Tim Lincecum Holds Pitching Showcase For Scouts
Tim Lincecum‘s pitching showcase on Friday went smoothly enough that the former two-time Cy Young winner has already piqued the interest of several teams around the league.
As of now, Lincecum is drawing interest from the Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Angels, Arizona Diamondbacks, San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres, according to reports by MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.
Now that he’s a free agent, Lincecum certainly won’t command the big money he once had when he was considered a flame thrower, who won back to back Cy Young Awards in 2008 – 2009. He understands that teams might only see him as a middle reliever, and at this point in his career, it’s something he’s willing to do.
“If (a job) leads towards getting to a starter, I would want to to work on that,” he said. “But , I know I’ve been working my butt off with pitch counts and working off that five-day rotation to try and elongate myself as a pitcher and as a starter. So yeah, it continues today.”
Lincecum’s former team, the San Francisco Giants, reportedly got their own private workout from their former ace earlier in the week. As of now, however, Lincecum has no intention of pitching for them.
The former Cy Young winner is exploring other options as of now, because the Giants aren’t offering him a spot in their rotation, and Lincecum believes that he can still help a team as a starter.
“It’s difficult, a lot like high school, trying to show your stuff off again,” Lincecum said.
The free agent is currently on the mend from hip surgery, so Lincecum threw only 41 pitches on Friday at the spring training home of the San Francisco Giants. Lincecum then took the mound where three dozen scouts representing nearly every MLB team were on hand to watch.
The former Cy Young winner did a good job of mixing up his pitches and hitting the majority of his spots during his showcase, consistently hitting 88mph to 91mph on the scouts radar guns. He felt so good afterwards, that he now hopes to catch on with a big league team real soon, hopefully as a starter.
“I’m happy,” Lincecum said. “I was able to throw strikes with my pitches, stay within myself, command all of my pitches. I only had a couple of misses and they weren’t out over the plate, so that’s encouraging for me.”
When Lincecum was in his prime, he was considered by many as one of the best starting pitchers in the game. He won the National League Cy Young Award in 2008 and 2009, including making four All-Star games. He also played a major role in guiding the San Francisco Giants to win three World Series titles in five years and threw a pair of no-hitters against the San Diego Padres in a span of eleven months in 2013.
Lincecum began having trouble with his hips due to the constant pounding that he needed to, to generate the amount of torque his 5-foot-11, 170-pound frame needed. Unfortunately, his velocity began to drop, while his ERA began to rise as he found himself throwing more and more with his arm.
Before Lincecum’s season was shut down on June 27, the right-hander was 7-4 with a 4.13 ERA in 15 starts.
The four-time All-Star had surgery on September 3rd and after finishing up a two-year, $35 million contract, was unable to find another team to sign with.
Most of the scouts that attended the showcase, seemed to be impressed with Lincecum’s outing, but the questions regarding his health and whether he could still be effective against live batters is still in question.
“This whole process has taken a lot of time,” Lincecum said. “Its been a little rigorous, a little Groundhog Day-ish, but making it to today and all the work that’s been put into this point today has definitely showed and I feel good about that.
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