Lincecum edges Wainwright and Carpenter in the closest vote ever. Makes history as first to win Cy in first two full seasons.

More this weekend…..

11 Responses to “…. History”

1. +mia says:

   November 25, 2009 at 10:21 am

   Double Ass Standards

   On MLB Network’s Hot Stove the panel of Leiter, Mitch Williams, and Dan Plesac were going over the feats of NL MVP, unanimous winner Albert Pujols. They spent a lot of time comparing him and contrasting him to other MVP winners To other First Basemen, and generally other power hitters over the years.

   There were plenty of references and discussions about Lou Gehrig, Henry Aaron, Joe Dimaggio, Yogi Berra, Ty Cobb, Stan Musial, Robin Yount Hank Greenberg as winners of multiple MVP awards, as well as other semi-forgettable players.

   The show was essentially devoted to discussions of MVP’s past and present. But of course, the MLB Network being Bud Selig’s personal propaganda network, said nary a word about the player with more than twice as many MVPs as anybody in the history of the game–Barry Bonds. Seven MVPs. The next highest total?

   Albert Pujols. Three. Never mind that he was skinnier than Bonds when he came up and his hat size has grown and he is bulked up by at least 40 pounds since he broke in. Albert Pujols is the new Selig designee as the savior of baseball. At least for the time being.

   Here’s another piece of trivia for the scatterbrained worshippers of statistical milestones. To show you how petty the powers that be are. Bonds was blackballed before the 2008 season no doubt. Any objective look at his 2007 numbers would tell you that.

   But here’s the chickenshit part. He finished 65 hits short of 3000 and 4 RBIs short of 2000. And Selig and the rest of the droopy-drawer crowd deliberately went out of their way to prevent Bonds from achieving those milestones by blackballing him.

   And the Giants front office never said a word.

   And not a word of this was raised in MSM by anybody.

   Fuck the local media hacks who cover the Giants. The same hacks who left Lincecum off the Cy Young. The same hacks who echo every word of every Giants press release as if it was the gospel, the koran and the commandments all rolled into one.

   Reply
2. Robert says:

   November 21, 2009 at 12:30 pm

   Congratulations to Tim Lincecum for winning his second Cy Young. I would be happier if this didn’t mean that the Giants are going to end up paying two pitchers a third of the team’s entire payroll.

   With a desperate need for a right handed power hitter to fill the gaping hole in left field Giant’s GM Brian Sabean has announced that he has not even contacted the agents of either Bay or Holliday because “I don’t think they would have genuine interest based on the field they’re going to be involved in. Why would they?”

   Sabean is referring, of course, to the teams with deep pockets who have a legitimate chance of signing these players: the Yankees; the Mets; the Red Sox, and the Cardinals. Teams that reinvest their profits in their players. Teams with a legitimate commitment to winning. Teams without an albatross named Brian Sabean hanging around their neck.

   The Giants are going to attempt to shore up their horrible offense on the cheap, a situation necessitated by the incredibly bad contracts Sabean has engineered over the last five years.

   One wonders what sort of bargains Sabean thinks he can pick up from among the second-tier and non-tendered players that would be an improvement over the current stock of second-tier players he’s already signed. The selection does not look promising.

   So congratulations to Tim, on the Cy Young, and on the huge pay increase it undoubtedly will bring, but forgive me if I don’t feel like celebrating. A team that’s only worth watching every fifth day doesn’t inspire much celebration.

   Reply
3. Uncle Joe Mccarthy says:

   November 20, 2009 at 3:16 pm

   baggerly’s analysis is weird

   by the second half, giant’s sp were exausted emotionally and physically…contstantly worrying that the offense would stink again, so that giving up any runs could cost a win

   Reply
   • +mia says:

     November 20, 2009 at 6:29 pm

     You got it. Pitching for this collection of garbage I would have been doing tabs of acid, lines of coke, gallons of Rum, and finishing it all with kilos of Mendocino’s finest. And that would have been just in the pregame stretch.

     People are fucking crazy if they think Lincecum is coming back to this shit.

     Look at what these assholes did for Lowry? Thanks for coming man. Sorry we fucked your career, your body and your life, but well, fuck it man, we gots the stadium debt to pay down.

     Lincecum may be young, but he’s a ballplayer, and he knows shit when he smells it. And right now the Giants operation from a young player’s standpoint is shit city. I look for Bochy to try and overuse the shit out of him and not give a shit one way or another if he breaks down or not. As long as these fucks can use him like a circus elephant to bring the chumps in through the turnstiles, they will wear his ass out.

     Its not going to be a fun ride. If you think the Brewers hosed Sabathia in the short time they had him, and you thought Lincecum was overused last year, if the Giants lose in arbitration, they are going to treat Lincecum like a bad field slave.

     Reply
     • Uncle Joe Mccarthy says:

       November 20, 2009 at 10:00 pm

       timmy is gonna get a big payday in arbitration

       sabean will cover telling fans not to worry….but he is gonna be shitting bricks

       sabean has already announced that he will not be going after first level fa’s….that means the offense is gonna stink again, and the kids are gonna sit, while overpayed middling talent mucks it up on the field day after day

       either the giants are gonna be forced to trade timmy to a true contender to get a real bat….or he is gonna get dumped for someone’s entire farm system

       either way…the kid is gonna be a yankee

       that sabean didnt see this coming and traded 2 arms for absolute shite, instead of packaging those arms in the offseason, just provides more evidence that the ownership group is content on treading water for the next 10-20 years

       what really kills me, is that in this time of ecomomic upheaval, and absolute incompetent was allowed to keep his job

       Reply
4. Mark O'Connor says:

   November 20, 2009 at 3:09 pm

   Tim was the best–he deserved the award. Carpenter, Vazquez, Haren, and Wainwright were all sensational, but Tim was better. He just buries guys out there. He makes great hitters look foolish, and even when guys get wood on the ball they barely get it to the outfield. I don’t remember ever watching a guy give up so few hard-hit balls. What amazes me is that as brilliant as he was last season, he was even better this season! Can’t wait to see what he’ll do next year.

   Reply
5. B says:

   November 20, 2009 at 2:21 pm

   Congratulations to Timmy. He deserved it. Kid is a phenom out there.

   Reply
6. Tonus says:

   November 20, 2009 at 6:54 am

   Keith law had a very nice breakdown of why he voted the way he did (Lincecum, Vazquez, and Wainwright). He’s getting some heat and some support for his picks, but his reasoning is defensible (unless you reject advanced statistical metrics outright). It’s good to see a year where actual pitching performance trumped the win column, although I think we have a long way to go as yet. Had Wainwright and/or Sabathia won 20 games, I suspect they’d have both won the Cy.

   Reply
   • +mia says:

     November 20, 2009 at 10:40 am

     The irony of an ESPN egomaniac outwitting local beat scribbler Henry Shulman is poetic justice.
     (visualizes Lincecum blowing smoke rings in Shulman’s face)

     Reply
7. Geoffrey says:

   November 20, 2009 at 3:41 am

   Congratulations Timmy, even though it was close, I do believe he had the edge over Carpenter (more innings, better FIP etc.) Not everyone agrees with this though, one of whom is one of the Giants’ own beat writers Andrew Baggerly:

   OK, so what about wins? Carpenter was 17-4 and Lincecum was 15-7. On paper, that’s a pretty big swing.

   Does it matter? Should it matter?

   Well, to risk standing in the middle of the road, I believe it does and it doesn’t.

   Obviously, win total is not an overriding factor. Along with most folks who try to take a well-rounded approach to analyzing the game, I agree that wins often are misleading and fail to show the true worth of a pitcher because of the myriad factors out of their control. That’s why if Carpenter never got off the DL in 2009, and the choice was between Wainwright and Lincecum, I’d take Timmy every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

   I do think wins are important, though. You can’t completely discard them. Some pitchers just know how to win, whether it’s 6-5 or 2-1. That’s just as much a skill as anything else. There is a human element to this game that doesn’t fit in any computer simulation. There’s no stat to measure fortitude. But it’s an important component in a performance-driven industry. There’s a reason teams spend a lot of time assessing makeup and personality when they research draftees and potential free-agent signings. It matters. Just ask Matt Cain.

   I’m not saying Tim Lincecum doesn’t have the fortitude to be a big-game pitcher. But I do believe he wasn’t at his best in the second half. He didn’t get consistent run support. He played for an inferior team, despite its 88 wins. And yes, his ERA demonstrates that he certainly pitched well overall. But at the end of the day, wins and losses are what matters. And a Cy Young Award winner doesn’t allow his team, a contending team, to go 7-7 in his starts after the All-Star break.

   Lincecum is a fantastic talent. He’s already one of the best pitchers of his generation. He’ll go down as one of the greatest Giants in franchise history. And he’s getting better. I understand the fierce devotion. Really, I do. And while it doesn’t matter, I like him, too, and I’m happy for him that he won.

   But in 2009, I watched Lincecum all season. I didn’t think it was a Cy Young season. And if anyone should’ve come away with that sense, it’s the beat writers who cover him.

   Really?

   I’d just like to point out a couple of things in Baggs’ analysis.

   He says that fortitude matters, that it helps pitchers win games (from what he says it’s one of the main reasons he picks Carpenter over Lincecum). He then cites Matt Cain as an example of a pitcher with fortitude. Now this is not to say Matt Cain doesn’t have fortitude, I think most people would agree he does, I do. But, if Matt Cain has fortitude (which he does) then why did he lose a combined 30 games over the ’07 and ’08 seasons? He pitched well (at a a similar level to this year) and he had fortitude (which is what helps you win games remember). Could there be a flaw in your thinking here Baggs?

   He also seems to blame Lincecum for not getting very good run support, saying it wasn’t consistent. Well I hate to tell Baggs but Lincecum did get consistent run support. It was consistently poor all season, which is what happens when your team has one of the worst offenses in baseball. How a beat writer who sees the team play every day, who sees how terrible the offense is on a daily basis can blame the pitcher for not getting consistent run support is beyond me.

   Reply
   • +mia says:

     November 20, 2009 at 10:35 am

     Well fuck that guy. He’s just another fucking management shill who doesn’t know his dick from a fungo bat. You want fortitude? Fuck it man. Its getting outs when you’re behind in the count. That’s a measurable, statistical observation.

     Did Cain pitch well from behind in the count this year? Decide for yourself Hell, first pitch hackers had an OPS against of .800, let alone when he was behind in the count. Thats almost 180 points higher than Lincecum’s .621 in virtually the same number of at bats. So for Baggarly to just mumble some stupid shit like he did is just so much horseshit.

     I swear if I didn’t know better, it appears that these pukey local msm dorks were trying to beat Lincecum down in arbitration. Almost as if they were doing Larry Sabean’s bidding.

     But nah. They’re journalists.

     Reply