How does the TJ surgery effect his roster standing?

IMO, you are being generous with the C+'s.  Thank you.

I would rank Frandsen higher, not lower.

I would probably rank Burris higher.

I would probably put Schoop in the top 20, more by default than anything.

Craig Whitaker and Dan Griffin are two injuries that could come back strong, but very iffy.

I know Angel Villalona has not played yet, but just reading the tea leaves, a top Dominican prospect, high signing bonus, Scott Boras throwing dust in the air..........I would rank him #2 just because everyone else below Lincecum is just so bad.

I love Lincecum and he's got as much potential as anyone, but honestly, isn't his best-case scenario for him next year what Matt Garza did this year?  And wouldn't that be fairly extraordinarily rare outside of Garza?

I can't see Lincecum at a straight A and Garza at an A-.  If you ask me, it should be the other way around.

The only pitching prospects who are clearly superior to him in my mind are Hughes and (if eligible) Garza. Bailey may be better but it's a very competitive comparison. It wouldn't be surprising at all if Lincecum proves to be the best of them all.

Go to www.calleaguers.com and click on Tim Lincecum to see a 41-second clip of Timmy pitching against Cal this spring.  Look at the incredible pushoff he gets from the rubber.  It is said to be the best since Nolan Ryan.  Look at how he uses his whole body when he pitches, reducing the strain on his arm.

Go to dectovision.com and click on POTD pitchers at the bottom right of the home page.  Then click on Tim Lincecum and then Tim Lincecum mechanics to see how exceptional Timmy's mechanics truly are.

Timmy has never missed a start or even had a sore arm.  In his two-hit, 18-strikeout shutout over UCLA this spring, he threw 146 pitches.  Pitch #146 was delivered at 95 mph.  The following day Timmy was viewed easily playing long toss from foul pole to foul pole.

Timmy has never thrown an inning above High A, but in his regular-season professional career, he has struck out 58 batters while allowing only 14 hits.  That's a ratio of 4.14.  We're talking only Class A here, but the best career major-league record for K/H is 1.51 by Randy Johnson.  The single-season record is 2.22 by Pedro Martinez in 2000.  The Giants single-season record is 1.52 by Jason Schmidt in 2004.  Beginning to get the idea that Timmy strikes out a lot of batters and is pretty hard to hit?

Timmy isn't perfect by any means.  His control needs work.  It doesn't appear his fastball has the hop that Matt Cain's does, which means he may give up more homers than Matt.  But his fastball has touched 101 and he consistently throws it in the 94-97 range.  His waterfall curve ball comes in 15-20 mph slower and has a tremendous 11-5 break.  While both pitches are rated plus-plus, the curve is Timmy's best pitch.  Timmy is also said to throw a changeup, slider and knuckleball, but he's been pretty much a two-pitch pitcher as a professional.

Timmy's pitching at San Jose in the California League has been compared to Danny Almonte's pitching in the Little League World Series, so two pitches may be all he needs.

The most pitches Timmy has thrown in a professional game was 94, when he opened the California League Northern Championship series.  The pitch was a high, outside fastball at 96 mph that was swung on and missed.  Timmy went seven innings, also his longest professional stint in innings.  

If not for a dropped third strike, he would have been out of the seventh inning after only 84 pitches, although he more typically averages about 16 pitches per inning.  In that particular game Timmy was more efficient than dominant. He yielded five hits, walked one and struck out "only" 10.

One observer has nicknamed Timmy "The Future."  For Giants fans frustrated with the team's lack of position players at present, that's a pretty apt nickname.  Timmy also has been called the "Freak of Nature" and "Seabiscuit."  To relieve tension he does back flips or walks on his hands.

Timmy's dad, who taught Timmy his motion and whose own motion is said to have been indistinguishable from Timmy's was once clocked at 88 mph -- when he was 55 years old.  Likely beginning sometime next season Timmy should be relieving (as a starter) the growing tension of Giants fans.  With his solid mechanics, he should be doing so for a long, long time.

If he still throws 88 mph at age 55 as his dad Chris did, he could be Livan Hernandez 33 years from now.

Those of you who are worried about Tim Lincecum's future durability shouldn't be.  It seems to run in his family.

Love the story about Timmy's dad.  Sounds like Tim is already collecting a few nicknames.  Over at MacChron they're calling him Tim the Enchanter.  Wonder which one is going to stick?

First off, Garza started 2006 in High-A which is the same level that Lincecum dominated in 2006. He was in the pitcher friendly FSL and posted a 1.42 ERA with a 5.48 H/9, 2.23 BB/9, and 10.76 K/9 in 44.1 innings.

Let's examine Lincecum last year in High-A in a hitter's league (it's the park factors just as much as the talent, so don't give me the BS that some guys were promoted to AA). Including the postseason, Lincecum posted a 1.81 ERA with a 4.67 H/9, 3.37 BB/9, and 15.05 K/9 in 34.2 innings.

Besides the walk rate, which was respectable, Lincecum dominated High-A and put up a far superior K/9 while allowing a hit less per 9 than Garza.

Based on that information and my opinion after watching both guys pitch that Lincecum's FB/CB combo is better than anything Garza brings to the table.... it's safe to assume that Lincecum is already just as good of a pitcher as Garza.

If the Giants wanted Lincecum in the majors to start 2007, I'm pretty sure he would put up respectable numbers.

Also note how major leaguers ripped Garza's stuff apart. His H/9 ballooned to 11 while his K/9 dropped below 7 and his BB/9 raised over 4... that means you're hittable and not dominant.

Lincecum's upside seems higher than Garza's and I'd be the first to bet that his 2007 season will be better than Garza's 2006 season.

I can see undervaluing Lirano because of his injury concerns or being skeptical about Matt Cain because he had problems early but Lincecum has never had an injury. Never. How can we say that he is an injury risk? Its not like he is 17 or anything either. He is 22 and has never missed any time due to injury.

Ya know... I am a little concerned about Phillip Hughes because apparently his great great uncle on his father's side had a nasty opium addiction and I think we can all say that due to that history he should probably be a B- prospect.

Until he goes down with any significant arm injury, the injury talk is a load of BS. Unless you are the almighty God or whatever particular deity (if any) you believe in, you have absolutely NO PSYCHIC ABILITY to predict an injury out of nowhere.

Francisco Liriano, Adam Miller, Nick Adenhart, and more have gone through TJ surgery and people seemingly ignore their injury risk and would not hesitate to rank them among baseball's top pitchers.

When Lincecum gets injured, we'll cross that bridge. Until then, you can't hold your insignificant hunches against him.

By the way, when you go to calleaguers.com and click on Tim Lincecum to see video of his motion, go to scouting reports at that same site.  Go to 2005 and to the San Jose Giants. Then look at the scouting report on Jonathan Sanchez (who pitched at San Jose in 2005).  At the bottom of the scouting report is a 20-second-or-so video of Jonathan.  

Look at his video and at Timmy's and tell me that Timmy doesn't look like less of an injury risk than Jonathan, as much as I like the slender southpaw.

As DrB points out, pitching is a risk factor for injury...period.  Just like driving is a risk factor for any driver on the road.

Let's take Driver A at 5'11" 160 lbs and Driver B at 6'4" 220 lbs.  Would either driver be at risk for injury behind the wheel of a moving vehicle?  Of course.  Would that risk increase if each were driving 98 mph?  Most definitely.  Would Driver A sustain more injuries than Driver B if both were to crash at 98 mph?  Perhaps, but this is a question of degrees rather than absolutes.  All things being equal, who would you rather have driving Miss Daisy?

Now let's say Driver A has a spotless driving record with no history of prior accidents while Driver B has had several crashes in the past.  Furthermore, let's also say Driver A is a focussed and careful driver, who has even taken a course on safe driving, while Driver B drives distracted and has had no special training. Let's even say that Driver A drives a Volvo, while Driver B putts around in a Yugo.  Who would you choose now?  Sure, this is a somewhat curious analogy, but is it totally off base considering the ongoing debate about Lincecum being an injury risk simply based on his physical characteristics?

Adding a further word about profiling, the article in the link that Havok provides actually weakens his/her argument.

"It's clear that height has no real effect on whether or not a pitcher can shape a long career for himself, but weight certainly does."

-While it is unlikely that Lincecum can increase his height, he certainly can take steps to bulk up, and I'm sure the Giants will look into "legitimate" methods to help him do so.

"One theory would be that some of the pitchers I bunch in as overweight aren't really fat so much as they muscular."

-The author brings up the point about muscularity being a factor in a pitcher's longevity.  I don't know about Lincecum's body type personally, but I would venture to guess he could be described as sinewy.  This brings to mind another small, thin, sinewy athlete who could hold his own against much larger opponents...Bruce Lee.

"thin pitchers are much less likely to have long careers than any other group, and those that do stay around are much more likely to end up in relief."

-I don't think the Giants would mind much if Lincecum's career followed the path of Dennis Eckersley rather than the path that a perfect physical specimen such as Mark Prior appears to be taking.

We can conclude that John is giving Linc an A based on ability and/or potential.  To automatically give a player a significantly lower grade, as Havok suggests, because of shortcomings (pun intended) which he has never even exhibited yet is not in the spirit of this exercise, in my opinion.

Linc will probably spend his entire career having to prove his detractors wrong, and if that serves as motivation to make himself the best player he can be, then more power to him.

Last night Giants manager Bruce Bochy was interviewed on the Giants flagship station's "Hot Stove League" show.  One of the two interviewers was Giants radio announcer Dave Flemming.

When the subject of Timmy came up, Bochy indicated that how fast a player could advance through a system was determined by many things including stuff and makeup.  He said that some players were even able to jump to the majors a year after or even right out of college.  He then went on to say that Timmy is above-average in all those factors.  He said it all in a very low-key fashion, but it appeared to me that Timmy will actually get a chance during spring training to pitch his way onto the Giants staff.  

In my mind, the two factors that could augur against a strong enough spring from Timmy to turn the Giants plans around would be that his waterfall curve is unlikely to break as much in the desert as it would in, say, the heavy air of San Francisco.  Second, Brian Sabean is DEATH on control from a young pitcher.  And control hasn't been Timmy's forte to date.

In Timmy's last professional outing, he walked only one batter -- and that one after a dropped third strike prevented his seventh of pitching from being completed after 84 pitches.  But I believe 2006 was the first college season in which Timmy got his walks below even five per nine innings.  As a professional he's done better (more in the low three's per nine innings), but control is probably an even bigger issue for Timmy than his having command of only two pitches at this point.  

Timmy's fastball and curve (which he throws about two-thirds and one-third of the time, respectively) are both plus-plus pitches, so he may need little if anything more.  If Timmy could ever learn to control his changeup, slider and knuckleball (Yes, he even has a knuckler!), he would be darn near unhittable.

Heck, he's pretty darn hard to hit as it is.  His penultimate pro outing last season was a five-inning one-hitter (73 pitches) in which the lone hit was an infield scratch that would very likely have been turned into an out by Omar Vizquel, and the loudest-hit ball off his pitches was a looping liner by a righthanded hitter that found its way into the right field stands about 50 feet short of the wall.  

In fairness though I should mention that his final (87th) pitch the first time I saw him was a high, inside fastball (94 mph if I remember correctly) that went out a lot faster than it came in.  It came in a minor-league game, but it truly was a major-league homer.  

Timmy has enough on his fastball to blow it by guys high, but he'll likely give up a lot fewer homers if he keeps it down.

I guess the two factors that have me most excited about Timmy are his extremely high strikeout rates both as a collegian and as a pro.  

Timmy had something like 42 more strikeouts than any other NCAA pitcher last season -- just missing the 200 mark at 199 -- and I don't believe any professional pitcher came especially close to striking out as many batters per nine innings as Timmy did at  short-season Salem-Keizer and High A San Jose.

And just as important is Timmy's history of no arm problems and that his own dad was clocked at 88 mph -- at the age of 55!  Timmy Lincecum could conceivably be Livan Hernandez in another 33 years.

What he is today is a non-sanforized righthanded version of Randy Johnson.  With the build of Roy Oswalt.  With a pitching motion that has been compared to Kevin Brown.  With the push off the pitching rubber of Nolan Ryan.  And what has been described as the fastest arm speed ever.

Is it any wonder Will Caroll of Sports Illustrated and Baseball Prospectus said that considering ability and injury likelihood, if he had the opportunity to start a franchise with just one pitcher, his choice for the next ten years would be one Timothy LeRoy Lincecum?