Lincecum And My Concerns

First off, congrats to 25-year-old Tim Lincecum on winning his second Cy Young award in as many years yesterday.  It's tough to win one and even tougher to repeat.  The American League has only had 4 repeat winners (Pedro, Clemens two different times, Palmer, and McLain) and not counting Lincecum, it's only happened to 3 other NL pitchers (The Big Unit and Maddux 4 years in a row, and Sandy Koufax).

That said, here's what worries me about Lincecum.

He is 5'11, 170 pounds.  In the past two seasons, he has thrown more than 450 innings and because he's a big-time strikeout pitcher, he has averaged nearly 16 pitches per inning over the course of his short career.  Plus, unlike what was the case with Maddux or Clemens, there aren't too many Little League coaches out there who are teaching their kids to throw just like Timmy.

I looked it up and over the past two seasons in Major League baseball, only 5 starting pitchers have thrown at least 3,400 pitches in each season- Justin Verlander (7,459), C.C. Sabathia (7,400), Lincecum (7,121), A.J. Burnett (7,109), and Bronson Arroyo (6,840).  Out of the group, Timmy is the only guy who's not at least 6'4'' and the next skinniest guy on the list (Arroyo) outweighs him by 25 pounds (and Sabathia has him by a full person- 120 pounds).

Knock on wood, Lincecum has been a picture of health his first 3 seasons in the big leagues.  I just wonder how much longer his spindly build will continue to produce such eye-popping seasons and eye-popping pitch counts without any backlash.