and has increased his use of the change up (although he threw a lot of curves in his last outing).

Tim uses his change up primarily against lefties,and I believe he has done the same with the new slider. Against right-handers, he goes primarily fastball/curve. Tim hasn’t thrown many sliders and has seemed to be getting away from the pitch his last two starts, even though it seems to me to have been effective. After Tim’s April 24th start, Tim told his dad that he had thrown about eight sliders. I had him down for only five, but the good news is that his slider movement is good enough that I can mostly tell the slider by its greater speed (almost 10 mph faster than his curve).

My personal thought is that he should use more change ups against right-handed batters. He was doing so more often late last season and early on in 2008, but he seems to have gotten away from it a bit. (By the way, I haven’t been overly fond of how Bengie Molina calls games for Tim, preferring those called by Guillermo Rodriguez and Steve Holm, who generally seem to have made better use of Tim’s overall arsenal. I would like to see Tim take more responsibility for calling his own pitches, as I think he can call the best game of the bunch.)

Regarding Tim’s curve, he made what I considered to be a rather cryptic comment about it, saying something about releasing the pitch higher, enabling major league hitters to recognize the pitch. My observation - and your PITCH/fx charts - don’t seem to indicate much difference in his release points, so I’m guessing that because of the heavy spin Tim puts on the ball - causing it to look as though it is falling over a waterfall at times - batters were getting better at recognizing it. I suspect that is part of what prompted him to develop his slider over the winter.

To me, if Tim keeps the curve ball down and keeps it or just below the knees, it is a highly effective pitch. I’m sure he has noticed that major league batters aren’t as likely to swing at his curve balls in the dirt as horribly overmatched minor league hitters and college players were. But frankly, I like the pitch a lot. I believe he has yielded only two (perhaps even only one, as that is all I can remember for sure, the one coming on the very first curve ball he threw in the majors) homers on the curve.

That said, as your work over the winter indicated and in contradistinction to what the incomparable Mike Krukow has been telling Giants fans this year, at the end of last season, Tim’s change up was his most unhittable pitch. Tim has yielded only one home run on the pitch, leaving one high and inside to Todd Helton in one of Tim’s very early performances last season. Tim’s change up really drops off compared to his fastball, and he throws it about 10 mph slower than his heater.

Tim used his change up for the first time in a regular-season professional game in his first start at Fresno last season. He threw the pitch sparingly, but still struck out either two or three batters with it. Tim had eight strikeouts in the opener, and they came three, three and two between his three pitches, although I have forgotten which pitch yielded only the two.

As you charts show, Tim throws his off-speed stuff about a third of the time. I would like to see him throw it even more, perhaps up to 40-45% of the time. Tim has now thrown over 1000 off-speed pitches in his first 12 months of pitching in the majors, and only two or three of them have left the park. Either 10 or 11 of his 2000 or so fastballs have left the field, which is also quite good—but not as good as his off-speed deliveries.

That said, I see that Tim throws his fastball only about two percent more often on his first pitch to a batter than he throws it overall. Even though I would like to see Tim throw FEWER fastballs overall, I would like to see him throw MORE fastballs to open up hitters. Here is why.

This season Tim has thrown 102 strikes on his 179 first pitches to batters. When his first pitch has been a strike, batters are hitting a mere .250/.265/.312/.577 against him. When the first pitch is a ball, batters are batting a far more impressive .279/.416/.426/.842. With opposing batters developing an OPS that is nearly 50% higher against Tim when his first pitch is a ball, it appears to me he would benefit from throwing as many first-pitch strikes as he reasonably can. To me that suggests more first-pitch fastballs, perhaps some of his get-it-in variety.

Batters are hitting .412/.389/.412/.801 on Tim’s first pitch, but they have put only 18 out of his 102 first-pitch strikes into play. Notice that their BA is identical to their SLG in first-pitch at bats. Clearly batters aren’t taking his first pitch out of the park.

In Tim’s career to date, batters have hit only two homers on first pitches. In fact, in 87 first-pitch at bats against Tim thus far in his career, batters are hitting .276 and slugging .391. Those numbers don’t seem to be compelling enough to dissuade one from throwing more first-pitch strikes.

When Tim gets his first pitch in for a strike, he allows fewer hits—and FAR fewer walks and home runs. So I would like to see his catchers call for more fastballs on his first pitch of at bats.

Then once Tim gets ahead of hitters - and particularly with two strikes - I would like to see more off-speed stuff to put them away. Keep in mind too that the more off-speed stuff Tim throws when he is ahead in the count, the more effective his fastball is likely to be when he DOES use it in such situations.

So I like the formula of more first-pitch fastballs, resulting in more first-pitch strikes. Then more off-speed stuff ahead in the count, resulting in less contact and presumably an ever harder to hit fastball when said fastball is used less frequently in such situations.

My point is that Tim is already quite a force on the mound. As he and his catchers learn more and more, it would appear he can become an even bigger one—and that would be unbelievably good.

One last point: Tim pitched a few games early in the season in which he almost totally abandoned the curve ball and threw mostly fastballs and change ups, a la Jason Schmidt at times. Tim was effective with just the two pitches. I believe Tim can get by with two pitches—and that if he mixes all four up well, he can be almost unhittable.

Heck, at just 1.49, he has been pretty darn hard to hit as it is. :) That said, his earned run strand rate has been over 90%, and that isn’t going to continue. But by throwing more first-pitch fastballs and getting ahead in the count - then throwing more off-speed deliveries once he is out front - I believe Tim will give up even fewer hits and keep even more balls in the park. Plus, more first-pitch strikes should mean fewer walks.

Let’s see: fewer hits, fewer homers, fewer walks. Coming from a 1.49 base, that sounds like a pretty deadly combination to me. :)

Thanks for the great write up. Seriously that should be it’s own post. As a little treat I’m going to share with you guys some early stuff I am working on for my hardballtimes article next week. It is in fact on the “hump” that some curve balls have in comparison with the fastball. Here is a side view of the average Lincecum fastball and curve and you can see his hump.

Sorry the site is shrinking the image a bit. Here it is in the full view. His curve has a max distance from his fastball at 23 feet from where I start tracking the ball 55 feet from home plate which is just about league average but his max height differential is about 10 inches with the league average at 7 inches. I’m not sure yet how bit a deal that is but something to pay attention to. This is all from 2008 data BTW.