Torres, Torres, Torres: Signed!

The final player eligible for arbitration, Andres Torres, signed for either $2.1M or $2.2M, I have seen both figures.  The sfgiants.com website article by Half reported $2.1M and, while I can't find it online,  I read in the San Jose Mercury that he signed for $2.2M plus $100K in incentives.  The Chronicle reports only $2.2M.  Who knows, maybe it is $2.1M with $100K in incentives, which could account for both reports.  $2.2M is the mid-point between the salaries that the Giants  and Torres submitted to the arbitration board.

Now it is time for the Giants to handle all the pre-arb players, like Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner.  While they have the right to impose any salary that they want, as the Brewers found out when they did that with Prince Fielder, just doing that without some negotiation and agreement with the player and his reps could lead to a poisoned relationship. Obviously, Posey is the tougher one since he won the Rookie of the Year award, but Bumgarner pitched a great shutout in the World Series.  Lincecum, though, after his Cy Young season got $650,000, according to Baseball-Forecaster.com, so I would say that is the ceiling.

And hopefully the Giants can work on a long term deal with one or two of their young arbitration players to get more salary certainty.