Here's what I wrote after the last day of the season:Giants 3, Dodgers 1: For as much as I've been criticizing the Giants for so openly pimping Lincecum for the Cy Young award, they may very well have done it with this final performance (7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 13K). Indeed, if I had a vote I'd probably make Timmy my number one choice (though I could be talked into Santana if you gave me enough wine, and believe that Webb may very well get it anyway). That still doesn't mean they should have been pimping him, mind you.Well, it worked:
Tim Lincecum is the National League Cy Young Award winner, taking home pitching's highest honor in his second major league season. The slender kid with the whirling windup on Tuesday joined Mike McCormick (1967) as the only San Francisco Giants pitchers to win a Cy Young. Lincecum received 23 of 32 first-place votes and 137 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. Brandon Webb of the Arizona Diamondbacks got four first-place votes and finished second with 73 points.Query whether pushing those extra innings and short rest starts at the end of an otherwise lost season was the smartest thing the Giants ever did. Yes, it won the award for their boy, but (a) if he gets hurt sometime soon, people may be second guessing his work load; and (b) even if he doesn't get hurt, now that he has the hardware, he's going to be that much more expensive for the Giants when they get around to extending him.
That grumbling aside, congratulations to Lincecum, who really was amazing last season.
4 comments:
In other breaking news Jason Varitek got three second place votes.
I'm surprised he didn't get any rookie of the year votes.
APBA Guy-
Congrats Tim. I hope the absurd year-end workload won't shorten his 2009, let alone his career. I detailed in an earlier comment the ridiculous pitch counts he ran up over the last month+ of the season. Freak or not, he finished 2008 at 227 IP v. 177 for 2006. That's a 28% increase in workload. He's 24.
I don't see any starts on short rest for him, and though I'm inclined to agree with the philosophy of limiting pitch counts, he was healthy enough after starts of 127, 138, 118 and 102 pitches to throw another 103 in winning that last one. He's got all winter to heal.
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