It appeared earlier this week that the Giants and Matt Cain had built momentum toward an extension. One person in the know even said there's no chance the 2013 free agent signs for less than $100MM. Here are today's updates on talks between Cain, the Giants and teammate Madison Bumgarner:
- The Giants agreed to a one-year deal with Bumgarner, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The pre-arbitration eligible starter will earn $575K or so in 2012.
- There's no hard deadline for talks with Cain, Schulman adds. Cain would like negotiations to be done with by Opening Day.
- Andrew Baggarly of CSNBayArea.com suggests the Giants could work out extensions for Cain and Bumgarner within the week. The sides have been working late and the Giants like package announcements, Baggarly tweets. MLBTR has previewed possible extensions for Cain and Bumgarner this past offseason.
- Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports points out that Kevin Brown, the only right-handed pitcher in history to obtain a $100MM deal, signed his contract 13 years ago and suggests the market is ready for a correction by a present-day right-hander such as Cain. The Giants are privately optimistic that they'll lock Cain up, Rosenthal writes.
Locked up our ace (for as much as he wants to be locked up – 2yrs), locking up our workhorse (Cain), and locking up our future ace (Bumgarner). THIS is why our FO didn’t get on the “big bat” FA joyride this o/s.
yea that beltran contract is a nightmare
it didn’t exactly end up where he originally wanted it to be, or asked the Giants for.. did it…
apparently the cardinals performed some strange tribal ritual, i never remember the name…negoshia-something or other. negotiata?
anyway, pretty freaky stuff. can’t blame the giants for passing. beltran’s no melky cabrera
negotiations 2 months later when nobody has phoned you in regards to your initial demands makes it much easier to negotiate from the team’s point of view. Same applied to Ross (while no Beltran) – he wanted 3/18 when he talked to the Giants. They didn’t seem to want to wait around for 2 months for his price to come down, so they went with other options. If he had mentioned the possibility of a 1/3 a bit sooner, they might have been more interested.
Beltran wanted 3+ yrs. His agent was tossing terms out such as “last big contract”, etc.. At the time, dump 15-18 for 3-4 yrs into Beltran, and say buh-bye to Cain (still a possibility regardless), and the rest could follow.
pretty sure cain-or-beltran is a false choice anyway, but either way it was a serious misread of the market
they should definitely get credit for passing on ross, but beltran was worth waiting for – or even signing after the melky acquisition. his bat would make a big difference in that lineup
You mean Ross isn’t a savior in the outfield? You must not read the globe.
i don’t like ross much, but i’m okay with anyone* on a 1/$3M deal
*mathis & betancourt not included
Ha ha ha. True, if it’s not working out it’s pretty easy to cut bait on those terms. From some of the stuff I’ve read in the past couple of weeks, some people seem to think he’s the second coming of Ruth or something.
Negotiations in November aren’t as easy as in December/January when you’ve seen how little interest your demands are bringing in.. He wanted a 3-4 yr deal at 15-18 mil from the Giants. He ended up with a 2 yr deal at 13 per. It wasn’t negotiations as much as it was lack of interest.
interest (demand) is a primary factor in negotiations; they aren’t distinct. the giants didn’t need to make a decision in november. these things happen every year
and the likes of Melky Cabrera and Angel Pagan (maybe not those exact guys, but similar ones), would be available in January if the Giants were priced out of Beltran.
no need to set an entire outfield in November*.
We set up the OF early so as to have a better idea of what was left for our 2 big ticket items.
Tell Ned Colletti that. Dude gives 2 year contracts away in November when he coukd get the same thing on a one year league minimum deal in January. He learned from Sabean so it makes sense.
C’mon, the Cardinals had a lot of cash free up after Pujols left town — the Giants are going add 10’s of millions of $$ resigning Cain & Timmy.
really? the two of them will make $33M in 2012. they’re going to add 10s of millions to that? no, they’re just going to add years
meanwhile beltran only makes $7M more than they’re giving cabrera this year
Yes, Cain & Timmy can combine for $45 easily; Pablo signed to go from 550k to $5MM average; Posey is going to go the same as Pablo; Bumgarner is going to go the same as Pablo; that is an additional $15MM. We haven’t mentioned Romo & Wilson raises — as you can see the Giants payroll is going to skyrocket.
After they won the WS, the payroll went from $90MM to $130MM. Giants are not being cheap by any means.
Bottom line as a Giants fan, I would have liked Beltran resigned obviously over Pagan or Melky. But it’s not as simple as waiting for Beltran to make his decision. The Giants acted, they acted quick.
oh, they’re going to add ten million dollars? agree. you said tens of millions
you’re right about the raises, but you’re ignoring the money they get back. aubrey huff’s $10M for example clears the books after this year
so how about everything else stays the same, but instead of giving melky cabrera and javier lopez $11M in 2012, they give it to carlos beltran?
all i’m getting at here is that it was feasible. there are reasons they didn’t do it, but they aren’t very good reasons
Negoti-Pujols you mean?
Beltran is old, injured. Melky is young and improving.
Haters gonna hate! lol
beltran is older, but superior in every respect
melky is younger, but rode a .332 BABIP to a career year in 2011 that otherwise would have been exactly as mediocre as all of his other seasons
that was the difference. he didn’t improve his patience (he actually walked less); he didn’t hit the ball harder (standard batted ball profile); he didn’t see more pitches (he actually saw fewer)
what changed was his results on groundballs. in 2011, he did 61% better than the average player on groundballs. a .332 BABIP meant a slash line of .305/.339/.470 instead of .273/.307/438
At this point in their careers, Melky at 1 yr 6mil >> Beltran’s 2yr deal. His health is a gamble. I’m fine with Melky, whom btw is killing it in S.T.
beltran is older, but superior in every respect
melky is younger, but rode a .332 BABIP to a career year in 2011 that otherwise would have been exactly as mediocre as all of his other seasons
that was the difference. he didn’t improve his patience (he actually walked less); he didn’t hit the ball harder (standard batted ball profile); he didn’t see more pitches (he actually saw fewer)
what changed was his results on groundballs. in 2011, he did 61% better than the average player on groundballs. a .332 BABIP meant a slash line of .305/.339/.470 instead of .273/.307/438
Cain’s definitely got some mustard on his fastball. If I were him, I would certainly be relishing the thought of more than 100MM.
I like your use of condiments in your comment about that hot dog pitcher Cain. I’m not a Giants fan but I hope they find a way to keep him. I say give him 6yrs $110. If being the highest paid right handed pitcher ever isn’t enough for him to stay and he wants more, than the Giants may have to go in an another direction.
6 yrs is too long.. we still have the bad taste of Zito to deal with
If it’s 5 years and you’ll only pay more money per year. 6 years is pretty ideal as Cain has become pretty consistent and he’s durable.
I don’t disagree, and if Zito’s deal hadn’t been such a bad one, this would likely be a non-issue. It’s not that I believe that Cain won’t last 6 yrs.. it’s just the mental aspect of knowing we have 19M locked up in a pitcher that may get us 5 wins this season..
Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t Giants fans wanted Cain out of their team or was it Zito?
Sorry.. you’re wrong. Maybe you’re thinking of Barry Zito
Not that Cain is not worth the huge contract, but the track history of pitchers and huge contracts is not great, Hampton, Brown, Zito, even Johan on the 100 mil side cannot inspire confidence.
I’d rather see a 4+1 deal, but I think he likely is asking for more. He does want to stay a Giant, but he’s given us two separate hometown discounts in the past, and now feels that he deserves to be compensated for what he’s done for the team. And rightly so.
But yeah.. long term contracts make many a Giants fans a little queasy
Matt Cain for Ryan Sweeney Straight up.
So is Cain Bumgarner’s agent or is Bumgarner Cain’s? That was that last sentence looks lile.
If they’re privately optimistic they’ll sign Cain, then how does Rosenthal know? It’s not really private if it’s public knowledge..
Speculation journalism at its best. I suppose you can deduce its optimistic since they’re still negotiating. that’s about as much as you can take from it.
The great thing about Bumgarner is that he is destined to be even better than Lincecum and Cain. Learning to attack the strike zone like he does plus his straight faced southern attitude will bring him far in this league. World Series Game 4 is evidence of what he is capable of.
“The great thing about Bumgarner is that he is destined to be even better than Lincecum and Cain.”
Pitchers literally don’t get much better than Lincecum
I agree. Certainly none are higher in my mind 😉
The playoffs are evidence of what Bumgarner can do. When Bumgarner wins 2 Cy Youngs, then we will talk about Bumgarner and Lincecum in the same breath.
KEEP THE PITCHING INTACT! Last year the Giants were 52-11 in games when they scored four or more runs. That would prorate to a 140-win season over a 162 game schedule. Now we all know that won’t happen, but how many times have we seen Giants pitching hold other teams to 3 or fewer runs? If they get consistent hitting they will win 100 games. But this is cocntingent upon: (1) Posey making it all the way back; (2) Huff bouncing back to 2010 form; (3) Cabrera hits with MOB; and (4) they get something out of the 2B position. If the Giants keep their piutching consistent for the rest of the decade…well, can you spell D-Y-N-A-S-T-Y?
Stay with the plan. Keep the pitching intact. Spend the money on pitching. Fill the position players with the Farm System. Hopefully the Giants can resign Lincecum and Cain. Impact starting pitchers are hard to replace. Good pitching beats good hitting in the playoffs.