Blast From the Past: Is Timmy A Latter Day Juan Marichal?

Throughout the history of their great franchise, the Giants have been blessed by several Hall of Fame caliber pitchers. Christy Mathewson, Carl Hubbell, Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry come to mind. I had the distinct pleasure of witnessing the Marichal/Perry era. While Mathewson is probably the dean of the list, I have always considered Juan Marichal to be the gold standard against whom subsequent Giants pitchers are judged. I've waited a long time for the Next Juan Marichal. I had long ago resigned myself to the reality that there will never be another Juan Marichal, and I still believe that. Baseball has changed enough that the things he did in his era will never be done again. Still, what we are currently witnessing from Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain is starting to rival Marichal/Perry. The addition of a World Series Championship doesn't hurt the current guys' case at all.

Fangraphs recently had a brief post of some comments Juan Marichal made about his contemporary, Luis Tiant. Just seeing the name Juan Marichal in print still gives me a thrill and a whole lot of memories came flooding back. About the same time, the guy at Bleacher Report ran a comp of Juan and Timmy that got me thinking that we may be witnessing something pretty special right now too. Something my daughters will look back on and say, "I wonder if there will ever be another Tim Lincecum?"

Juan Marichal was small for a pitcher at 6'0, 185 lbs. He had a distinctive deliivery in which he kicked his front foot almost straight up over his head while holding the ball back behind his right knee. I've always believed it was more for show than anything else, but it seemed to distract the hitters a bit and help him hide the ball. It sure was exciting to see, though. He arrived on the scene in 1960 with a flourish by pitching a complete game 1 hit shutout in his major league debut. He went 6-2 with a 2.66 ERA in 11 games that year. He went 13-10 with a 3.89 ERA in 1961 and 18-11 with a 3.36 ERA in 1962, the year the Giants went to the World Series.

1963 was the start of a remarkable run that rivals the best peaks in the history of the game. Over the next 10 seasons through 1971, he won 204 games, pitched 199 complete games with 43 shutouts. I grew up listening to games on the radio. Marichal's games just had a different tempo to them. Almost every batter had a quick 0-2 or 1-2 count. Juan was not a big strikeout pitcher but he used the pitcher's counts to his advantage forcing the batter to hit his pitch for weak contact. His career BABIP was .261. Despite the exaggerated motions in his delivery, he had legendary pinpoint control of all of his pitches. Over the course of his 16 year career, he averaged 1.82 BB/9.

Juan threw a variety of pitches including a fastball, curve, slider, changeup. His ace-in-the-hole pitch though was a screwball that allowed him to be extremely effective against lefthanded batters. What was unique about Juan was that he could throw all of his pitches from a variety of release points all starting with the signature leg kick.

Marichal's career mirrored his team during his amazing 10 year peak run in that over it's course, he might have been the best pitcher in the game, but in any give year it seemed like there was always one guy who was better. From 1963-1966 it was Sandy Koufax and later on it was Bob Gibson and then Tom Seaver. Juan never won a Cy Young Award. His career was marred by the Roseboro incident which may have contributed to his failure to win a Cy Young and delayed his induction into the Hall of Fame.

Tim Lincecum is even smaller than Juan Marichal, listed at 5'11", 163 lbs. His delivery, while different than Juan's is also distinctive and definitely contributes to his velocity. Like Juan, Tim throws a variety of pitches but has tended to rotate favorites rather than use his full arsenal at any given time. Timmy has added the long flying hair that adds to the flair of his already distinctive delivery. In addition to being a true ace pitcher, he's showman much like Juan.

Tim's major league debut was not nearly as sensational as Juan's as he got cuffed around by the Phillies and ended up with a 7-5 record with a 4.00 ERA in 2007. His sophomore campaign in 2008 rivaled any season any Giants pitcher has ever put up, 18-5, 2.62, 227 IP, 84 BB, 265 K's. That effort won him the Cy Young award in just his first complete season! He followed that up with an even more dominant effort, 15-7, 2.48, 225.1 IP, 68 BB, 261 K's. He cut his walks down while maintaining his K's and lowered his ERA. That effort won him a somewhat controversial Cy Young that was based more on sabermetric analysis than the more traditional W-L record. Timmy was less dominant in 2010, as he struggled with his command and a loss of velocity but still went 16-10 and won a 3'rd straight strikeout title. He capped the season off by going head-to-head with some of the best pitchers and lineups in baseball in the postseason and led the Giants to the only World Series title since they moved to San Francisco. Timmy seemed to return to form in 2011 with his 3'rd sub-3 ERA in 4 seasons but was hampered by a lack of run support for a 13-14 record.

Timmy and Juan are difficult to compare given the different eras they pitched in, but from an "eyeball" look at the stats, Timmy's last 4 seasons are very comparable to the first 4 years of Juan's 10 year peak run, maybe even better! The Cy Young's are voted awards, and the Championship was a team effort, but you can't deny those are things Juan never accomplished. It remains to be seen if Timmy can maintain his dominance for another 6 years. If he does, he may well surpass Juan in my estimation as the greatest San Francisco Giants pitcher of all time.

For those of you who are begging for the Giants to accede to Timmy's demands for an 8 year contract, consider that if he were to maintain his dominance for the duration of the contract, his peak run would last 2 years longer than the reigning greatest pitcher in San Francisco Giants history. Here are some stats that might also give you pause:

K/9 starting 2009: 10.42, 9.79, 9.12.

BB/9 starting 2009: 2.72, 3.22, 3.57.

Incremental changes, to be sure, but a 3 year progression in one direction has to be noticed. 8 years, as we have learned with Barry Zito is a long, long time.