Let's not forget Lincecum has won the CY Young Award in each of his first two full seasons, he first started for the Giants in May 2007 after an injury to starter Russ Ortiz before being shut down for the season in September. He also has 225+ innings and 260+ strikeouts and MVP nominations over his two full seasons, a career ERA under 3 and a win percentage over 70% for a team that struggles each year to hit .500. Even though $8 million would be the highest paid to any first year arbitration eligible player, there is still a large gap between the two parties.
While no-one can question his resume, the Giants certainly have some ammunition in their case. There's always the fine he got following his marijuana bust during a traffic stop after the end of last season; a cheap shot, but surely one that will be brought up all the same. More importantly is Lincecum's numbers; not the ERA, not the Ks, but the velocity. Fangraphs.com list his fastball velocity averaging out at 94.2 in 2007, down to 92.4 in 2009 and bottoming out at around 91 in September 2009. Although he relied less on his fastball in 2009 (56% in 2009 as opposed to 66-67% in the previous two years) both his curveball and slider lost 2.5+ MPH last year. And the Giants more than anyone know about the velocity effect. After signing Barry Zito to a 7 year $126 million deal in 2007, then the richest contract at the time for a pitcher, his velocity drastically dropped to a point where his fastballs could be mistaken for something thrown by Tim Wakefield.
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On the flip side, Lincecum is that good. The Giants may be making a mistake letting it go this far. Even if they settled on a mid-point, even if they settled at $11 million, that would give the small market Giants some room to get some offense and not to rely on their star Pablo Sandoval to score the runs this season. They say that good pitching beats good offense, but bad pitching beats no offense.
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