The Giants have offered Tim Lincecum a two-year, $40MM contract and the pitcher's representatives have countered with a two-year, $44MM offer, reports Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports (via Twitter). The small gap between the two offers leads Brown to believe that an agreement will be reached.
Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News reported yesterday that "significant progress" had been made between the two sides since they filed their arbitration figures (Lincecum for $21.5MM, the Giants for $17MM). A two-year contract would cover both of Lincecum's remaining arbitration years and also fit Lincecum's stated preference for short-term deals, though the Giants had also explored an eight-year extension with the two-time Cy Young Award winner earlier this winter.
Wow
“Well I guess I will be playing in NYY next year”- Matt Cain
Imagine Cain pitching for the Yankees. His Ws go way up with even a decent offense.
What is has been this and even?
if it was a long term contract id agree with you, but we’ll easily be able to keep cain with the contracts we have coming off the books this year. if anything it means lincecum might be in NY in 2 years.
So the Giants extend Lincecum and Cain, and have an even weaker offense because their money is tied into those 2 players.
Makes sense.
If Zito’s money ends up going to Tim, then that’s a wash. Rowands money (off the books after this coming season) could end up going towards Cain. They easily have the money to sign both. We’re at a $130 million payroll with the assumption we’ll have two $20 million dollar pitchers (Zito and Lincecum). That will change in 2 seasons. $20 million+ off the books for one, and I believe that stadium debt of $20million+ is done any year now.
So long as Giants fans realize the chances of making the playoffs with an even weaker offense for the next 2 years is lesser than me getting hooked up with Kim Kardashian. Zito is a massive roadblock all of a sudden, which sucks cause while I’m not a fan of the Giants per se, I do like seeing them do well for some strange reason.
They can already afford to give Tim 20+ mil this year and Cain 15 mil. In any long term extension their average annual salaries will each likely be less than 5 mil more than what they are being paid now. Even if you assume the worst case scenario and you need an extra 10 mil per season to lock them both up long term it shouldn’t be a problem at all. Rowand, Huff, Wilson and Sanchez all come off next year. Thats over 37 million. Meaning they should have more than 25 million to spend AFTER extending Lincecum and Cain. Much of that will go to raises for Bumgarner, Posey, Romo, Sandoval, and possibly re-signing Wilson. However, they should still have some money left over to address some of the holes in the offense. With cheap in-house candidates already on board to potentially replace Huff (Belt), Pagan (Brown), and Sanchez (Panik), there’s a possibility they could pursue another big 1B/OF bat as soon as next season. If not, the majority of Zito’s money comes off the following season and they should certainly have money to spend at that point. I don’t really understand why there’s so much skepticism about the team’s ability to keep both pitchers when theyre already paying both of them fairly close to market value and have so much money coming off the books in the next couple years. I fully expect a long term extension to be worked out with Cain in spring training and another to be worked out with Lincecum in 2 years.
dude..too long
Ah…welcome to the Twitter era.
Mathematically, the young core of Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Sandoval, Posey, Belt, Romo, Brown, and Panik should cost the team less than half of their total payroll over the next 3-5 years. Considering thats the top 60% of a rotation, 80% of an infield, a potential closer, a leadoff hitter and at least 3 potential middle of the order hitters. With other relatively cheap decent options to help round out the roster like Crawford, Schierholtz, Vogelsong, Hembree, Edlefsen, Surkamp, Hector Sanchez, Runzler, Gillaspie, Adrianza and Peguero the team could realistically have 30-40 million to spend rounding out the bullpen and bench and to add one or two more position players.
This being a 2 year deal, and Zito coming off the books in 2 years, might turn out to be a good thing. I think that sets us up nicely in regards to having the money to throw at Tim on a long term deal. That is of course if Tim is still performing like Tim. It’s too bad we didn’t have Wheeler (assuming he turns into something nice) waiting in the wings to step in as another starter on the cheap in that time period.
or both? mwahahah
We’d be happy with either, or Hamels.
As a fan of baseball though, I like Lincecum in SF. West coast just suits him better.
With the new luxury tax kicking in soon, I dunno if the Yanks will sign any meaningful SP free agent next year, even if they have a big contract finishing up. They’ve got a couple decent arms coming soon in Betances and Banuelos anyway.
Luxury tax has been in. It goes up 10% every year. The hope is to have the budget below 189m (lux tax cut off) in 2014, when Jeter’s and AJ’s contracts expire.
HOWEVER, that reduces the tax% back to 17%, which means the following few years (2015, 2016, etc), Yanks can go way over budget again, and repeat the process.
2014 is going to be crucial though, or they’re on a road towards paying double whatever they spend over lux tax cutoff.
Anyway, that’s the boring end of it. I do hope one or both of the Bs make it to the rotation. But I’d still rather have a Hamels or Cain over Nova or Hughes to be honest.
I have a strong feeling he’ll get a great contract offer from STL as they’ll have at least two gaps in the roster and have at least 10M/yr left in gap money from Pujols to Beltran’s salaries combined with the 12m that they’ll gain when Lohse leaves. Cain’s a Tennessee guy, I think he’d appreciate playing 4hrs from his hometown more than being in NYC if the contracts would be comparable.
Cain is from Texas, and he’s pretty settled in SF. He’ll sign an extension with the Giants this spring.
He’s from Tennessee, still has Shelby County license plates and has absolutely no chance of signing with the Giants if they give lincecum 22 million. You sure can’t have two 22 million dollar pitchers on the Giants and there’s no reason to believe that Cain will make (or demand) a penny less than Lincecum.
well considering Tim Lincecum is a much better pitcher than Matt Cain I would expect Cain to sign for much less.
I wouldn’t say much better, and I wouldn’t say much less. It’s so close that if Lincecum is getting 22 mil, there’s no reason Cain isn’t a 20m/year pitcher.
Lincecum gets more K’s, but also more walks. Statistically, it’s REAL close.
Pretty sure anything less than 20/year won’t get it done for one of the best pitchers in the NL (#10 WAR) but keep dreaming that he’s gonna give a huge discount to the Giants I guess.
Baseball is out of control with these contracts. What gives someone the right to say I deserves 22 million a year to throw a baseball for nine months. That goes for any player! These high salaries tarnish the true meaning of the game. Just go out and have fun!
What? You’d do the same thing, don’t even blame him.
Meanwhile in Africa…
Supply and demand.
It’s an old dead argument there is no point in ever saying it. He can say he is worth 22 million because only a select few can do what he does out
Of the 150 active starting pitchers in major league baseball there are 15 true #1s and out of those true #1s there are 5 or 6 established year in and year out aces and he is one of them. That’s how he values him self at 22 mill. To be honest as long as we are willing to pay the ever raising ticket prices these guys will get paid like this. Is it wrong? Of course but that’s our society right now. The only people that truly deserve that kind of money are military service men and women, doctors, nurses, paramedics, cops, firefighters and teachers.
…and pitchers
Acually, if any of those military service men and women, doctors, nurses, paramedics, cops, firefighters, or teachers made 20m a year, the guy you’re responding to would have a problem with them. That’s just how people are…
its not just that. players go out there and bring in fans, which makes money for their owners. if your boss made millions a year for something you do would you sit back and accept 50K a year, i doubt it. especially if only a few people in the united stated could do it at your level.
you are replaceable.. to a certain extent, lincecum is not.
Baseball makes tons of money. Where should that money go? Into the owners pockets or to the players who we are actually paying to watch?
Exactly. The only reason to reduce salaries would be if the revenue dropped significantly. If the teams are bringing in revenue, at least half of that revenue should go to the talent.
lol
if it makes you feel better Will Smith gets a lot more than that for 6 weeks of shooting
I predicted $47MM over 2 years because it’d make it like a 4 year/$70MM deal for his arbitration years. $5MM off the mark ain’t bad.
No offense to Timmah, but come on already! $20MM AAV is a solid offer at the very top-end. Trying to milk an extra $2MM per year when he either A) tired out last year and couldn’t close out the season, or B) got fed up by team performance and simply quit on the team in the last month is just patentedly ludicrous. Lincecum’s performance over the last month and change of the season should be costing him on his contract, not rewarding him.
Ya that 3.66 ERA in sept/oct is what cost the team, not the offense being unable to score. i suppose he also gave up in june when he had a 4.84 ERA and none of those monthly stats are attributable to luck and small sample sizes.
I didn’t say his performance cost the team their chance at the playoffs. Their offense did that. But watching him pitch the last month of the season was rather sad. Here was a dominant pitcher who quite obviously was a combination of tired and flat-out sick of his team letting him down. His attitude on the mound was NOTICEABLY different, he stopped pitching as late into games, and in most un-Lincecum-like fashion stopped taking personally getting hit around.
Timmah is likely one of the 5 best pitchers in the game. $20MM AAV pays him like one.
The offense had it’s best month in Sept. 107 ops+. I say just go year to year or sign him to a big extension 7 years 150M.
His agency is really the one demanding more money, not Lincecum himself. I’m sure Timmy would’ve taken the first deal himself, but his agency wouldn’t let him.
agency, players association, etc…
Probably true. But the agency should still be working FOR him, even though most know that’s rarely the case. But at some point Timmah needs to step in and tell them to leave SF some dough to go sign Cain and bring in another bat.
One can always fire the agent and sign the deal themselves. I’m sure they didn’t have to hold Tim back from signing right away, and why should he if the Giants don’t give him what he wants? He’s earned it.
If you were in a position to justifiably demand that level of compensation and your union preferred you to ask for that level of compensation so that it would bump up the pay for everybody right down to journeyman utility players, wouldn’t you do it?
If you were in a position to justifiably demand that level of compensation and your union preferred you to ask for that level of compensation so that it would bump up the pay for everybody right down to journeyman utility players, wouldn’t you do it?
just give him the 4 million
What kind of deal will he get as a FA? I’d say 7 years at 25 a year. Dodgers.
that would be very painful for the giants to see him playing for the dodgers
who does tim lincecum think he is asking the giants for all that money- barry zito?
it would have been funny if you used your punctuation correctly
2012 baseball fans, everybody…. correcting punctuation and takin’ names. yeah!
Capitalize your sentences, young man.
no, really. Your comment made no sense. It essentially read that Lincecum was asking Barry Zito for all that money.
exactly. im not one to correct people, but if your going to use it, at least act like you made it through elementary school
the level of irony embedded in this reply is just SO off the charts.
like omg
WOW
nope still funny
A 2 year/$42m deal (right in the middle) doesnt make much sense for SFG unless theyre getting a club option for the 3rd year at a similar price.
mispost
way to much money for a player whos decrasing in talent I rather see cain sighted and even if he leaves he would never ever be a yankee they are the evil empire and he would sigh with detroit or boston or san francisco
god forbid a pitcher goes from best pitcher in baseball to ONLY top 10.
Rowand’s $12 M or so is off the books after this year, as well as the last $5 M deferred payment to Bonds, most likely Huff’s $10 M and F. Sanchez’s $6 M = at least $33 M more flexibility.
In 2013, Zito will be making $20 M. His contract will mercifully end after the season (though only after a $7 M buyout). In 2017, AT&T will be paid off, freeing up another $20 M per year.
The Giants will have enough for Lincecum AND Cain. But will they want to stay if the offense isn’t better by then?
The Bonds deferment payments already ended
Timmy will soonner or later join the cubs, the only real challenge he could have…
really? you’re being selfish right now. you’re already going to be making $20 million a year..is that not enough for your lavish expenses? holy crap..this is ridiculous.
with a comment like that, how can you love the yankees at ALL.
LMFAO. Only Yankee players are alowd to ridiculous amonts of money.
couldn’t agree more… I’ve never liked lincecum or his attitude and this just solidifies my beliefs… I don’t care how many cy youngs you have won or will win, 40 million dollars is more money than ANYONE would ever need, not enough for Tim though apparently…