The Giants will sign right-hander Matt Cain to an extension "in the neighborhood of" five years and $110MM by Opening Day, two sources tell John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle (on Twitter). Landon Williams and Rick Landrum of CAA Sports represent Cain, who had been scheduled to hit free agency following the 2012 season.
Cain has emerged as a frontline starter in recent years and the upcoming deal would establish a record for right-handed pitchers, as long as it's worth more than $105MM. The 27-year-old has completed 200 innings in five consecutive seasons, and has impressive career rate stats. He consistently outperforms his strong peripheral stats to post low ERAs. Most recently, he posted a 2.88 ERA with 7.3 K/9, 2.6 BB/9 and a 41.7% ground ball rate in 221 2/3 innings last year.
The deal figures to affect at least two other ace pitchers: Tim Lincecum and Cole Hamels. Lincecum is on track for free agency following the 2013 season and Hamels will be eligible for free agency this winter. Should Hamels reach a deal with the Phillies, it will presumably mirror Cain's contract. Zack Greinke could also use Cain's deal as a reference point in talks with the Brewers.
Cain will earn $15MM in 2012. Luke Adams of MLBTR anticipated the terms of the upcoming extension with considerable accuracy in December.
This post was originally published on April 2nd, 2012.
“Oh this is joyus news!” -Lucille Austero
Good.
Yeeeeeeeees!
Great news, the dodger people are hurting right now
Best news all day
Maybe for a SF fan, haha.
 Well you guys are getting Votto long term. 🙂
I’m 10 min from Dodger stadium…think I’ll go hang a B.A.!
With him hopefully extending and votto extending there’s no one for next winter for the dodgers to sign really.
Cole Hamels and Brandon Phillips.
I hope the Dodgers overpay for Phillips his power numbers will decrease playing in their stadium as well as playing in AT&T and Petco 9 times a year.Â
Good for the Giants and hopefully this speeds up the Phillies/Hamels negotiations as there’s now a “market price.”
Great day for Giants and Reds fans
Sad day for everyone else =(
If you’re counting on your team getting better by poaching another team’s homegrown talent because you’re in a bigger market, good.
Smart move for them, but will make for a boring offseason. The next few years, the FA market will be barren because 95% of teams lock up their young talent.Â
I do wonder if the Dodgers being potential players in the upcoming FA market had any influence on when these deals got done. Â Maybe not.
Great. What’s next? Hamels and Phillies agree to a deal too?Â
Next season the Giants are probably going to lock up Bumgarner and Posey’s  arbitration years with the big focus on Lincecum.Â
They’ll definitely have a better chance at doing that with Rowand, Huff, Â and Sanchez off the books. That’s $31 million bucks right there. Now..if the Giants could only ‘Jedi-Mind Trick’ someone into trading for Zito we’d be good as gold.
as a dodgers fan, i’m fine with this. love seeing the Giants rush to spend money like this. less money for them to spend on other people. 🙂
also, i’m curious to know how much of this had to do with the Dodger’s new owners.
All due respect..but it’s kinda funny that you ”
love seeing the Giants rush to spend money like this. less money for them to spend on other people. :)” Every..and I mean EVERY sports show I’ve watched on TV and listened to on the radio said the Dodgers new ownership “ridiculously” overpaid. Overpaid to the tune of $800 MILLION. And F. McCourt STILL gets parking lot money.Â
They should pay him more than they paid Barry Zito!!! Matt Cain is awesome and it sucks that the Dodgers may not sign him. I guess the Dodgers will have to settle with Zack Greinke and Cole Hamles. When you have to settle with two picthers like that and you already have Clayton Kershaw not being able to sign Matt Cain hurts less.
The only reason i think its a bad move for the Giants is that they are commiting more money to pitchers when it looks like they need hitters. I mean the reason Matt Cain lost a lot games last year is because the Giants only scored one or two runs for him.
But still good for him. “Get that money Matt”
You’re not really trying to spin this into a bad thing for the Giants, are you?
he wanted the dodgers to get him, so now hes bitter possibly?
Not at all. Anytime you get a pitcher like Matt Cain its always a good thing. I was just saying i think the Giants need more hitters. I mean what good is signing a guy like Matt Cain if he’s not gonna get any help from the offense and lose games by one or two runs. That happend a lot last season.
 Zito was $126 for 7 years for his age 29 to 35 seasons. Assuming Cain gets $110 for 5 from 28-32, he shouldn’t have a problem getting another 2 years for $16 in his 33-34 seasons.
That’s why I love this extension, Giants probably get his best years and Cain has the opportunity to hit free agency again and get another big payday with a 3-4 year deal if he performs well.
Tim is headed toward $25m a season easy with this signing, figure 5 years $125m? I mean I don’t really know how it could be less nowÂ
Just think if he receives another Cy Young during the next two seasons can anyone really fantom the kind of money he’ll make?Â
He’s not signing an extension unless he gets very close to open market FA money. I really won’t be surprised if he leaves and gets $200m.
I’m just happy as long as this Cain deal goes through because we get at least one more year of having them both, and there is plenty of young offensive talent to develop over the next 2 years.
It’s hard not to love Cain as a pitcher, but, as a fan, I was holding out hope that the AAV of his extension was somewhere in the $19-20MM range. Â If it ends up being only five years, I guess that’s the trade-off. Â Six more years, including 2012, of Matt Cain is a comforting thought as the Giants approach the possibility of a Lincecum-less rotation.