7:04pm: Club trainer Dave Groeschner says that Lincecum is expected to require about five months to recover from the procedure, as Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News reports (Twitter links). Lincecum underwent both a labrum repair and a shaving of bone to address an impingement. “The doctor was pretty confident this will help him, and help him return to pitching next season,” said Groeschner.
11:43am: Giants right-hander Tim Lincecum underwent season-ending hip surgery this morning, tweets Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. Giants GM Bobby Evans said Thursday in a KNBR radio appearance that Lincecum is out for the season, though he did not definitively mention Lincecum’s surgical procedure (hat tip: Hank Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle). Said Evans:
“He won’t be able to come back this season. That’s evident. He went to Colorado to see a specialist and get a second opinion and get an evaluation with the prospect that he will have surgery. The next step for him is to do everything he can and get back and get well, but it’s going to take him out for the season. What that leads to in terms of his progression healthwise will dictate what opportunities he has with us or elsewhere.”
As Schulman notes, the injury may very well bring to a close Lincecum’s historic career as a member of the Giants.
Selected with the 10th overall pick in the 2006 draft, Lincecum debuted in 2007 as a hard-throwing 23-year-old, tossing 146 1/3 innings of 4.00 ERA ball and averaging better than a strikeout per inning with initially shaky control. The control woes quickly dissipated, however, as Lincecum won consecutive Cy Young Awards in his next two seasons. From 2008-11, there were few pitchers in the game that were decisively better than “The Freak,” whose unorthodox delivery and dominant results won the hearts of Giants fans. Over that four-year stretch, Lincecum posted a 2.81 ERA with 10.0 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9 in 881 2/3 innings, earning All-Star honors each year.
Since that time, though, Lincecum’s career has gone in the opposite direction. He’s lost the mid-90s fastball that he had in his early to mid-20s, and he averaged just 87.2 mph on his vastly diminished heater this year. Lincecum inked a two-year, $35MM extension after the 2013 season despite marginal bottom-line results (sabermetric stats pegged him in a more optimistic light), but he hasn’t lived up to that deal. In the end, he’ll have pitched just 232 innings with a 4.54 ERA to show for it under that contract.
Schulman writes that Lincecum “surely will not get a Major League deal” from the Giants this offseason, and if that’s the case, it does seem likely that his days with San Francisco are coming to a close. Barring an exorbitant recovery timetable from this operation, it’s tough to imagine that no team would give Lincecum a big league deal, his lack of recent results notwithstanding.
Heyman wrote earlier this week that Lincecum was seeing renowned hip specialist Marc Philippon in Vail, Colo. Per Heyman’s report, surgery would most likely have Lincecum ready in time for Spring Training, and there’s a belief among some doctors that the dip in velocity is partially tied to his hip troubles.
I predict he still ends up with the Giants again next year. They are never one to let their hometown heroes just leave.
If so, I think they should have him start the year in the bullpen
That’s got to be his future, at whichever team he ends up with.
I’m not in the SF area, so this is an honest question – do the fans still hold him in high regard, considering the severe drop in his performance the past couple of seasons?
Yes. He’s still loved. 2 cy Youngs and being on the first wave of talent that brought 3 rings to a city starved for one will do that for a guy.
Yes. He gave everything he had to the Giants. It’s just a shame that it looks like he won’t be able to take the field again this year so fans can show their appreciation. But they’ve always cheered him — when he won the Cy Youngs and when he struggled. Always a standing ovation no matter what he did.
Thank you to both of you for the info. He’s always been a favorite of mine, and it’s nice to see the fans are as classy as I’ve heard.
He’s finished, This is not a Nursing Home, but a Business that is winning baseball Games !
So how come you guys resigned Vogey?
He was supposed to be a long reliever / tertiary starter, but was pressed into a greater role due to all the other injuries in the rotation. He has had his moments this season, but it looks like his time is up.
Remember Panda?
So many good memories of Timmy!!!
You can look at Lincecum’s road splits going back to 2012 and look at how bad he’s been on the road.
I still don’t understand why H/R splits matter so much to some people. Oh I know their reasons, but I don’t understand them. You play half of your games at home. I would much rather have a player that was good for 81 games a year at my home stadium than for 3-9 games a year at a random stadium. As far as equalizing, that’s not true either. The Dodgers and Giants hitters road stats include 9 games at Coors Field every year, but the Rockies hitters road stats do not, and thus Dodger and Giants hitters will invariably have better road stats than Rockies hitters. This would be vice versa for pitchers, if the Rockies had ever put together a talented pitching staff, but for argument’s sake, Clayton Kershaw on the Rockies should have better road stats than Clayton Kershaw on the Dodgers. It’s just a very flawed statistic.
In this particular case, since 2012, Lincecum has pitched 53 road games, with only four of them at Coors. His ERA is near 6. It’s telling. If you’re interested in Lincecum, you have to take into account that his pitching on the road is not good.
Of course, this could be due to a number of factors (specific parks, specific opponents, injuries, maybe he gets tired easier due to travel, maybe he’s more comfortable in SF’s park or more knowledgeable about it, or whatever), but it’s worth looking at.
It only matters in fantasy baseball really. I get what you’re saying and there’s a lot of stats that are thrown out there that don’t actually matter. I do love the “he’s batting .674 on Tuesday’s when he plays in the central timezone, attendance over 15,000, using a black bat with yellow batting gloves and no more than two swipes of the tar on the handle of the bat” stats they give out.
A stop to pittsburgh and ray searge could be just the fix for lincecum
would be a very Pirate like move
It seems clear that the only person who can keep Lincecum’s mechanics straight is his father.
I will always love Timmy but barring a miracle of biblical proportions I don’t want to see him throw another pitch in a Giant’s uniform.