October 20, 2008
Outstanding Peer
Tim Lincecum's peers honored him with an award:
The Players Association announced this morning that Tim Lincecum was voted by his peers as the National League's Outstanding Pitcher, beating out fellow finalists CC Sabathia of the Brewers and Brandon Webb of the Diamondbacks.
I'm surprised Johan Santana wasn't in the top three. Will Webb's hot start weigh more with Cy Young voters than Santana's strong finish?
Posted by David Pinto at
05:50 PM
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I would have been quite surprised if the players who have to face him didn't select Tim Lincecum as the top NL pitcher. The players' comments about him have been quite flattering.
Tim also easily won two on-line polls I saw, so hopefully he will receive his deserved Cy Young Award, which would make him the first Giants pitcher since Mike McCormick in 1997 to win the award and I believe just the second-ever NL pitcher to win the award in his first full season -- with Fernando Valenzuela being the other.
Not that FIP is anything approaching everything, but Tim's FIP was 2.62 (same as his ERA), compared to Brandon Webb's 3.28 and Johan Santana's rather shocking 3.51.
Tim led the NL in strikeouts, recording 39% more whiffs per at bat than Santana, who finished second to Tim's 265 strikeouts at 206. Tim also led the NL in homer rate, with his 11 dingers being less than half Johan's 23.
Tim led the NL in BA, SLG and OPS against, which comes pretty close to saying it all.
