Tim Lincecum

just fyi: Graham is a giants fan. Although the all caps is also kind of a giveaway.

he wasn’t high according to police and he wasn’t in the city. He got pulled over near Hazel Dell on I-5 (which is a major speed trap btw). So it is not like he was pulled over for driving 100mph in the middle of Seattle with a blunt in his mouth.

…..a response to you earlier on this point.

first, to answer your questions most directly, i have seen Greinke pitch at least 20 times, and Felix pitch around 8-10 (though never live for either one). arguing about which one is TRULY the best doesn’t interest me that much: they’re all great, and you can’t go wrong. if there’s one thing i ALWAYS mean by Lincecum being the best, it’s that a complete non-fan who knew shit about what good pitching looks like would have the easiest time seeing why Lincecum is unhittable. although Greinke and Felix (and hell — probably a healthy Dustin McGowan) are close behind. but i think Lincecum is actually a clear cut ahead in terms of wow-factor to the casual observer.

there is, obviously, more to good pitching than impressing casual observers, though. of course, Lincecum’s results have been the most impressive as well — especially over the last TWO seasons.

now, this is actually the heart of what i wanted to talk to you about: your claim that there were 5 or 6 AL pitchers better than Lincecum. right off the bat, i want to say: “YES, the NL makes pitchers’ stats better.” for two reasons:

1) weaker league, and
2) no DH (which is a more important factor)

but let’s go to #1, because it honestly IS getting overstated in this case. i want to discuss this PURELY theoretically.

now, there are a bunch of things that could make one league “better” than the other, and we KNOW the AL is “better” in that they have dominated interleague play. just to break them into four categories, they could be:

1) there is more offensive depth in the AL
2) there is more pitching depth in the AL
3) the offensive stars are better in the AL
4) the pitching stars are better in the AL

next, i want to note that, statistically unadjusted, over the past decade, it’s SEEMED like the NL has actually had more superstars. you, of course, dismiss this, saying their stats are inflated by their league. i would agree.

but i disagree that what follows is the belief that, to the contrary, the AL’s simply better across the board, because it takes to sizable a leap in faith to think that’s what’s happening.

my belief is that the PRIMARY factor making the AL teams better is that they have more depth across their rosters. this, then, explains inflated SUPERSTAR stats in the NL: Pujols and HanRam and Co. have been beating up on all the terrible 3s, 4s and 5s in the NL, while Lincecum is dominating bad 7-8 hitters (not to mention the other factor — pitchers vs. hitters in the 9). this explains why it is that NL stars APPEAR better while the league looks worse.

your theory is that the AL is just better at everything: better teams, better depth (which is STILL necessary to believe in to explain the better-on-paper All-Star teams the NL has produced from 2000-2009), better star hitters and better star pitchers. to me, that just sounds like someone who watches too much AL baseball and has a strong bias toward this simple worldview. it’s tough to explain how something like that would even happen: the AL really ended up with 6 pitchers or so better than ANYONE in the NL???? how?

whether Lincecum or Greinke or Felix is “the best” pitcher in baseball is certainly open to debate. but it seems ridiculous to pretend it isn’t Greinke and Felix who have to make a lot of excuses why they might be as good as Lincecum instead of vice versa. or to pretend the NL/AL breakdown is some dichotomous and universal rule where, in any debate, you simply say “the AL players are better — look at interleague results.”

finally, as for the fastball — they don’t sit on it because it’s pretty ridiculously difficult to hit even if you are? and because, presumably, he’d switch it up to his other two ridiculously good pitches if people were?

his command isn’t perfect, but it hasn’t been half bad these last two seasons either. i actually don’t even see it as a problem. obviously, if his arm wears out, that could change. but he also does have more margin for error given his ridiculous stuff.