We heard this morning that the Giants and Tim Lincecum were making “significant progress” in contract negotiations. Now we have some specifics.
According to Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports, the Giants offered Lincecum a two-year, $40 million contract while the ace right-hander’s reps countered at two years and $44 million. With such a small gap separating the two sides, the expectation is that they’ll be able to get a deal done without an arbitration hearing next month. A two-year deal would cover Lincecum’s remaining arbitration seasons and allow him to test free agency after 2013.
Lincecum, 27, earned $13 million last season in the second year of a two-year, $23 million deal. He requested $21.5 million and was offered by the Giants $17 million when arbitration figures were exchanged Tuesday. Both were record filings for a player with less than six years of service time.
