Timmy & Tulo Defined an Era | Baseball Bits

this video is sponsored by tops mlb bun tops button is an officially licensed mlb card trading app that's currently running a medieval themed set called parchment my favorite card so far is this motion freddy freeman download tops nlb bunt for free using my link in the description it really hasn't been long since tim lincecum and troy toulowitzky were two of the best players in baseball yet they feel like relics of a bygone era they had a lot in common they're basically the same age both were west coast kids who rocked it up draft boards playing college ball and they each grew to be the faces of their respective national league west franchises tulawitsky and lincecum also subverted the expectations of their position linzicom with his slender frame was generously listed at 5 foot 11 but he's best remembered as a workhorse starting pitcher who threw absolute gas whereas two lewitsky all six foot three and 205 pounds of them fielded the shortstop position with the grace and poise one would expect from the generations of smaller middle infielders who played before him neither will be inducted into the national baseball hall of fame but that didn't stop them from defining an era they were so beloved that baseball fans find their sharp declines in early exits from the pro ranks hard to grapple with perhaps this fixation on the negative is misplaced after all the tale of timmy and tulo isn't a tragedy it's a triumph troy tulowitzky was the first to make the majors after excelling in double a he was rewarded with a 25 game stint in the majors to end the 2006 season he collected his first big league hit off the seemingly ageless oliver perez even though tulo won the race tim lindsecum was likely big league ready as soon as he was drafted out of the university of washington he spent 2006 laying waste to the lower levels of the miners the following year his performances became even harder to ignore he allowed just 12 hits in one run in five triple-a starts earning a call-up the 2007 giants despite finishing last in the national league west were a media spectacle that was the year barry bonds chased down the all-time home run record while in the midst of a perjury investigation with the media's crosshairs on bonds tim lindsecum's stellar rookie campaign was an afterthought he rocked an above average 112 era plus and struck out more than a batter per inning but didn't place in rookie of the year voting you know who did though troy toulowitsky the rocky's shortstop set the league on fire in all facets of the game emerging as a complete ballplayer at the young age of 22. his hitting stats were excellent slashing 291 359 479 with 24 homers but the glove is what separated him from his peers not that this was an indicator of his skill but he quickly inserted himself into the history books by turning in an unassisted triple play that april rookie of the year ended up being a two-horse race between tulo and ryan braun and the vote was fascinating brawn outperforms too lewitsky on offense but there was a problem with a sense of hindsight we can look at the defensive run saved leaderboard and find something truly disturbing tulo tied with albert pujols with an absolutely massive 31 run save versus the average shortstop whereas braun finished dead last with negative 32 runs at third base so even before adjusting for tuliwickski's more demanding position his defense was worth over 60 more runs than bronze not a defensive run save fan fielding percentage buried braun as well his 895 fielding percentage was the second worst fire defender since the dead ball era this culminated in 6.8 baseball reference wins above replacement for tulawitzki and only two for brawn but brawn ultimately took home the prize with a little hindsight troy tuliwitzky was robbed but 2007 was defined not by tulo versus braun rather the colorado rockies versus history it's time for october september 15 2007 rockies are 76 and 72 four and a half games out of a wild card spawn they're out of contention right wrong they win 12 of the last 13 games on their schedule with the only loss coming against brandon webb now they're thrust into a game 163 against triple crown winner jake peavy tulo gets a hit and another one and another one why not one more this 13th inning double against trevor hoffman brings the game within 1. matt holliday hits a line drive triple and the game is tied then third baseman jaime carroll lines out to right field here comes holliday for the win and he doesn't touch home plate still safe no instant replay rockies advance to the playoffs nlds against the phillies utley rollins hamill's howard you know these guys swept and lcs against the d-backs oh you have brandon webb swept tulo makes a great play for the last out that's 21 wins and just one loss since mid-september but they win too many games too fast with a nine game layover between the nlcs and world series the rockies lose momentum and the boston red sox sweep them still it's a magical run that establishes two lewitsky as one of the franchise's brightest stars now in a post barry bonds world it was time for tim lindsey come to do the same with the giants after a lousy 2007 and the departure of barry bonds the san francisco giants were a team lacking identity they needed a protagonist who better than tim lindsey come to fill that role he was captivating to watch the amount of power generated by lincecum's slight frame seemed impossible the powerful contortions of his body resulted in an upper 90s fastball it's no wonder they called him the freak and the freak show he put on the mound was every bit effective as it was aesthetically pleasing one of his many career highlights was a 15 strikeout performance against the pittsburgh pirates for two years 2008 and 2009 the man was unstoppable he led major league baseball in basically every important pitching statistic and naturally took home two cy young awards for his efforts in doing so he joined sandy koufax greg mannix and randy johnson as the only national leaguers to win the award in back-to-back seasons the feat has since been replicated by clayton kershaw max scherzer and jacob degron in that time frame he established himself as a superstar on the national stage lindsey come carried himself like a west coast skater guy not an elite professional athlete and he was ultimately embraced for his disarming demeanor whether it was a sports illustrated magazine cover or a classic this is sportscenter ad big time timmy jim had rapidly ascended into industry royalty when this stretch began in the spring of 2008 pablo sandoval and madison bumgarner weren't big leaguers and buster posey was yet to be drafted by the time lindsey come accepted his second cy young award in 2009 the giants still weren't quite a playoff team but they were close troy toulowitzki's 2008 wasn't so dominant he endured trips to the disabled list for quad and hand injuries and the start of his 2009 campaign wasn't particularly auspicious as he struggled at the plate and then it was as if a switch was flipped he laid waste to the national league from june onwards on august 10th he even hit for the cycle against the chicago cubs his final numbers improved on his 2007 rookie campaign and while he did finish fifth in mvp voting accolades were hard to come by no gold glove no silver slugger the rockies lost in the nlds to a phillies team that eventually won the world series it was tulo's last playoff appearance for colorado as they began to fade making way for tim lindsey comes giants and the national league west [Music] tim lindsecum didn't win the cy young award in 2010 but he was still great he led the national league in strikeouts for a third consecutive season but much more importantly he set the tone for a period of playoff success the franchise opened the nlds by striking out 14 braves in a two-hit complete game shutout it was one of the most dominant playoff starts in the history of the game by game score it was comparable to roy holiday's no-hitter don larson's perfect game and bob gibson's 17 strikeouts and why not he struck out 14 without allowing a single runner to advance beyond second base it was a strong start but the big finish wasn't bad either a few weeks later he pitched eight innings of one run ball against the rangers setting the table for brian wilson to close out this series for good it was the giants first world series win in 54 years and linzicom with multiple cy young awards and a world series ring had seemingly won everything there was to win by the age of 26. at the same time tulowitsky started getting serious recognition he kept the momentum of his 2009 campaign by basically repeating the season a couple more times the difference was that the accolades started pouring in as he finally got a pair of gold gloves silver sluggers and trips to the all-star game in that three-year stretch he established himself as the perfect modern shortstop even when adjusting for the coors effect with ops plus his 133 was the best among shortstops meanwhile tulo trailed only brendan ryan in defensive run saved he could do it all but on may 30th 2012 he came up lame on a groundout he underwent season ending groin surgery lindsey comes 2012 was a bummer as well for the first time since his rookie year he failed to reach 200 innings and 200 strikeouts but his inflated era was probably the most concerning thing with each successful giant's postseason run his role diminished in 2010 he was the ace in 2012 he was relegated to long relief where he ultimately excelled by 2014 he made just one low leverage appearance meanwhile tulo averaged just 88 games a season from 2012 to 2014 when he played he was still brilliant but his presence on the field was no guarantee rather than detail a litany of bad lens to come seasons and unfortunate tuliwitzki injuries let's switch gears timmy and tula were outliers in many ways but especially in terms of their god-given frames let's talk about the body [Music] when troy tulawitsky made his major league debut in 2006 his size was an outlier at six foot three inches tall the only everyday shortstop with his height was the one he idolized growing up derek jeter some of the premier shortstops in the national league included the diminutive jimmy rollins david eckstein and omar vasquel tulo didn't look like them listed quite generously at 5 foot 11 170 pounds tim lindsey comes size was also uncommon in fact of the 61 qualified pitchers in 2019 sunny gray mike leake and marcus strowman were the only hurlers under six feet tall since 2000 the single season strikeouts by shorties are dominated by two names tim lindsecum and pedro martinez johnny cueto and titanic tantalizing make appearances as well but it's safe to say that they have completely different builds whereas lindsecum and martinez were quite similar if you line them up next to each other one would think that timmy was the slick defender at shortstop and tulo was the ace pitcher heck at a photo day with toronto toulowitzki actually was once mistaken for a member of the starting rotation and asked to do all kinds of pitcher poses he obliged like pedro martinez linzicom relied on perfect yet violent mechanics to generate high velocity from his small frame lindsey comes arm speed in particular was out of this world as was the amount of torque generated by his hips compared to linzicom someone like justin verlander uses his longer levers to make an upper 90s fastball look nice and easy even though hip injuries tainted the latter half of his career it's hard to call lindsey comes mechanics anything short of a massive success they propelled him to consecutive cy young awards after all as for tulawitsky the only shortstops with more five war seasons before age 30 were arkey vaughan cal ripken jr and alex rodriguez this is great company for tulo in particular as he continued a lineage of big-bodied shortstops that started with ripken and a-rod in opposed to lewitsky league that lineage is as strong as ever with seeger bogarts tatis and correa dominating the position even tuliwitzki's heir trevor's story is built similarly tim lindsecum and troy tulawiski were unique athletes worth celebrating but it's not always easy to talk about them [Music] the rise and fall of so and so what happened to player x this type of rhetoric is the result of our unfair obsession with career trajectory instead of fixating on that here's just 20 seconds about their steep declines tuliwitzki was traded to toronto where he continued to suffer injuries to his lower half he missed the entirety of the 2018 season joined the yankees hit one home run for them got hurt and retired lindsey comes freak velocity declined throughout his career and a hip injury ended his final season in san francisco prematurely he joined the angels partway through 2016 but wasn't very good lincoln last pitched in the rangers minor league system in 2018. even in these post-peak years they provided memorable moments linzicom's two no-hitters came well after his best seasons and toulawiski hit three playoff homers as a blue jay tullo's best season was also injury shortened back in 2014 with the rockies he played just 91 games but he opsed over a thousand and accrued war at a mike trout pace it's the most recent season in which a position player received mvp votes with fewer than 400 played appearances thanks to lucas apostolaris of baseball prospectus for help on that one perceptions of timmy and tulo's careers are colored by a certain cooperstown centricity great baseball players are ultimately sorted into two bins you're either a hall of famer or not lindsey come and 2 lewitsky will likely never get a cooperstown plaque lindsey come has fewer career wins than ubaldo jimenez and tulowitzy has fewer hits than eric eibar but timmy and tulo's presences are still felt throughout the museum as well as in the echoes of baseball history among other things the caps worn by linzicom during his no-hitters are on display and troy tulowitzky bobbleheads are housed in the museum's collections to watch timmy and tulo at their best was nothing short of a privilege for giants and rockies fans and with the trajectories they took they certainly left us clamoring for more for us their careers were brief periods of dominance for them it was 13 and 15 years of the professional baseball grind so instead of asking what happened or what could have been maybe we should just be thankful for what it was [Music] this episode of baseball bits was brought to you by tops mlb bun tops mlb bunt is a baseball card app that allows you to rip open packs featuring your favorite players as well as trade with baseball fans around the world the app gives out constant freebies you can spin the wheel multiple times a day to win guaranteed prizes finish a collection and you'll also unlock a special reward card tops is currently running a unique set called parchment and it's only available through october 2nd in addition to the freddy freeman i mentioned i also pulled this super rare luis robert red autograph you can install tops mlb bunt using my link in the description take care [Music] you

Channel: Foolish Baseball

Views: 374,766

Rating: 4.9708748 out of 5

Keywords: tim lincecum, troy tulowitzki, what happened to tim lincecum, what happened to troy tulowitzki, timmy, tulo, tim lincecum highlights, troy tulowitzki highlights, rocktober, rocktober 2007, lincecum cy young, tim lincecum mechanics, lincecum angels, blue jays tulo, yankees tulo, tim lincecum this is sportscenter, big time timmy jim, troy tulowitzki rockies, 2007 colorado rockies, troy tulowitzki injuries, tim lincecum decline, baseball bits, mlb, foolish baseball, braun rookie

Id: Dq7X4rU-MZs

Length: 16min 0sec (960 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 19 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Monk_Philosophy]

Dude I didn’t even get the bell notification yet lol

Are you actually foolish bb?

[u/GrimmBloodyFable]

It's now confirmed by the definitive source: Matt Holiday did not touch home plate.

[u/Monk_Philosophy]

Very good take on both careers. He’s right that we tend to focus too much on the decline and what could have been instead of just celebrating someone at their best. I really love at the end how he showed how Cooperstown still has their mark and place in baseball history even if they aren’t ever going to be “in” the hall.

[u/PaulWall31]

TITANIC TANTILIZING

[u/qwerty9919]

Let Timmy smoke

[u/cooljammer00]

Yankees legend Troy Tulowitzki

[u/ThrowAwayAcc47777]

Not sure if this is a hot take but I really think Tim deserves to be in the Hall. The hip issues ended his prime prematurely but that run from 2008-2011 was incredible. I know there has to be players in the Hall of Fame who had shorter primes/careers than Lincecum.

[u/Boballen42]

Growing up watching Tulo in Colorado, I was sure he was a Hall of Famer. So hard seeing my hero fall the way he did, but like the video said, just gotta appreciate it for what it was.

[u/mansontaco]

Talk and Cargo are responsible for me being a baseball fan