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Tim Lincecum, doing his best LOWESS impression. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

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Today it was announced that Tim Lincecum would join Zack Greinke as this year's second Cy Young award winner. Both had excellent seasons. While Greinke likely has the edge due to Lincecum's more favorable league and park, both exhibited no real weakness. Both struck out more than a batter per inning, both walked fewer than three batters per nine innings, and both allowed fewer than a dozen home runs.

After Greinke's furious start, there was some concern that his superlative season might be lost as he bumped slightly in the middle of the season. Lincecum, by comparison, appeared to be more consistent: he had no string of dominance as convincing as Greinke's April, but neither did he have any periods in which he struggled.

I decided to calculate each pitcher's single-game FIP and xFIP (based on batted ball data from FanGraphs) and run it through the R CLI. I then applied a LOWESS regression to each pitcher's season to give an idea of how each pitcher's fortunes changed from month to month. Here they are, by FIP (click to enlarge):

xFIP comparison below the jump.

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These charts tells me the Royals are now in the Luis Rodriguez sweepstakes.

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Full data after the jump.

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Twins 2009 UZR/150, before JJ Hardy/Carlos Gomez Trade

See the excellent BtB analysis of the trade HERE.

Team Fielding Comparison after the jump.

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Click charts to enlarge. Full data after the jump.

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Coincidence?

Forbes.com recently unveiled its 2009 version of "America's Safest Cities" based on statistical measurements of violent crime, traffic deaths, deaths in the workplace, and distance from natural disasters in the forty largest metropolitan areas in the United States.

They might have considered "sports fan quality" in an effort to save time, but if "violent crime, traffic deaths, deaths in the workplace, and distance from natural disasters" doesn't conjure up the 2004-2009 Kansas City Royals / Kansas City Chiefs for you, you probably live in Florida and hate sports.

Me? I'm starting to get a leeeeetle jealous of Boston. We all know about the "Decade of Boston," (thanks Simmons), but now they're one of the top 5 safest places of all major metropolitan areas in the country? What's next?

Full charts after the jump.

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