Lincecum's NL Cy Young Implications

Congratulations to Tim Lincecum, who just won his second (consecutive) Cy Young Award. Despite not getting the most first place votes (Wainwright did, but finished third), Lincecum undoubtedly deserved the baseball's highest pitching honor. His 261 Ks were the most in the NL. His 10.42 K/9 was the best amongst all pitchers in baseball who throw 150+ innings. Lincecum was top 5 in ERA, WHIP and FIP. Truth be told, his 2.34 FIP was second only to Greinke's 2.33 mark. Lincecum's 2009, like Greinke's 2009, was nothing short of dominant. It was better in every aspect to his outstanding 2008 campaign in every way except W's (which is a useless metric anyway). There is no doubt in my mind that Lincecum unanimously deserved the award over Carpenter, who had over 100 less Ks in 30 less innings, or Wainwright, who had a great season, but was not even top 10 in FIP or top 5 in ERA). In fact, if it was not for the Wins disparity, Lincecum would have probably gotten all of Carpenter and Wainwright's second place votes too, just for good measure.

That's two Cy Youngs in 2.5+ years of service. Lincecum is a Super Two this year. His arbitration potential in unheard of. Ryan Howard set the first year arb. award record in 2008, at $10 million. That was with only a single MVP to his name. Lincecum -- who has 676 Ks in less than 600 IP and a career WHIP of 1.15 -- stands to make more money than Free Agent SP John Lackey. He even has the potential to make more money than Matt Holliday, depending on the kind of long term deal Holliday is seeking.

Fangraphs valued Lincecum's +8.2 WAR 2009 season at $37.0 million. Only three players (Greinke (+9.4 WAR), Zobrist (+8.6 WAR) and Pujols (+8.4 WAR)) were more valuable last season. Bill James is predicting that Lincecum will almost exactly repeat his 2008 numbers (+7.5 WAR) in 2010. That would make Lincecum's performance worth between $30 and $35 million.

The good news for that Giants is that Lincecum is open to a long term deal. The bad news is how much Lincecum will probably cost. The Giants were dead last in wOBA/OPS last year and are in dire need of a quality hitter. According to MLBTR, the Giants' payroll stands to be around $80 million next season. They opened the 2009 season with an $82.6 million payroll, so the team seems a bit cash strapped at the moment. The Giants, however, will not have Lincecum forever and he's only going to get more expensive (just imagine the second year arbitration award potential if Lincecum were to pull off the three peat). SF has a great, young pitching staff and the window for winning will shrink as more core players (Sanchez, Sandoval, etc) get into the arbitration mix.

It's pure speculation on my part, but if the Giants have the money lying around, they should look into trading Jonathan Sanchez over to the Brewers for Prince Fielder. Sanchez is the kind of cheap, quality talent the Brewers are desperately seeking and Fielder is...well, Fielder. Can't hurt to add a .400+ wOBA bat to a .305 wOBA team. Sanchez might be too little to offer for Fielder, but maybe Matt Cain (also cost controlled)? Perhaps take a gamble and trade for Mat Gamel?