Lincecum is Near: Wins Golden Spike Award too

It was announced on sfgiants.com that Tim Lincecum, our 10th pick this year, won the prestigious Golden Spike award, given to the best amateur baseball player each year (so if there is ever a LeBron James equivalent in baseball, I guess theoretically he could win this award too). The other finalists was a who's who of Top 10 draft picks: Evan Longoria(#3), Andrew Miller(#6), Drew Stubbs (#8), and David Price (Price was the only non-drafted player; he is a sophomore). He's the first from University of Washington, amazingly, no school has ever repeated in the 28 years this award has been given.

Lincecum had this to say about the award:

"It doesn't get much better than this," Lincecum said. "Having a great season,
going in the draft, this is one of the biggest things to happen to me. Winning
the award is a big honor for me. It just feels really good to win it."

Signing Soon?

Lincecum also had a quote about his signing status:

"I's getting very close to where I'm going to put on a San Francisco -- or whatever farm team in their system -- hat," Lincecum said. "Signing is getting very close.

"I'm really psyched for it. It's going to be an exciting time for me. I'm finally going out on my own and finding out what it's all about."

Hopefully this is not a PR smokescreen but really that he is near. Makes me very nervous he hasn't signed yet when 4 of the top 5, 5 of the top 9, and 10 of the top 20 picks have already signed and so his bonus slot is pretty much clear: around $1.8M - #8 pick signed for $2M and #12 signed for $1.6M. Hopefully he's signed this weekend with press conference Monday morning to announce it.