Atomic RoadRunners | Andrew Flynn’s High-Energy Fantasy Baseball

Tim Lincecum won the NL Cy Young Award by a comfortable margin Tuesday, taking home pitching’s highest honor in his second major league season. The slender kid with the whirling windup 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 Diamondbacks got four first-place votes and finished second with 73 points. “I was definitely surprised. I thought it was going to be a lot closer,” Lincecum said on a conference call. Lincecum led the NL in winning percentage (.783), ranked second in ERA and was third with 227 innings.

Listed at 5-foot-11 and 160 pounds, tiny by today’s standards for a big league pitcher, Lincecum defied detractors — and the laws of physics — by firing 97 mph fastballs past one hulking slugger after another. The 24-year-old right-hander was 18-5 with a 2.62 ERA and a major league-best 265 strikeouts, remarkable numbers for a fourth-place team that finished 72-90. “People have been doubting me my whole life,” he said. “I don’t let them bring me down.” Consider him arguably the No. 1 pitcher to target in Fantasy on Draft Day. We keep Johan Santana No. 1 still, because of the top contender with a great offense he pitches for, but Lincecum has a ton of upside and far more strikeout potential.

Webb, the NL winner in 2006, was runner-up for the second consecutive season after going 22-7 with a 3.30 ERA in 226 2/3 innings. Consider him one of the top five Fantasy starting pitchers to target on Draft Day. (CBS Sports)

Here are the results:

Pitcher, Club      1st  2nd  3rd  Points
Tim Lincecum, SF    23   7    1    137
Brandon Webb, AZ     4  15    8     73
Johan Santana, NYM   4   8   11     55
Brad Lidge, PHIL         1    7     10
CC Sabathia, MIL     1   1    1      9
Ryan Dempster, CHI            4      4

Here’s ESPN’s take, featuring a dismissive Peter Gammons, who may be past his prime:

And here’s ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian:

As Jim McLennan over at the AZ Snakepit wrote:

I can’t really argue with the top three, though it seems somebody can - one writer opted to leave Lincecum off his ballot entirely. Mind you, five chose to dump Webb too. I suspect it may have been the same idiot who voted for Sabathia as number one, and likely also for someone who threw less than seventy innings, in Brad Lidge. Lidge threw more innings, with a better ERA and an OBA twenty-four points lower, in 2004, and got only a single third-place vote, because he didn’t have the gaudy saves to show for it.

[Edit. I was wrong. It was actually a former Giants season-ticket holder, Chris De Luca of the Chicago Sun-Times, whose ballot apparently went Webb, Santana, Lidge. His reasoning was: "I thought Webb's victories (22) stood out to me more than anything, and Lincecum didn't have the victories. Twenty victories was a big deal. We had a stretch there where no one was hitting 20." A mob with pitchforks and torches is leaving San Francisco for Chicago as we speak]

Webb’s second-place could theoretically end up costing the team more money down the road, as the buyout for the team option year (2010) goes up by half a million dollars, each time Webb finishes in the top five for Cy Young voting. With three consecutive top two finishes, the buyout now sits at two million, though it would currently seem like insanity for any team to use that, rather than paying Webb $8.5m to pitch in 2010.

Herr Rotoprofessor has a Quick Hit piece today discussing Brandon Phillips, how his 2008 was, and what to expect in 2009:

I could sit here and sing the praises of the Reds Brandon Phillips as one of the top second baseman in all of baseball and it would be justified.  He is coming off an injury-shortened season (559 AB) where he hit .262 with 21 HR, 78 RBI, 80 R and 23 SB.  The problem is that 2008 was actually a disappointment, especially considering he went 30/30 with a .288 average in 2007.

The loss of Ken Griffey Jr. and Adam Dunn could be part of the reason for his decline, as he had hit .280 with 15 HR and 19 SB prior to the All-Star Break.  The truth is that after they were dealt away, a lot more pressure was put onto him as being “the man” in the line-up.  Yes, Joey Votto and Jay Bruce were there to support him, but they were rookies.  Teams were obviously going to look to make them beat them, as opposed to giving Phillips the opportunity to be the determining factor in the game.

August was by far his worst month in 2008, hitting just .212 in 104 AB.  Yes, he had some power, but you expect a significantly better average from a player who would one of the centerpieces of your fantasy offense.

I’m not sure what the Reds are going to add this off-season, but the maturation of both Votto & Bruce will offer Phillips increased protection.  That will allow him, hitting primarily in the cleanup spot once again, to get back to the type of production that owners are expecting.  It will also allow him to get back to scoring some runs, though batting cleanup I don’t think he’ll get back to the 100 R plateau as he did in 2007.

Let’s take a look at the numbers I’d expect from him:

654 AB, .287, 28 HR, 100 RBI, 91 R, 29 SB .307 BABIP (105 K, 42 BB), .335 OBP, .480 SLG

It’s tough to project someone as a 30/30 player, but I’m coming pretty close here with Phillips.  Obviously, no matter whom the Reds bring in, I think Phillips is going to return to the form that he had in 2007.  He’s a Top 3 player at his position, right there with Chase Utley & Ian Kinsler.  He’s a great pick in all formats, to say the least.