Last week the Giants announced a five-year extension for Madison Bumgarner that will keep the left-hander in the fold through 2017 and could keep him in place through 2019 with a pair of options. The deal guarantees the hurler $35MM over five years and sets a record for pitchers with one-plus years of MLB service. The 22-year-old is now locked up for years to come alongside Matt Cain, but there's still the matter of addressing Tim Lincecum's future.
The two-time Cy Young winner is under team control through 2013 and the two sides haven't made a great deal of progress towards a new deal in recent months. Some see the long-term contracts for Bumgarner and Cain as preparation for Lincecum's eventual departure. Others contend that while San Francisco has committed a great deal of money to the two pitchers, it has little bearing on whether the club will iron out a deal with The Freak. As it stands today, do you see the Giants extending Lincecum?
A question better asked in October but right now I say no. His first free agent season will be at the age of 30. K rate trending downward, BB rate trending upward, velocity decreasing, babying his elbow with the slider. His resume suggests he could command more than Cain as well.
i agree that right now the last thing the giants have on their mind is extending lincecum, but if he regains his form he’s one of the best pitchers in baseball and would easily shatter cains contract if he wished to go long term.
Didn’t Timmie said that he likes short term contracts?
Yeah but I guess that was just a young star keeping his options open. If he is going to maximize earnings he is probably best signing a huge deal.
I think that meant he was comfortable not taking a discount of his arbitration years or first one or two years of free agency. I don’t see any reason for him to prefer a short term deal when he’s actually eligible for free agency.
True, but his agent asked for a 7-8 year deal (approx $175M) during negotiations last offseason. That’s not a realistic figure, but it was their starting point.
Well, the Giants were busy extending Cain and Bumgarner, which explains lack of movement.
I think he will sign. He does not seem to want a long term deal, though. I think he saw what happened to Zito coming to a new team, dealing with the added pressure, and how bad it can get. I am sure he has seen what happens to free agents in NY, too.
He’s Timmy. Laid back, slacker dude, so as long as the Giants are coming up with “we love you money”, whether long or short term, I think he will stay.
A lot of people claimed that neither Cain nor Bumgarner would want to stay, due to the offense issues, but they were proven to be wrong by the signing of two reasonable contracts. I think Timmy likes the camaraderie and competition with the two of them, as well. And SF fits his personality to a T.
The Giants management made the point of noting that they want both Lincecum and Posey signed to long term deals, after announcing Maddy’s deal, plus adding that while that can wait til next off season, never say never. I think a Posey deal will happen before season’s end, and Lincecum will have a new deal sometime in spring training, if not earlier.
Tim wants Free Agency. Everything he’s done has supported that. Doesn’t mean he won’t resign with the Giants once he hits it. But I think he really wants to see his value on the open market.
For me, the timing of this poll has more to do with Tim’s first 3 starts, and whether the Giants are shying away from contract talk right now until Tim comes correct.
It’s only two starts, so you can’t determine how he’ll do.. But, a good outing tomorrow against a team he’s always dominated (Mets) would show a lot to me as well. He’ll get back to himself eventually.
I’m saying no right now simply because his stuff’s down. It all really depends on his velocity. If it keeps going down, they’d be foolish to sign him prior to free agency.
I don’t see any way they can afford it. On the low side, he’s looking at 20mil a year, and that’ll cripple them.
In the offseason the Giants offered Lincecum 5 years 100 million and he turned it down. Lincecum offered 7 or 8 years, 170 million and the Giants turned that down. As long as Lincecum has a good year, they will work out an extension. The Giants have said that they have the money and they want to extend him. The people that say the Giants won’t resign him, must not follow the Giants very closely.
There’s a few different ways to look at the Lincecum question. Can the Giants re-sign him? sure. Will they? maybe. Should they? I say no, but we’ll see. If Timmy bounces back, the Giants would be able to get a king’s ransom for him this winter or next July
Timmy would only ever play for the Giants or his hometown Mariners. He’ll get re-signed. He’ll never have a long-term superdeal, though, he’s too unreliable.
I agree with the faceless Reaper87 gentleman above, especially his assertion that now is not the time to move on an extension. I’m a pretty conservative gambler so I don’t see the need to speculate on his performance for nearly two more full seasons that are already bought and paid for plus extended years right now. I think we can all agree that paying someone for past pitching performance is no fun. (What do Zito’s wins average out to, about a billion dollars each?) Honestly, and I love what Lincecum has done, I would rather see him walk and be successful somewhere else on a big contract than jump the gun and be stuck with a Dontrelle Willis and $100,000,000 on the books.
I wonder if the question isn’t “will they” but rather “should they”. Like several others have commented, right now doesn’t seem to be the right time to make such a move. Should the money they would use to sign Lincecum be better used to bolster the offense?
Red Sox are willing to ship Beckett, Buchholz, Youkilis and cash to the Giants for Timmy.
And the Red Sox would be even worse after that trade.
According to the media down here, that’s not possible
I think they should trade him for prospects towards the end of his contract… they have other young pitching and could reload their farm by doing so… but then again look at my avatar and you’ll know why i’m suggesting that
He is really the only “ace” I can think of that’s gonna be a free agent
Josh Johnson will after 2013 as well, but who knows what type of surgeries he’ll have between now and then.
Lincecum’s body looks to be breaking down and not surprising for someone with such a taxing delivery on a slender frame. If he hits the open market I think the smart teams will be leery of something more than 3 years though there will surely be a bunch of suitors willing to offer more for the name brand. I wouldn’t be surprised if Lincecum needs surgery sooner rather than later, or that he’s perhaps injured now in some way including his landing leg.
There’s a reason why things are referred to as “Freaks” if they lasted long or happened too often they would call them “Frequents”….Lincecum might surprise a lot of people and outduel a 65 year old Jaime Moyer in 15 years…but he has all the indicators of a pitcher not likely to live out a contract.
The Giants have planned for Timmy, and they can afford him if they want to. After this season, they’ll have Rowand, Huff, F. Sanchez, & Affeldt off the books most likely. Brian Wilson’s $8.5 million will either go down or be gone next year, too, after his TJ surgery last week. Even if they re-sign Melky Cabrera (likely they will try) and Angel Pagan (unlikely), they’ll have a lot of payroll to play with. And after 2013 (when Timmy will be a FA), they’ll finally be done with Zito’s big contract.
They have fixed costs on Cain and Bumgarner for years to come and Sandoval is locked up for three years. Posey is next, but after that, there are a lot of young, cheap position players (Belt, Crawford, Gary Brown, Joe Panik, etc.) coming up the pipeline. Even the probable closer of the future (Heath Hembree) is only 23 and will be very cheap for many years.
Timmy’s two-year window gives everyone a good chance to assess what should happen next between Timmy and the Giants. But if the Giants want him, they will sign him. They have the money, and Timmy wants to stay.
Well stated DrLefty.
While I want to count on each and every young position player you name (Belt, Craw, Brown & Panik), I don’t think all of them will pan out. I hope they do, but we’ll see. Brown is struggling (very early) in AA. Panik is two years out and only in Single A. We’ll see how Belt emerges from the yo-yo handling of the front office and Bochy. Crawford is the best bet right now. We’ll see how the bat comes along.
But agreed. Giants are very well-positioned to keep Timmy if they’d like.
As much as I’d like to see the Giants extend Lincecum for a few years, there are several reasons why I think that it won’t happen. When you consider his August 2010, a few stretches last season and his start this season… I think it’s clear that he will never again be the Cy Young winner he was a few years back. Don’t get me wrong, he can go on to have a very successful and long career… IF… he can re-learn how to pitch and continue to make adjustments as he gets older. And there’s no reason to think he won’t be able to! However, his unique (to say the least!) delivery style and his size make me hesitate to think of this as a slam dunk. Lincecum may or may not EVER come close to his glory days again. Even before this season, I thought his agents’ demands of an 8-year contract were ludicrous… now I know they are. If he regains his old command and has a decent rest of the year, and if he again shows signs of his old dominance, I would CONSIDER giving him a 3-4 year contract. But, honestly, I wouldn’t even extend him as far as Cain or Bumgarner, let alone anywhere near the 8 years he seems to want. I just hope that the Giants’ organization agrees with me. They are taking an awful risk signing multiple pitchers to longterm contracts just as the albatross of Zito’s contract is finally, soon, to be ended. Cain and Bumgarner are big, strong guys (I hate the term “horse”) and are relatively safe bets. Not Lincecum. I’d hate for Lincecum to become Zito Part Two.