He writes that Lincecum's agent is open to long term contract discussion, the opposite of the hard-line stance taken earlier in the 2008 of negotiating a new contract each year:
A day after Tim Lincecum became the second Cy Young Award winner in Giants history, the agent for the young right-hander said he would be open to discussing a multiyear contract with club officials."I never draw a line in the sand," said agent Rick Thurman, softening an earlier stance that Lincecum would proceed on one-year contracts through his arbitration years.
"If it's something they're interested in pursuing, an appropriate proposal, it's something we'll consider. And if not, that's great, too."
Thurman informally touched base with club officials at last week's general managers meetings, and Giants player-personnel director Bobby Evans said the door would remain open for future conversations.
"Giants fans know Tim is an important part of our present and future," Evans said. "In light of the Cy Young Award, it's clearly a significant accomplishment. What that means in terms of the contract, I couldn't tell you."
That is even better news than Lincecum winning the Cy Young! I wonder if the Cy Young win made them re-think that situation. Particularly in that now that the bar has been set high, they think they can get a bigger contract than most arbitration eligible players can normally get, so it would be a huge risk to go year by year, may as well guarantee a big pot of money now. Cain got a $9M contract, so Lincecum is probably looking at anywhere from $18-25M, I would think, hopefully with options going into his free agent years and probably with bonuses for any future awards, so he can get another, say, sports car, as a reward for the money earned.
Or even better, hopefully this means that Lincecum wants to stay here long-term, beyond his arbitration years. I suppose that the hard line could have been a reaction to the Lincecum for Rios rumors that the Blue Jays spread (is Ricciardo a loose cannon or what? I still can't believe he denigrated Adam Dunn live on radio!) last off-season. But obviously there is a lot of love flowing lately. And Lincecum appears to be enjoying being a Giant.
Wow! Really, 18-25 mil? I'd think if you take Ryan Howard as a pretty decent precedent, that if Timmy went to arbitration every year (and because I believe he's a Super 2, he has 4 arb years) he'd probably be getting awards that start at around $11 mil and going up each successive year.
ReplyDeleteNow of course pitcher's who sign these deals are buying insurance against the possibility of injury, but I assumed that the "play it year by year" stance was an indication that Lincecum doesn't believe he's going to get hurt and doesn't want his agent to discount for that possibility. If I'm wrong and he does want then insurance, then that changes things, but I think you're still Lincecum's team is got to be starting from a position that 4 years in front of an arbitrator are likely to be worth about $45 million. Going all the way down to 18 or even 25 is an awful big discount for injury.
Thanks for pointing that out, I had forgotten about Howard's contract. But he got $10M, not $11M. And the range was wide, the Phillies only offered $7M, so he could have gotten something in the $8.5-9.5M range instead of the Phillies were better with their offer.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, according to ESPN analysis, the main reason he got $10M was because Miguel Cabrera got $7.4M the year before and they couldn't go lower for Howard, so they went to $10. So he really should have gotten around $8-8.5M had the Phillies done their work right.
Kind of like how the Giants screwed up the Pierzynski arbitration offer.
That's water under the bridge (or spilt milk) now for the rest of the MLB as now they have to work against that.
So you are totally right, Howard's award screwed up my guess-timate totally. And Lincecum is comparable, both are doing things that younger players don't do, though Howard's is historic whereas Lincecum is "only" rarely done.
To get an idea of the ratio from hitter to pitcher, luckily last year the two top got contracts, A-Rod and Santana. A-Rod got $27.5M per year, Santana got $22.9M, or roughly 83%. That would put Lincecum at $8.3M to start.
Then you got the "raises" each year after that. So your 4 year, $45M is probably not that far off-base.
At the 10% salary inflation the market has been seeing, starting from a base $8.3M, a four year contract would total $38.5M.