Tag Archives: Tim Lincecum

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Hope in Spring

‘Hope springs eternal’, but in baseball spring is an eternal source of hope.

The sun beats down onto the backs of returning ballplayers in Arizona and Florida, some of the recipients driven by a winter of frustration, some emboldened by the confidence of success from the previous year.

It is the sense of renewal that makes spring such a glorious part of the baseball calendar. Everything starts again and that means anything is possible; however the past is always present in the mind and every player will have something to prove on the back of the 2012 performance.

Here are six players whose 2012 seasons, for differing reasons, will make following their fortunes in 2013 all the more intriguing.

Mike Trout (Los Angeles Angels)

When we witness a player excelling at a young age it is too tantalizing not to look ahead and wonder just how good he will become. Sportsmen often hit their peak in their late-twenties, so it is natural to see Mike Trout’s incredible performance as a 20 year-old in 2012 as a starting point for our expectations.

Yet how realistic would that be? Whilst experience and physical maturity could hone Trout’s remarkable talent even further, the level of competition in MLB must put a limit on how far he can improve.

It’s possible that Trout could have a long and successful career and never quite top 2012. If we use Baseball-Reference’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) as our measure then Trout’s season (10.7 WAR) is the joint-17th highest in a single season since the end of World War Two. Of all the many thousands of individual player seasons from 1946 onwards, only 16 have been better judged by WAR.

Upon considering that staggering fact, no baseball fan can help but be fascinated by what Trout will serve up as an encore in 2013.

Roy Halladay (Philadelphia Phillies)

Whilst Trout was dazzling as a young star in the AL West, Halladay was struggling as a veteran star in the NL East.  2012 arguably was his worst full season since 2000.

A tough year as a 24 year old can be recovered from, as Halladay’s exceptional career since shows. Fighting back from a disappointing season when you are 36 is a much more difficult task. Halladay was clearly hampered by an injury to his right-shoulder and he has entered Spring Training with a revised training regime, adjusted pitching mechanics and a positive frame of mind.

Every player is in ‘the best shape of their life’ coming into Spring Training and it could be overly optimistic to consider 2012 as a mere bump in the road, but Halladay’s previous excellence means he deserves the benefit of the doubt. If the Phillies are to challenge the Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves in the NL East, they need ‘Doc’ to return to somewhere close to his previous form.

Jemile Weeks (Oakland A’s)

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, Weeks came into the A’s Spring Training camp all set to become the leading face of the club. His impressive rookie campaign in 2011 had earned him an extremely rare compliment: the A’s General Manager Billy Beane described him as the one ‘untouchable’ asset on the roster that he wouldn’t consider trading.

In Oakland’s home season-opener against the Seattle Mariners, Weeks led off the bottom of the first inning with a single and the A’s TV commentators were quick to state that they expected big things of the second baseman in the season ahead.

Instead, Weeks played so poorly that he was demoted to Triple-A on 21 August and he was relegated to cheer-leading duty as Oakland secured a surprising AL West division title.

Weeks was defiant at the time of his demotion, stating: “at the end of the day, I’m going to be a star in this game, man. You’ve got to have your ups and downs. It just makes the story so much sweeter when you come back. I don’t want to expand too much on it, but you’re looking at a star, period”.

If Weeks is to live up to his own billing, he needs to have a big bounceback season in 2013. That includes simply winning a starting job during Spring Training.

Tim Lincecum (San Francisco Giants)

In 2012, Lincecum played his part in helping the Giants to their second World Series title in three years. However, the two-time Cy Young Award winner’s role was to chip in with 4.2 innings of relief pitching during the Fall Classic having lost his place in the starting rotation after putting up a 5.37 ERA over 33 regular season starts.

Lincecum will be a free agent at the end of the coming season and if he is to earn a lucrative new contract he will need to show that his disappointing 2012, and the declining speed of his fastball, was just a blip.

He turned up to the Giants’ Spring Training camp with his trademark long hair cut short, either as a sign that he is smartening up his act or that he is trying a reverse-Samson approach to regain his powers.

Aroldis Chapman (Cincinnati Reds)

Lincecum was temporarily moved from starting to relief pitching for the 2012 playoffs and one of the biggest National League stories in Spring Training will be the Reds’ plan to take the opposite approach with their ‘Cuban missile’.

When Cincinnati won the race to Chapman’s signature in January 2010, their offer of a 6 year, $30.25m contract reflected the scouting reports that he could become a dominating starting pitcher. So far they have harnessed his blazing fastball/slider combination out of the bullpen to great effect and he took to the role of closer superbly last season, striking out a scarcely believable 122 batters in just 71.2 innings (15.3 K’s per 9 innings).

However, a quality starting pitcher that can give you 200 innings in a season, plus a potential dominant postseason start or two, is more valuable to a team than 70 innings as a closer and the Reds have decided now is the time to find out if Chapman has what it takes.

With Cincinnati all set to be in a tight NL Central battle with the St. Louis Cardinals, it will be interesting to see how much patience they have before deciding to move him back to the closer role.

Carl Crawford (Los Angeles Dodgers)

Here’s a question for you: will Crawford come into Spring Training this year happier than he did two years ago?

Back in 2011, he met his new Boston Red Sox teammates for the first time flush with a 7 year, $142m contract and full of excitement about what he hoped would be a successful new chapter in his career.  From the outside, everything was perfect, but there was a lingering doubt as to how Crawford would adapt to playing in the media hothouse of Boston compared to his days with the underdog Tampa Bay Rays.

The dream turned into a nightmare as a poor 2011 season was followed by an injury hit 2012. Crawford recently admitted to his feelings of desperation, stating: “I knew with the struggles I was having, it would never get better for me. I just didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. It puts you in kind of a depression stage. You just don’t see a way out”.

Thankfully for Crawford – and for the Red Sox – the dollar-dispensing Dodgers provided an unlikely way out with their summertime mega-trade. The outfielder is still rehabbing from elbow surgery and may not be ready for Opening Day, but 2013 will offer Crawford a chance to get his career back on track.

Rounding the Bases: The Games Begin

MlbHlSqIt may be a couple of weeks too long for some people, but Spring Training has a certain spirit to it that gets to the very essence of why so many of us love the game. 

As Steve stated yesterday, it’s “the one time of year where you can watch your team play without worrying that they might ruin their playoff hopes, or dip beneath .500”.  The nervous tension, excitement, joy and despair that the regular season and playoffs bring are all factors that captivate us and we wouldn’t want to be without them for long.  However, they are put to one side for one month of the year to leave us with nothing more than the simple joy of taking in a ballgame. 

It’s a feeling that doesn’t just flow through the fans, from those sitting in the stands in Arizona and Florida to people listening/watching thousands of miles away.  It’s the same feeling that imbibes the players, reporters and broadcasters and that’s what makes Spring Training special.  Imagine if football’s pre-season was seen not as an inconvenience or a chore, but a chance to get back to those innocent ‘jumpers for goalposts’ days of our childhood and you’ll understand what baseball’s Spring Training is all about.   Continue reading

Out of Left Field: Spring training – it’s all about the livestock

MlbHlSqPeople! Enough of the speculating, the postulating and the ruminating. Enough of the rumour-mongering and number-crunching. Finally, finally, you good, good people – we have some baseball to watch. Yes, my friends, spring training has begun! And ain’t it grand?

Spring training is the one time of year where you can watch your team play without worrying that they might ruin their playoff hopes, or dip beneath .500. This is baseball, but without the emotional commitment. Sure, you might get excited, or disappointed, or annoyed, but then that little light-bulb flashes above your head – ping! – It doesn’t matter at all!

This beautiful time of year allows us to ease our way back in to watching baseball. We can let it drift over us, we can dip in and out, or we can bail in the fifth inning when we don’t recognise anybody. Alternatively, we can keep watching, to see the stars of tomorrow and the stars that never will be. Ah, the freedom and the hope of spring training.

But enough of my jaw-jawing, I’m guessing you’re chomping at the bit for some wacky baseball news, right? How did I guess?

First off, not everybody is so excited about baseball starting again. Take the Houston Astros’ Carlos Lee, who has skipped training to go to the rodeo. Lee is a cattle rancher in his spare time (we all need hobbies, right?) and so headed off to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. As you do, at the beginning of a new season. Manager Brad Mills doesn’t seem to mind, though: “It’s not something that just came up. We had discussed it when he first got here and it’s fine; there’s no problem.” Cool. I wonder what other excuses players can use to get out of work? State fair? Comic book convention? Garage sale? Suggestions welcome!

This week’s crazy injury time. Toronto Blue Jays’ Brett Cecil cut himself in a, and I quote, “kitchen-type accident”. Luckily, there’s no indication that the injury is serious, so we’re free to make fun. “Kitchen-type accident”? I don’t quite understand. Does that mean it was the type of accident that could take place in a kitchen, but took place elsewhere? Was he somewhere that was just masquerading as a kitchen, but all along wasn’t one? Answers on a postcard, please.

This column is all about the equal opportunities, so how about this? A female knuckleballer from Japan, Eri Yoshida, met Tim Wakefield, after she had spent the winter pitching in the independent Arizona Winter League. Yoshida had taught herself the pitch by watching Wakefield on television, and is doing her best to cross the gender lines in professional baseball. A berth in the MLB may be a way off yet, but it’s still a pretty cool story. I’m especially pleased she learned the knuckleball, the funkiest of all pitches, don’t you know.

Another pitcher is in this week’s fashion corner, with this bizarre little video of Tim Lincecum modelling a San Francisco Giants Snuggie. I’m really not sure what to make of it, but I do know this, Lincecum is far, far removed from your bog-standard ballplayer. In fact, on the evidence of the video, he may be some sort of slacker wizard. It’s always a breath of fresh air to come across an awesome sportsman who isn’t as dull as dishwater. And it makes writing this column a whole lot easier too. Thanks Tim, you crazy guy!

Well, that’s me done for another week, I’m off, to do my homework.

Have a good week, until next week.