Tim Lincecum

Lore & Background

Lincecum arrived in Los Angeles as a two-time Cy Young winner and a living embodiment of pitching as performance art. His delivery—more flick than windmill—produced a fastball that sat around 97 to 100 and a knuckle curve that seemed to fold itself over the plate at the last possible instant. In Oakland, that arsenal had earned him 2008 and 2009 Cy Young hardware and a 2009 season of 20 wins, a 2.16 ERA, and 283 strikeouts that fans still recount like scripture. By the time he laced up the Angels' orange-and-blue, he was a name every batter in the league dreaded and every fan recognized.

His 2015 stretch in Anaheim was brief but vivid. The Angels, a perennial contender in the AL West, gave Lincecum a new city, a new fanbase, and a short runway to show what a peak-era arm could do in a different uniform. He was traded to San Francisco in July, and the move stung Angels supporters who had grown attached to the spectacle of a 5-foot-11, 190-pound pitcher doing little kung-fu poses after every strikeout. The trade was a reminder that even legends are assets on a roster, but it never dulled the memory of those early-season starts.

In the broader Angels narrative, Lincecum occupies a special niche: not a long-tenured cornerstone, but a flash of brilliance that reminded fans why they fell in love with the game in the first place. His story is one of those 'what if he'd stayed' threads that fan forums still pull out a decade later, a small golden thread woven into the Halo's tapestry.

Reader's Guide

Years in the Halo: 2015 (April through July, before the trade to San Francisco). It was one season, maybe four months of starts, but it felt like a lifetime to the fans who packed the stands to watch him work.

Iconic moment: Any strikeout. But if you had to pick one, it's the image of him finishing a pitch, turning to the crowd, and dropping into that low, wide kung-fu pose while the batter stares at the empty zone. It wasn't just a strikeout; it was a statement, a little theater act, a reminder that this guy had more fun throwing a baseball than most people have fun living.

What made him the Angels: He wasn't a decade-long cornerstone. He was a spark. In a franchise defined by long-tenured legends—Thurman, Trout, Sabathia—Lincecum was the wild card, the guy who made you laugh and gasp in the same breath. He fit the Angels' identity as a team that could be both serious and a little ridiculous, both a contender and a show. His kung-fu persona matched the city's playful, larger-than-life energy in a way that a more conventional ace never could.

Anecdote: Fans say that after one particularly rough outing, Lincecum walked off the mound, pointed at the crowd, and did a little shrug-and-throw gesture as if to say, 'You saw that, right? I'm still here.' The crowd went wild. He didn't miss a beat. That's the guy. You could be in the middle of a bad game and he'd turn it into a moment you'd tell your kids about. That's Kung Fu Tim in the Halo, and no amount of trading can take that away.

Did You Know?

• Lincecum won back-to-back Cy Young Awards (2008, 2009) with the Oakland Athletics before ever setting foot in Los Angeles, making him a two-time award winner by the time he signed with the Angels.
• His 2009 season with Oakland featured 283 strikeouts in 226.2 innings, a rate that still ranks among the most dominant single-season strikeout performances in modern baseball.
• The 'Kung Fu Tim' persona—complete with the wrist-flick delivery and post-strikeout martial-arts poses—was so iconic that it became a cultural reference point well beyond the baseball world.
• His Angels tenure ended with a mid-2015 trade to the San Francisco Giants, a move that left Angels fans with a bittersweet memory of a legend who was never quite given the full season they wanted.