The Giants and Matt Cain have agreed to a three-year contract extension, writes Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News. The deal, which will cover Cain through the 2012 season, buys out one year of the hurler's free agency. On Friday, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle speculated (via Twitter) that the Giants could be close to an extension with the 25-year-old.
Baggarly tweets that Cain will still make $4.5MM in 2010, $8MM in 2011, and $15MM in 2012. The new agreement voids Cain's old contract, in which he would have earned $4.25MM in 2010 with a $6.25MM club option for the following year. The old contract also included escalators based on innings pitched and games started that could have tacked another $1.9MM onto the 2011 option.
The extensions for Jeremy Affeldt and Brian Wilson have also been made official. Affeldt agreed to a two-year, $9.5MM pact while Wilson will earn $15MM over the next two seasons.
Yes! More Shotgun Cain!
This is big big awesome news!
He’s only going to get better folks. More innings under his belt than Tim in the majors but also younger. Watch out!
Bad signing. They had him signed at 12.65 MM over two years. They ripped current deal to sign him for one year @ roughly 15 MM. No long term deal?
I completely agree. They had a club option for under 7 mil next year!!! Three HORRIBLE signings in a row by Sabean. First Affledt, then Wilson, now Cain. We could have waited on all of these guys. Affletd had a great year LAST YEAR, we have him signed THIS YEAR…let Wilson go to arb year after year (he blows 7-10 saves a year)…and now Cain. We had him for dirt cheap the next 2 years and pissed it away. I love the Giants more than anything but my god am I crazy?? Or is Brian Sabean an idiot??
No, you are not crazy. I totally agree with your post. The Giants gained absolutely nothing by granting Cain a contract 2 seasons from now at $15M. They accepted a lot of risk and received no reward in return. Horrible deal by the Giants.The other two signings were above market as well.
You’re not crazy, and Sabes is making some bad decisions. I love a Cain extension, I got excited when I read the headline. But the headline’s misleading. It’s not a three year extension. It’s a a raise in salary the this year and next and a one year ext. This is so stupid. They’re giving him more money for two years when they already had a deal in place for those years at a great salary (for the team). I can’t understand this. Just one more in a series of confusing moves.
It’s a good deal for all
Cain could have had a great season coming up and gotten a LOT more had the Giants not done this
You know, the Giants have some really good pitchers in the rotation and in the pen. Too bad their lineup is old, slow, and can’t hit much. It leaves the pitchers with little margin for error. Don’t even get me started on their defense…
Pablo is the only hitter to really speak of…and he’s not exactly the smallest guy out there when it comes to defense. (though, for his size, I would consider a UZR of -6.4 EXTREMELY good).
Unless Posey ends up playing at some point this year, that is.
Remember, he’s only 23 years old so I’m sure he can improve his defense. He’s really been working hard to get better.
they had the best defense in the MLB last year. not just the NL. i’m not complaining about it. rowand has lost a step or two but they get they job done.
They had the best defense in the NL? Really?
Pack me a bowl.
So, in 2012, $34M will be tied up in two starting pitchers…neither of whom will be named Tim Lincecum. Assuming Lincecum makes $15M or so, that’s just under $50M for 3/5 of your rotation. That’s a little scary. I sure hope some of these young hitters in the minors pan out, because it doesn’t look like there will be a ton of money to throw at free agent offensive additions in years to come.
This deal could end up being pretty bad. He gets paid the same amount next year, more in 2 years and 15M in 2012. For a year that he was lucky, when comparing his FIP with this year and his career and the ERA of this year and the past, that’s a huge commitment. And then you have to pay Zito nearly 20M… And Lincecum is also going to get 20M(at least. He can go to an arb hearing and say my teammate is getting 15 and I’m a lot better in every way)… That’s 55M for 3 pitchers… And not even your 3 best pitchers… Also, if I’m not mistaken, won’t Sandoval be in arb by then? This deal could hamper them in 2012 like the Zito deal has done for years…
Maybe they should have excercised his option today and then offer him that extra year. That way they would have saved about $2MM.
Something maybe. I just think this deal is premature with two cheap years of control left for the right to pay him 15M.
I don’t have a problem with this deal. 23M total for 2011 and 2012. 11.5M a year for one of the top 25 best starters in baseball without having to make a huge long term deal now. Sounds ok to me. This wasn’t just for last year, if you look at his career numbers he’s been extremely consistent and healthy. After next year they could add another extension. The bullpen extension’s are another story.
He’s not one of the 25 best starters in baseball. Not even close, in fact. But the deal isn’t as bad as it could have been, I guess.
not even close to a top 25, are you kidding me? 14-8, 2.89 ERA, with the worst run support in the MLB. I would gladly love to know who you have in your top 25. Does Lincecum make your list??
This was a very interesting read conparing Cain, Verlander, and Hernandez.
mccoveychronicles.com/2010/3/29/1394902/comparing-…
That’s not how you should look at it.
He was already under team control for 2/$10.5. The new deal is 3/$27.5m. In essence you just did a one year deal to cover his first year of free agency at $17m. Awful, awful, awful.
In a vaccum the deal isn’t bad, but given the favorable terms of Cain’s existing contract (from a team’s perspective) this just doesn’t make sense.
They easily could have waited another year (or 2) before doing a new deal. I just can’t understand how this benefits the Giants at all.
guys guys, their defense doesn’t suffer THAT much. Ishikawa can obviously player better D than Huff. But then you get to everyone else. Panda has awsum range and a gun at 3rd. Schierholtz will play better D than Winn did as seen from all the runners he threw out last year. Rowand is still rowand plus in better shape (at least according to mlb network). DeRosa from Lewis? hahah don’t get me started. Renteria will still be renteria but now with a recovered elbow so he won’t have to force all his throws sideways like he did last year. Uribe isn’t terrible. Molina is… okay… a truck but he’s sitting on his ass most the time neway and he can call a good game.
0-7, 4.13…