As reported by Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports and Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Giants just inked starting pitcher Matt Cain to a $127.5 million contract extension through 2017. Cain's contract set an all time record for right-handed pitchers signing a multi-year deal; he will average $21.25 million a year throughout the term of the contract.

Matt Cain was scheduled to finish a three year $27.25m contract extension in 2012, earning $15m this season. Both sides agreed to drop the final year on that contract so that a $5m signing bonus could be added to the $15m base salary, which actually makes this a six year deal from 2012-2017. 

Matt Cain will get a $15m salary in 2012 plus the $5m signing bonus, and then receive $20m a year from 2013 through 2017. There is a club option in 2018 for $21m if specific inning numbers are met in 2016-17, or a $7.5m contract buyout.

As noted in a number of news stories on Cain's signing he has put up excellent, workman-like numbers in his seven year career as a Giant starter. Cain sports a 1.196 career WHIP and posted five consecutive 200 inning seasons from 2007 through 2011. Since 2005, his first year in the big leagues, opposing hitters have averaged .227 with a .660 OPS in Cain's starts and his ERA stands at 3.35.  

During the Giants World Championship run in 2010, Matt Cain had three starts, pitched 21.1 innings, gave up no earned runs (1 unearned run) and posted a victory over the Phillies in the NLCS and a win over the Texas Rangers in the World Series.

What is less universally highlighted is that Cain has a sub-.500 career win-loss record: 69 wins and 73 losses. Credit the Giants' lack of offense for that anomaly. As recently as ten years ago, before advanced statistical analysis of actual player performance was recognized by the MLB establishment, a losing record alone would have likely been a disqualifier for any pitcher seeking a multi-year high end contract.

Matt Cain's performance numbers would have made him a prime free agent target after the 2012 season for teams like the New York Yankees, the LA Dodgers, and the Chicago Cubs.

Two comparisons: 1) Contract structures-- Matt Cain vs. Barry Zito; and, 2) Matt Cain's numbers compared to Cole Hamels of the Philadelphia Phillies. Cain's high loss total is a direct result of the poor offensive support he has received throughout his Giants' career.

Hamels received a one year contract extension in 2012 for $15 and is expecting a multi-year contract offer similar to Cain's from Philadelphia. If the Phillies don't sign him, Hamels becomes a free agent at the end of this season. No doubt the Yankees, Dodgers, and Cubs are hoping that deal will not get done.
 
                           

	Contract term	Total salary	Highest salary year	Extension/buy out year	Career win-loss at signing
Barry Zito	7 years 2007-2013	$126m	2013 $20m	2014   $18m or $7m buyout	102-63
Matt Cain	6 years 2012-2017	$127.5m	2013-17 $20m	2018   $21m or $7.5m buyout	69-73
	Career W/L	Career WHIP	Career IP	Career SO/BB	Post season win-loss WHIP
Cole Hamels	74-54	1.141	1,161.1	1,091 / 292	7-4  1.053
Matt Cain	69-73	1.196	1,317.1	1,085 / 473	2-0   .938

The final player picks to make the San Francisco Giants' roster out of Spring Training just shifted into sharper focus. 

Jayson Stark of ESPN, via MLB Trade Rumors, reported that the San Francisco Giants are openly shopping infielders Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot to potential buyers. Theriot was signed for $1.32m in the off-season and Fontenot was extended to the tune of $1.05m for 2012. The Giants have five days to trade the veteran infielders before the team faces the prospect of having to cut both players in order to save paying 75% of their salaries.

It is no secret that the Philadelphia Phillies' infield situation has dramatically deteriorated with chronic injuries sidelining second baseman Chase Utley, first baseman Ryan Howard and third baseman Placido Polanco. Fontenot and/or Theriot could be valuable placeholders for Philadelphia through the first month of the season as they attempt to sort out, and maybe rebuild, their crumbling infield.

For the Giants, this almost certainly means Emmanuel Burriss and Brad Pill will make the team out of Scottsdale. Pill, who can play at first, third and in the outfield, has a .915 OPS in 18 Spring games and will add right handed pop from the bench. Burriss, who plays short and second, is batting .436 in 17 games and his fielding has markedly improved over last year.

By moving Theriot and Fontenot, the Giants will demonstrate their total commitment to Brandon Crawford as the starting shortstop-- for the first time in over fifteen years, there are no high priced veteran shortstops padding the roster.

*  *  *  *  *
On another note:
As of today, Giants' starting right fielder Nate Schierholtz is batting .216 (8 for 37) in 13 Spring games. In the Friday March 23rd game against Texas, Aubrey Huff started in left field. To date, Brandon Belt is batting .333 after 16 games in the desert.

Let’s hope San Francisco's front office has actually moved on from the absurdity of making Schierholtz the starting right fielder and sending Brandon Belt to Fresno. If Huff is going to produce at the plate, let's find that out by starting him in left field, moving Melky Cabrera to right and playing Belt every day at first base.

As I said in a blog about a month ago: this was never a question about Huff vs. Belt in the line-up. It's always been about Schierholtz vs. Belt. And that's an easy one to answer.

In the fifteen years from 1993 to 2007, the San Francisco Giants front office slowly developed and carved into stone a draft strategy that focused on pitching. The organization was all in with a philosophy that assigned extreme value to pitching through a series of risk-reward formulas and assumptions which would bring the Giants success but also result in years of deferred minor league position player development.

The core idea was smart and it was based on several foundational principals: first, pitching wins ballgames. There's a reason the cliche "you can't have enough pitching" is one of the smartest things anyone can say about the game. Player injuries and endless issues with mechanics mean the assembly line has to produce arms.

Last and hardly least, nothing brings value to even a routine trade with another team than the addition of pitching. It is the frosting on any MLB transactional cake.   

The Giants could concentrate on pitching because they had locked up an elite offensive chip no other baseball team could match: Barry Bonds. For years the idea was to construct a series of teams with a viable supporting cast of hitters around Bonds. Jeff Kent (1997), Ellis Burks (2000), Reggie Sanders (2002), Marquis Grissom and Jose Cruz (2003) were among the many veteran players General Manager Brian Sabean cherry picked in support of the Bonds offense.

Placing an emphasis on drafting pitchers allowed the Giants to both develop their own starters (Russ Ortiz, Shawn Estes), and trade cheap young pitching for more expensive veteran pitchers (Ryan Vogelsong for Pittsburgh's Jason Schmidt, Mark Leiter for the Expos' Kirk Rueter, etc.).

As the Bonds era came to a close, the Giants were still picking pitchers in the draft-- including Tim Lincecum (2006), Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson (2007), and eight of the first twelve picks in the 2008 draft. 

But there were virtually no position players of value being developed in the minors with lasting Major League skills. The team attempted to sell Giant fans on a series of subpar home grown hitters (Pedro Feliz, John Bowker, Travis Ishikawa, Fred Lewis among others) and peppered batting line-ups with veteran castoffs (Ray Durham, Ryan Klesko, Edgardo Alfonso, Dave Roberts to name a few).

Finally the San Francisco front office made a huge shift in philosophy and began to address the need to develop position players in their system. In particular, the last three player drafts were seminal moments for the franchise as a slew of position players with legitimate offensive tools began populating the minor league system (C Tommy Joseph, 3B Chris Dominguez, and 1B Brandon Belt in 2009; CF Gary Brown, CF Jarrett Parker, and SS Carter Jurica, 2010; 2B Joe Panik and C Andrew Susac in 2011).

Which bring us to:

2012 Question #2: The Giants' front office has proven they can identify, quickly develop, and pull the trigger on bringing quality pitching up to the big club. Can they do the same with a crop of promising young position players?

Don't hold your breath. Recent history points to Giants management being overly cautious and slow to turn over spots in the batting order to rookie hitters, no matter how much potential they've shown.

It may be that the front office can't fully shake their pitchers-first focus, or it may simply be that Giants GM Brian Sabean and his brain trust have been in their jobs longer than any other front office team and they are just a very deliberate group.

Sabean will likely move up to an executive position with the Giants' organization in the future, but until that time the longest tenured GM in baseball sets the time table for when young hitters finally arrive at AT&T Park. And those trains run slow.

The reason this question comes up in the 2012 season is that 2013 could potentially see two or three rookie position players ready for permanent lockers in San Francisco. It will be critical to bring them up before September to experience a pennant drive and get the one thing Triple A can't provide: Major League at-bats.

All eyes are on the speedy Gary Brown who appears to be the Giants' long-term solution at lead-off and in center field. But even if newly-signed outfielder/lead-off man Angel Pagan totally tanks in the first half of 2012 the Giants will look to solve that problem with a trade rather than bring Brown up.

It's much smarter to leave Brown in Triple A Fresno to get a full year of minor league at-bats at the highest level. At the end of the season the front office will have a much better idea if Gary Brown is ready to open 2013 as San Francisco's starting center fielder.

A better promotion would be slugging outfielder Francisco Peguero, who has a .779 OPS (.312 BA) in six minor league seasons and brings something to the show that Gary Brown does not: a potential power bat. If Brandon Belt takes over at first base, if Aubrey Huff continues his offensive decline, and if Nate Schierholtz continues to be just a great fourth outfielder, expect to see Peguero in the Giants outfield somewhere around the All Star break.

This is a great time for the Giants' organization and Giants fans. A sea change is just around the corner which will bring a whole new look to San Francisco's infield and outfield and give the front office some legitimate trading chips over the next several years.

Let's hope the Giants' organization is bold enough to proactively manage the upcoming talent surge and not be left standing indecisively behind it.

The San Francisco Giants are bringing something special to the start of the 2012 Major League season (at least on paper): the best balance of pitching and offense the team has put together since 2003.

That year, the Giants won one hundred games but lost the League Divisional Series to the Florida Marlins 3-1. Barry Bonds put up an astounding .529 OBP in 130 games, with 90 RBI, 111 runs scored, and a 1.278 OPS. Starter Jason Schmidt went 17-5 with a .953 WHIP.

The intervening six years saw the team get cheaper, older, slower as the front office first shut down and then began recovering from the Bonds era. This tedious period of wandering in the desert produced zero post season appearances and there was a sense that the ship was rudderless.

In the middle of a parade of elderly shortstops and minor league hitters who couldn't, very positive things started to happen: GM Brian Sabean's pitching-centric draft strategy began producing picks like Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, and Madison Bumgarner who developed and bloomed into top of the line starters. It all came together in 2010 with the addition of just enough hitting to propel the Giants to the post season and a World Championship. 
 
Last season the team played well enough through late July, actually holding down 1st place until early August before hitting a large wall. That's when the patched together offense from 2010 faltered, several trades proved unhelpful, and a season of poor middle infield defense caught up with the starting pitching. After the highs of 2010, the 2011 season was an extremely unwelcome journey back to earth.

With the April 6th Opening Day at Arizona only one month away, three questions will determine whether the San Francisco Giants will regain their mo and head into the post season with a goal of capturing their second World Championship in three years:

2012 Question #1: Did the Giants' front office add enough offense in the off-season to support the teams' dominant starting and bullpen pitching?

Probably not, but...
The addition of centerfielder Angel Pagan from the New York Mets is a huge upgrade offensively and defensively over Andres Torres. Pagan's performance at lead-off will be the earliest indicator of whether or not this team will score more runs in 2012. While the Giants scored the second lowest number of runs in the Majors last year, with their quality-start pitching taking the mound every day the offense only needs to move up to the middle of MLB run production to win a boatload of baseball games.                  

San Francisco's other big big-bat acquisition involved trading lefty starter Jonathan Sanchez for Kansas City outfielder Melky Cabrera. Cabrera put up some scorching numbers in the American League last year and he will be a free agent at the end of 2012. But...  last year Cabrera had a career year in a hitter's ballpark and he has a history of conditioning problems.

What Melky Cabrera does in the first two months of 2012 will be another critical indicator of whether Giants have enough gas in their offensive engine to drive this team into the post season. If Cabrera flexes his swing to use the alleys at AT&T Park to his advantage, and he adds the ingredient of speed, he could be a huge run contributor for the Giants.

There is one additional piece the San Francisco Giants can add to their offense in 2012 if they choose to do it: start Brandon Belt every day at first base. 

On the surface there appears to be a battle for playing time between Belt and Aubrey Huff-- but that's not what's really going on here. After 2010, Huff was signed to a $22m two year contract and he tanked badly last year at the plate. I agree the Giants need to see if Huff can earn his $11m this year and contribute to the offense-- but he should do that from left field. And Brandon Belt should be the everyday first baseman.

The real problem is the front office's surreal commitment to starting Nate Schierholtz in right field. Aubrey Huff will initially play almost every day so manager Bruce Bochy can assess if Huff will rediscover his ability to drive in runs. Which means that either Brandon Belt or Nate Schierholtz plays every day. And that, as they say, is a monumental no-brainer.

Nate Scherholtz is a 28 year old lifetime back-up outfielder whose highest career RBI totals are 29 in 2009 and 41 in 2011. His career OPS is .725. Bill James, in his essay "The 96 Families of Hitters", classifies a .725 OPS as "average". "Below average" starts at .699. And to get Nate Schierholtz's near-below average bat into the line-up the Giants are going to sit a promising young power hitter like Brandon Belt?
 
Oh, wait. Schierholtz has another skill: he has one of the best right field arms in the game. And that is so cool, right?.

But think about it for more than three seconds. The Royals' Jeff Francoeur led the Majors in assists from right field in 2011 with 16 in 153 games-- which is very good. Schierholtz-like, you might say. Excluding putouts, that means Francoeur created an out with his arm about once every 10 games.

But during those 10 games, Francoeur had about 40 at bats-- forty chances to create a run. And what did he do? Francoeur had an .805 OPS in 2011, knocking in 87 RBI, with 20 home runs, 77 runs scored and a .285 BA.

With Nate Schierholtz-type offensive numbers, the ability to merely throw out 16 runners over 153 games is an absolutely terrible trade off in right field. But somehow the Giants braintrust thinks it's a great idea.

What this Giants team really needs is some actual defense at the shortstop position, not in right field. In right field San Francisco needs an RBI-generating bat who can adequately field the position. Maybe Melky Cabrera will get 7 assists instead of 16 from right field, but he'll create runs with his bat. 

And more than anything else, runs are what the San Francisco Giants will desperately need in 2012.

We can look back and remember that gut-wrenching moment in May of 2011. And as Spring Training and the 2012 season powers into full gear, we'll read more and more about that horrible collision at home plate and see the replays on ESPN, FoxSports, and the MLB channel.
 
Beyond the obligatory interviews and the endless "one big question looms for the San Francisco Giants in 2012" stories is Buster Posey, a young baseball player in his third year in the Big Leagues after missing four months of his second year. And we can't really know what a talented Major League player goes through trying to rehab from major injuries and significant time away from the playing field.

For Posey I'm sure it's partly too personal and partly too complex for him to begin to articulate his actual feelings and thoughts. Even the toughest MLB player has unspoken fears and uncertain hopes heading back into the game after almost losing everything. Such experiences can linger and get in the way of things.

It's not that I think Buster Posey is different from other dedicated and talented pro athletes-- that he's tougher, or a harder worker, or the possessor of some extra special internal grit that others don't have. It's that I think Posey got a quick glimpse of the far side of his career; like an old "Twilight Zone" episode where the guy takes a photo and gets a snapshot of the future. This at an age when few players can even imagine their career has an ending.

San Francisco Giants TV broadcaster Mike Krukow has said many times that for a great number of players facing the end of their careers the idea of leaving the game can be unthinkable and scary. We see that all over the game: veterans hanging on any way they can for as long as they can. And it's not all about the money and it's not all about records and glory.

It's one more chance to get it done, one more season with the guys, one last taste of the sun and the grass on a Saturday afternoon.      

A talented twenty-five year old rookie or sophmore baseball player with the potential of a great career in front of him can't begin to identify with the fear of it all ending; and they shouldn't. Luckily Posey seems like the kind of player who will take that scary snapshot and grind it into his determination to make it back, using the moment to times ten his focus and dedication.


And the Buster Posey moment I am most looking forward to at the start of the upcoming 2012 baseball season?

How about a game winning home run? Or that first tag out play at home plate? Maybe catching a complete game shutout from one of the Giants' great starting pitchers?

Don't get me wrong, all of those moments will happen and they'll be electrifying to watch. It's the stuff of MLB TV replays and endless reams of commentary and text.

But the Buster Posey moment I most look forward to will happen maybe in a game sometime in mid-April or early May.

Madison Bumgarner is throwing the hell out of the ball and the Giants are leading 2-0 in the 7th inning. There's a runner on second base with two out, and as the batter bends into his stance Buster Posey raises his arm from the squat to call time out.

He stands up and slowly walks in front of home plate. With the entire field arrayed in front of him he looks around the diamond and then signals the Giants defense a reminder that there's two out.

Then Buster Posey crouches back down behind home plate and calls the next pitch.

According to MLBTradeRumors.com, the San Francisco Giants have invited thirty-eight year old right handed starting pitcher Ramon Ortiz to Spring Training under a minor league contract agreement. This appears to be the 2012 version of the team's now traditional purchase of "5th starter insurance", a longstanding Giants ritual much like the annual round-up of available veteran shortstops 35 years or older.

Ramon Ortiz you ask? Giant fans and their family members who pride themselves in holding unrelenting hatred in their hearts will remember Ortiz as the Angels' starter who beat San Francisco in Game 3 of the 2002 World Series on October 22nd at Pacific Bell Park. Which started at 5:34PM PST.

Ramon Ortiz is the kind of pitcher who became a "journeyman" the day he threw his first pitch as a Major Leaguer. He has a 86-84 lifetime record with a 4.93 ERA, and his best year was that infamous 2002 season when he went 15-9 3.77ERA/1.178WHIP for the then Anaheim Angels. The downside that year for Ortiz was the forty (yes, 40) home runs he gave up to American League hitters.

Ortiz will provide several services for the Giants-- first, as starter insurance if Barry Zito completly tanks in Spring Training or during the first two months of the season. Ortiz can come up and comfortably put up a .400 win/loss line and eat up numerous innings, giving the Giants time to figure out what the hell they really want to do for a 5th starter.

In addition, the day he steps on the field at Scottsdale Ortiz will also deliver a full five-fingered energy goose to Barry Zito. Zito is a fierce competitor and the Giants no doubt hope the sight of Ortiz lurking around the Gatorade dispenser throughout Spring Training, just waiting for Zito to mess up, will be the incentive Barry needs to properly focus and maybe win some games from the 5th spot in the rotation.

Welcome Ramon Ortiz. Enjoy your new Giants uniform shirt with the words "Todd Wellemeyer" crossed out on the back, and if Barry Zito offers you any of his home-made organic 12 grain wheat sprouted cookies, just pass.

BASEBALL HEADLINES FROM NEWSPAPERS ACROSS THE NATION
 


 
 

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YANKEES DEAL PITCHER A. J. BURNETT TO ITALIAN INDOOR CROSS-COUNTRY BOBSLED LEAGUE
GM Brian Cashman: “Oh, A.J.? You Won’t See Him No More…”

OAKLAND A’S TRADE BILLY BEANE TO HOUSTON ASTROS FOR THREE UP-AND-COMING FRONT OFFICE INTERNS
Owner Lew Wolff: “We’re Looking To Get Younger Everywhere in the Organization”

SF GIANTS’ GM BRIAN SABEAN STILL LOOKING TO ACCQUIRE VETERAN PLAYER WITH LITTLE RANGE AT SHORT
Sabean Mum On Talks, But Meeting With Agents For Dmitri Young and A. J. Burnett

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In a move that might be called "Brandon Crawford insurance" the Giants announced today they will sign free agent shortstop Ryan Theriot to a one year deal for a reported $1.25m, with $.750 in incentives (see the story at MLBTrade Rumors.com). Theriot played in 132 games last year for the St. Louis Cardinals, putting up 120 hits, a .271BA and a .321OBP. He played 91 games at shortstop and 35 games at second base.

The 32 year old Theriot lost his starting job in St. Louis in mid-season 2011 when the Cardinals traded for Los Angeles Dodgers' shortstop Rafael Furcal, who helped lead the Cards to a World Series Championship. Theriot had some at bats during the 2011 Series at second base. In December, St. Louis re-signed Furcal through 2013, cutting ties with Theriot.

The speculation continues about how frustrated Giant starters might be over the team's chronic lack of run support...  but there is little doubt they have been exasperated by having a series of over-the-hill players with little range covering the middle of the infield behind them.

Ryan Theriot has virtually no power and his increasing lack of range should keep him on the bench strictly as a back-up and emergency starter for the Giants. And picking up a non-starting marginal player simply because he hits lefties fairly well seems like poor use of a roster spot-- I would rather see a designated speedster along the lines of a Darren Ford available from the bench.

The San Francisco front office is obviously hedging on handing over the starting shortstop job to defensive phenom Brandon Crawford, who hit .204 in 66 games last season. No doubt the team is hoping Theriot will push Crawford at the plate in Spring Training.

What has been crystal clear the past several seasons is that the Giants' starting pitching cannot struggle to win games with both a lack of run-scoring offense at the plate and a lack of run stopping defense in the infield. Whether Brandon Crawford hits .220 or .260 is truly irrelevant: his glove and range are desperately needed to back-up Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner and Ryan Vogelsong and the 2012 drive to make the NL playoffs.

While the speculation continues about just how frustrated Giant starters might be over the team's chronic lack of run support, there is little doubt they have been exasperated by having a series of over-the-hill players with little range, like Miguel Tejada, Bill Hall, Orlando Cabrera, and Edgar Renteria, covering the middle of the infield behind them. (Although I still argue that Renteria's Game 5 home run against Texas to win the 2010 World Series more than made up for his ridiculous $19m contract and two years of butchering plays at short.)

If all goes well, Brandon Crawford will be the 2012 Opening Day shortstop and the Giants will have in Ryan Theriot a valuable mid-season trading chip should any team be in need of a veteran shortstop.
             

San Francisco Giants loyalists should swear off Walmart brand vodka and reevaluate the possibility of an all-knowing god this week: free agent super-whomper Prince Fielder has just signed a contract to play for the Detroit Tigers. For nine years.

Why celebrate Fielder's mega-signing with a difficult commitment to better health and renewed recognition of the fires of hell? Because apparently the Los Angeles Dodgers offered Fielder everything but Tommy Lasorda's Diners Club card to try and get the massive first baseman to sign a multiple year contract to wear an 8XL size Dodger-blue uniform. But it didn't happen.

The moment I realized the actual size of the iceberg the San Francisco Giants just missed hitting, I fell to my knees and began to spontaneously sing the "When the Giants Come to Town" song (which is dusted off and played in the TV booth several times a week when a San Francisco Giant player hits a home run).

Think about playing the Dodgers 18 times a year for seven years with Fielder batting clean-up; at four ABs per game, that's 72 ABs each year. Add in Matt Kemp and the additional quality players new ownership will be looking to accquire, and you begin to see why the Dodgers saw Fielder has the potential foundation of their impending rebirth.           

Other than the the obvious overall contract numbers, it is unclear why Prince Fielder chose to sign with the Tigers over the Dodgers. At first glance Detroit's nine years at $214 million sounds better than the Dodgers' apparent offer of $164 million over seven years. But not so fast. The Dodgers' offer included an opt out clause for Fielder after four years. Under the Detroit contract, Fielder gets $23m in 2012 and 2013, then $24m a year for the next seven years.

But what will the ceiling be for hitters of Fielder's caliber in 2016, when he is still only 32 years old? Albert Pujols will be making $25m with the LA Angels after four years-- and that number increases by $1m each year after-- so Pujols makes $26m in 2017, $27m in 2018, $28m in 2019, $29m in 2020, and $30m in 2021.

If Fielder had taken the Dodgers' offer, he would have made $104m in the first four years (Pujols, on the other hand is making $75m in the first four years of his new Angels contract). Fielder could have then opted out before 2016 and renegotiated with LA or another team at $26m a year, likely the going rate in 2016 for a hitter with his numbers and age.

A new five year deal at $26m a year would have brought Fielder an additional $130m; with the $104m he would have received from the first four years of the Dodgers' contract, he totals out at $234 for 9 years-- $20m more than he settled for to become a Tiger.

The important thing here, of course, is that Fielder decided not to take the Dodgers' generous offer for whatever reasons-- guaranteed money on the table, the ability to DH in the American League, or simply having no interest in the opting out and renegotiating process. 

But having an opt-out clause worked well for Yankee pitcher C. C. Sabathia, who opted out of his 2009 seven year $161m contract with the Yankees after three years, then renegotiated with New York to keep the remaining four years and add two additional years at $25m a year. In essence, Sabathia turned a seven year $161m contract into a nine year $206m contract.

This is the 21st century contract model for any superstar MLB player who can demand it.

The 2012 baseball season will be an economic crossroads for the San Francisco Giants.

On the contract and player payroll front, two out of control fiscal freight trains are heading for each other at top speed and will soon collide in an explosion of greenbacks, champagne, and Texas Instruments calculators: current and expensive bad contracts, and inescapably costly new contracts.

On the Oakland A's relocation front, the Giants brain trust will have to make a final decision on whether to, a) lock horns with about 90% of all Major League Baseball owners and fight to keep their territorial rights in San Jose and the Silicon Valley; or, b) appease their Mercedes driving/50 year old scotch drinking/leather chair sitting brethren and settle for what must ultimately be a modest buyout in the name of family peace.

But back to my brilliant freight trains anaolgy. Just when you thought the infosphere couldn't hold one more bad news story about San Francisco Giant player contracts, up jumps 2012. In the upcoming season potentially $41 million dollars will be diverted from the Giants real estate development project across McCovey Cove and into the pockets of Barry Zito ($19m), Aaron Rowand ($12m), and Aubrey Huff ($10m). That train began to go out of control years ago. 

Certainly Zito will earn his paychecks if he can keep his 5th starter role throughout 2012, and Huff is scheduled to play either left field or bump Brandon Belt off of 1st base. That is if Huff can bounce back from his horrific 2011 season-- something that has not historically come easy for 35-year-old baseball players.

And Aaron Rowand? The good news is that he was invited to the Miami Marlins spring camp and if he makes the team the Giants are only on the hook for $11.52m of his $12m salary this season. The frosting on that cake will melt when Rowand drives in his first run against the Giants in the regular season. 

            Which brings us to a stunning and improbable 2013 Opening Day:
                       three Giant starters will be making close to $60 million...  
                                 
The other speeding freight train on the payroll front is all about new contracts. That dreaded time when starters Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain begin to make Top Tier Money is at hand. Lincecum and his agent are at the arbitration table even as we sit and eat our Oreos and milk and there is little doubt he will walk away with the two things he wants most: a $20+ million a year salary, and a two year contract that will not interfere with cashing in hugetime as a free agent in several years.

At the same time, Matt Cain will close a three year $27.25m contract with San Francisco by pulling down $15m in 2012. Apparently the team is desperately hoping they can wrap Cain up for anywhere from 3-5 years starting in 2013 at less than $20m a year. Cain will go for the multi-year deal, but it's hard to believe it will be significantly below an average of $20m a year. [I won't even mention that closer Brian Wilson is scheduled to be arbitration-eligible in 2013. Oops!] 

Which brings us to a stunning and improbable 2013 Opening Day: the Giants will have three pitchers in the starting rotation making close to $60 million (Zito, Lincecum, Cain). Even the Philadelphia Phillies, who have one of the highest salaried starting rotations in MLB history, will have to stretch to top the Giants:

Philadelphia	Roy Halladay	Cliff Lee	Cole Hamels	Roy Oswalt	Totals
2011	$20m	$11m	$9.5m	$16m	$56.5m
2012	$20m	$21.5m	$15m	-free agent-	$56.5m
2013	$20m	$25m	-free agent-	-?-	$45m

    
Despite Rowand and Huff coming off the books next year, payroll will continue to be consumed in mass quantities by starting and bullpen pitching. And that suggests the San Francisco Giants' offense will continue to be a patched together combination of home-grown talent (cross your fingers) and bargain basement free agents and trade candidates.

Next: the Giants fierce territorial claims in San Jose and the neighboring Silicon Valley will make the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 look like a stroll down Sesame Street.