Thursday/Friday BP: Alex Pavlovic on his Hall of Fame vote for Tim Lincecum

Good morning, baseball fans!

As always these days, it’s a slow time for baseball news. So we’re circling back on the Hall of Fame ballots. This time, we’ll be looking at one of our own local beat writers, Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area, who submitted his first ballot this year, which included votes for former San Francisco Giants Barry Bonds (his final appearance on the ballot) and Tim Lincecum (first appearance).

Pavlovic explains his ballot choices in a wonderful piece here that you should definitely read as well. He explains that Bonds was an obvious choice, and that he doesn’t find it rational to exclude players from the PED era, when it’s clear that that was just a part of the game at that time.

But it was his explanation for Lincecum that I found particularly moving. It’s clear that Lincecum is never going to be a traditional pick for the Hall of Fame. While his meteoric rise is unparalleled in the modern age, it was too short, the decline came too soon. However, that short-lived but incredibly bright peak, and the joy that Lincecum brought to the game are two of the reasons Pavlovic included him on his ballot. His rationale was that talent and joy like that deserve another year on the ballot. He concluded, in his own words, that:

“It doesn’t feel right for a career that interesting and special to be pushed off the ballot after just one year, and ultimately that made it a pretty easy call to fill the box next to his name.”

I respect it and agree whole-heartedly.

If you’d like some more recent Tim Lincecum nostalgia content (and honestly, who could blame you with the state of the world being what it is), check out Maria Guardado’s recent post for MLB’s website all about the glory days of The Freak.

Old, random MCC article for you to read

As a treat, let’s dust off this gem. You’ve earned it by existing through January of 2022 thus far.

50 awesome things about Tim Lincecum’s no-hitter (July 14th, 2013 - Grant Brisbee)

How many days has it been since the owners locked out the players?

51 cold and miserable days since the owners chose to lock out the players unnecessarily in order to paint them as the reason for the delay in the CBA negotiations. But at least the people aren’t buying it.