Lincecum, Giants avoid arbitration

[Upton]

Lincecum and the Giants reached a preliminary agreement Friday on a $23 million, two-year contract ahead of the scheduled start of an arbitration hearing.

The two-time reigning NL Cy Young Award winner had been set to ask for an arbitration-record $13 million salary for 2010 during a hearing Friday in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Lincecum gets a $2 million signing bonus, $8 million this year, $13 million in 2011 and the chance to earn performance and award bonuses. The agreement is subject to a physical.

The tiny, hard-throwing pitcher his teammates call "Franchise" and "Freak" is getting a nice raise from his $650,000 salary last year.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/02/12/sports/s084442S28.DTL&feed=rss.giants#ixzz0fMqKFwtN


It's great having the best pitcher in baseball on your side...

[Forkboy]

1. Now get some bats and the team will be a contendah!

[Upton]

2. Lets see..during the off season

the Giants have signed Aubrey Huff and Mark DeRosa. Not exactly big fish, and they'll both need to have close to career years to make a big difference, but the Giants just don't have the kind of money to go after anybody bigger, like a Jason Bay type.

[Forkboy]

3. They'll help though.

They don't need a big time bat, just a few solid guys to keep innings going with a timely hit or two. With their pitching they're automatically in almost every game.

[Auggie]

4. They all need to play better small ball and show more patience at the plate

That includes Sandoval.

[Upton]

5. After last year's struggles

you would think that improvement in plate discipline and situational hitting would be among their first priorities. At least I hope so.

I don't know if I agree about Pablo though. He a Vlad Guerrero type, many of his biggest hits come off bad pitches.

[Onceuponalife]

6. Why did he sign for so little?

23 mil sounds awfully small for his talent. Maybe he was stoned at the time and had a Dr. Evil moment?

[JonLP24]

7. 11.5 mil a season sounds pretty good

23 sounds small but when you look that it's for two seasons it's pretty nice. If it was for 3 or more I'm sure he would be well paid.

[Upton]

8. After this deal is up

Lincecum will still have 2 years of arbitration eligibility remaining. At that time he can look forward to a big payday.

Don't get your hopes up, Tim will be with the Giants tormenting Dodger hitters or a long, long time..