What is Digg?67 Comments
- Richandler, on 11/12/2008, -1/+17Wait what? A SF team gracing the the cover of a sports game!! Huzzah! Now we just need to learn how to win games here in the Bay Area.
- jboitnott, on 11/12/2008, -1/+14This kid is being compared to Doc Gooden. He's definitely the best Giants pitcher in 40 years.
- GregFD3S, on 11/12/2008, -1/+13A SF Giants story on the front page of Digg? As a Giants fan and a Digg fan, this is epic for me.
- GregFD3S, on 11/12/2008, -0/+10Here come the Digg baseball bashers, everybody duck!
- KMAC2580, on 11/12/2008, -2/+11I love having Lincecum on my Giants. He needs braces though.
- Edger, on 11/12/2008, -0/+7lynne - sih - cum
- dookie1481, on 11/12/2008, -0/+7Note the words "2 months". Lincecum wrecked ***** all year and should've won 23 games or so if not for his inept offense and ***** bullpen.
Jay - dalnet22, on 11/12/2008, -0/+7He didn't win the MVP.
- kdamp, on 11/12/2008, -1/+7Wins are retarded, and I hate you.
- turtlegroove, on 11/12/2008, -1/+7Maybe he can reteach Zito how to pitch again..worst contract ever?
- GregFD3S, on 11/12/2008, -1/+6Ahem... Tim Lincecum also won the Cy Young award yesterday.
- alexkball, on 11/12/2008, -0/+5He did not win the MVP, he won the Cy Young Award.
This information is in both the article and the description. - NeoCortex, on 11/12/2008, -0/+5And for the second year in a row, he sucked in the postseason.
- ajUCI, on 11/12/2008, -0/+5They don't call this kid "The Franchise" for nothing. Keep up the good work Tim.
- IAmTheGuy, on 11/12/2008, -0/+5Indians fan here.
CC had a couple stumbles the spring this year if memory serves. The whole year thing is what made him not get the Cy Young Award I imagine. I'm sad we lost CC but at the time we had too many pitchers and needed to rehaul (fill it with prospects which I'm happy about) our team. We also had Cliff Lee who played phenomenally. - brainpile3000, on 11/12/2008, -0/+5Hopefully this game doesn't suck as bad as it did in '08. 2K7 was significantly better. 2k9 is going to have to make big time strides to get on pace with The Show.
- taiwanniggadu, on 11/12/2008, -0/+4congrats timmy
- xpike, on 11/12/2008, -0/+4Too bad 2K Sports doesn't know how to make baseball games.
In any case, grats to Lincecum! Glad the Giants didn't trade him for Alex Rios. - davewashere, on 11/12/2008, -1/+5146 innings last year, 227 innings this year. That's a recipe for disaster. Mark my words: Tim Lincecum will not pitch a full season next year. Doc Gooden could pitch 225+ innings every year. Same with C.C. Sabathia. Tim Lincecum is not either of those guys. He lacks size, which generally means less power coming from his legs and more strain on his arm.
- GregFD3S, on 11/12/2008, -1/+5Yes, he won 22 games, but he also had 7 losses and a 3.30 ERA. Lincecum has 18 wins and 5 losses with a 2.62 and not to mention the most strikeouts in baseball.
- kirualeorio, on 11/12/2008, -2/+6Wins are overrated.
A win is something that has nothing to do with how well a guy is pitching. Something that has happened a few times this year to the aforementioned Matt Cain. He could be pitching a great game, give up only one hit, that being a home run. If his own team doesn't score a run, he doesn't get the win. Now if Cain is having a bad day and gives up 8 runs in 5 innings but the team scores 9 runs. He could get a win.
The best indicator of a pitchers ability is WHIP (Walks and hits per inning pitched). This shows truly how well a pitcher is pitching. A low WHIP is a good pitcher. A low ERA (Earned Run Average) is also a good indicator. - philberttheduck, on 11/12/2008, -0/+3The Show is a much better game but props to Tim anyway. As a dodger fan, this guy definitely deserves his props
- ngmcs8203, on 11/12/2008, -0/+3As an A's fan I'm always down for buying a game when a local player graces the cover. Owen Wilson and Thornton on the NHL 2K covers and now Lincecum will be the reason I invest in this series again. I haven't played the game much since MLB 2K6.
- bundwallah, on 11/12/2008, -0/+3C'mon. It would take 10 minutes to make that cover. No insight, advance notice, etc. Just good project management and Photoshop skills. Its not like the game is already on the shelves.
Don't believe the hype. - NeoCortex, on 11/12/2008, -1/+4It's too early to be considering him as one of the greats. Let's see if he can remain consistent for a few years first.
- samtpage, on 11/12/2008, -0/+3Doc Gooden's arm practically fell off after his 3rd season, fewer strikeouts, fewer innings. He's a terrible example of a durable pitcher.
- username7410, on 11/12/2008, -2/+5I just ***** love that the Mariners passed on this guy, who happens to be from this area and went to the UW only to take Brandon Marrow... nice call you idiots!
- thegamingguy, on 11/12/2008, -0/+3I completely meant Cy Young... what a dope I am! My bad. Still what a day.
- Tegurit34, on 11/13/2008, -0/+3Actually, even WHIP and ERA have so much influence in them that the pitcher has nothing to do with that talent evaluators completely forgo them in this day and age. Guys like Greg Smith look better than Manny Parra thanks to ERA and WHIP, when that's just ridiculous. In general, when you get into complicated arbitrary score keeping stats and add and divide them with another, the evaluation gets snowballed together with a lot of noise (this includes Sabermetrics like VORP and GameScore that you want nothing to do with).
The proper way to go is with percentages of what pitcher's actually have control over, and what aren't influenced by his team's offense, his team's defense or his home park. Things like strikeout percentages, walk percentages, HBP percentages and groundball percentages. That way it's an even playing field no matter what pitcher you're talking about. It's a little more work than going over to ESPN.com and looking at one number, but that's as close to perfect as you can get as far as statistics goes.
Just because everyone uses ERA doesn't mean they're right to do so. It's been done for a hundred years and it's way, way outdated. - yosempai, on 11/12/2008, -0/+3Rawr.
- tyler0is0sexy, on 11/12/2008, -0/+3Go Niners?
- yosempai, on 11/12/2008, -0/+3http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2008/11/11/658958 ...
Bill James disagrees. - Tegurit34, on 11/13/2008, -0/+2More people need to read this blog. RJ Anderson is a wonderful sports writer.
- Tegurit34, on 11/13/2008, -0/+2For decades people have been trying to analyze pitching mechanics in order to predict future injuries, and for decades nothing fungible has ever materialized. The theories into these are logical but we just don't know enough about biomechanics as they relate to pitching to be accurate at all.
The fact is, all pitchers are volatile because pitching is a completely unnatural human motion, and all pitchers are susceptible to career threatening injury at some point in their careers. Until we have more to go by, not even the world's best scientists and doctors have been able to accurately distinguish what motions makes pitching more of an injury risk.
So no, I don't believe you. - username7410, on 11/13/2008, -0/+2He was the better pick then, and the better pick now. Typical front office incompetence from the Mariners. This isn't about hindsight because they made the wrong choice from the start.
- Tegurit34, on 11/13/2008, -0/+2I could really use some new glasses to give me 20/20 vision again. Who's your retailer, Hindsight Inc.?
- ngmcs8203, on 11/12/2008, -0/+2http://media.knbr.com/knbr/lincecum.mp3
- alexkball, on 11/12/2008, -0/+2He's not better than Juan Marichal.
- Tegurit34, on 11/13/2008, -0/+2Huh? Gooden was a Major League ace at the same age Lincecum was in his Freshman year of college. Lincecum is a fantastic pitcher, but let's find him a better comp.
- littlerichie29, on 11/12/2008, -0/+2I guess you never saw the SI article on how he is different than a conventional pitcher. He throws like nobody else does, it was something his dad came up with that puts minimal stress on the pitching arm.
I Do not watch baseball at all, only highlights, but when i read that article i was intrigued to try and watch him pitch a few times to see what was so special. Being in Canada, there weren't many Giants games i could tune into, let alone when he was pitching. - Trekhawk, on 11/12/2008, -0/+2Write the check, Mark!!!!!!
- BXRWXR, on 11/12/2008, -2/+4Exactly how does one pronounce that guy's last name?
- barfooz, on 11/12/2008, -0/+2/ˈlɪnsəˌkəm/
- dima1109, on 11/12/2008, -1/+3Webb rules. All others are posers
- Tegurit34, on 11/14/2008, -0/+2I'll agree with you that Lincecum was the better pick at the time, but the difference was incredibly arbitrary back then. The fact is, all pitchers are extremely volatile and unpredictable. Major League level, Minor League level, amateur prospects -- all of them. And of course, the lower down the ladder you go, the more unpredictable they are.
There's no way to know who's going to survive the attrition war. For all we knew at the time, Lincecum could have snapped both his ankles in half at Double-A and Morrow could be another Justin Verlander by now (if the Mariners had handled him better; god making him a reliever was shortsighted and selfish on the part of Bavasi and Hargrove). Or, what was most likely to happen at draft time was Andrew Miller being the ace by now -- that guy was the consensus #1 talent of 2005 and among the top 5 amateur talents the NCAA has seen in this entire decade.
Or let's look at this upcoming draft in 2009. Stephen Strasburg is the #1 consensus talent -- arguably the best pitching prospect the NCAA has ever seen. But the draft is so unpredictable that he could become a reliever while the next best pitcher in the draft Alex White wins the Cy Young in 2012.
Back in 2005, Morrow was seen as having a better chance of becoming and maintaining a role as a starting pitcher as Lincecum, while Lincecum was seen as having better stuff and having a quicker route to the Majors. Now, my opinion was that Lincecum was a better pick because predicting injuries through mechanics analysis is total bunk at the level of understanding the world knows right now. However, my angle is more new-age and there are still a lot of people who haven't quite adapted it yet -- including the guy in charge of the draft Bob Fontaine, who overall is one of the very best in the business, by the way (he netted us total steals in Chris Tillman and Tony Butler, who were major pieces in the Bedard trade, and Tillman is now in the top 5 pitching prospects in the country).
But again, the difference between the two picks back then was incredibly marginal, and when you evaluate a team and their draft picks, you have to go with what their decisions were with the best available information at the time. - davewashere, on 11/12/2008, -0/+2I read the SI article, but I don't believe it. I think SI also once claimed that Mark Prior has near-perfect form. Lincecum does use a lot of leg, but he's still going to have a problem putting in the long innings over the course of a season. Big guys like C.C. can generate a lot of power with their big bodies while using a lot less effort. Lincecum looks like he's trying to break the world javelin toss record on every pitch. The fatigue that his motion causes can build up over long periods of time and eventually cause him to get tired quicker, which will cause his form to falter, which will lead to injuries.
- coldwind777, on 11/12/2008, -0/+2Yeah, it does. Baseball is more of a marathon. An individual baseball game is not TERRIBLY hard to play (unless you're catching...). Playing 162 of them, sometimes 4 to 5 in a row, raises the intensity. Or something like that.
- NINeINChNAiLS99, on 11/12/2008, -0/+2these 2k baseball games are trash. i wish the show was on 360
- coldwind777, on 11/12/2008, -0/+2nobody can do that.
- coldwind777, on 11/12/2008, -0/+2Lincecum's ERA clearly outclasses Webb's (2.62 vs. 3.30). Mid 3's is nothing to sneeze at, and Webb had a pretty damn good year, but 3.30 keeps him out of serious Cy Young contention.
-
Show 51 - 69 of 69 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is