I agree that a GM should listen to all offers. No player should be untouchable.

That said, I don’t think Tim Lincecum is the player to trade, barring a blow-the-doors-off and send us to heaven offer. It only makes sense to trade a super star caliber player if he is about to lose it. That seems unlikely with a 24-year-old who is still learning how best to utilize his vast talents.

If Bruce Bochy had been bright enough not to send Tim back for the seventh inning today (and perhaps if the Giants’ bullpen hadn’t been so horrible recently he would have), Tim would have been a blown third-strike call and a heads-down play by the gamer in center field from a six-inning shutout. And that was on a day when he was visibly coughing and lost a lot off his fastball as the game went on.

Tim’s change up was super today, and the Giants are finally getting smart enough not only to call it more, but to call it against right-handed hitters as well as lefties.

I’m not saying DON’T trade Tim. I’m merely saying that the chances of receiving an offer good enough to do so are slim. You rarely trade your best player.

I really don’t see Tim’s going to waste the next three or four years. Rather, I think he will continue to learn how to harness his fabulous skills to greatest advantage.

The Giants could be VERY competitive as early as 2012, and I think Tim will be a huge piece of that competitiveness. Not to say that the Giants might not have a replacement ace in Matt Cain or Madison Bumgarner by then, but they have an ace right now, one whom many consider to be the NL’s best pitcher prior to the All-Star break.

I think if Tim had pitched better today, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Fans are usually overly swayed by recent events. We didn’t hear this talk after Tim’s great effort a week ago today. Hearing it today is as ridiculous as hearing it then.

I think in the winter, you are retarded.

Billy Beane would NOT trade Tim Lincecum. He has never traded a player as good as Tim.

Given Billy’s limited funs to work with, it might be possible he would trade Tim rather than lose him to free agency, but Tim is the Giants’ for five more seasons after this one.

Where will the incredible team of 2012 come from?

P—Tim Lincecum
Madison Bumgarner
Tim Alderson
Jonathan Sanchez
Noah Lowry/ Barry Zito/Kevin Correia/Henry Sosa/Daryl Maday

RP—Brian Wilson
Sergio Romo
Alex Hinshaw

C—Buster Posey
Pablo Sandoval

1B—Angel Villalona
John Bowker

2B—Nick Noonan
Kevin Frandsen

SS—Brandon Crawford
Manny Burriss

3B—Conor Gillaspie

OF— Rafael Rodriguez
Aaron Rowand
Wendell Fairley
Roger Kriesnick
Nate Schierholtz
Freddie Lewis

That assumes the Giants sign their first four draft choices, of course, but it doesn’t even include their 2009 first-round draft choice, which I believe would at this moment be #4 overall, any trades or any free agent signings.

Some think the Giants will be competitive before 2012, and they could be right in about 2011, but I believe if they are patient, the Giants have the potential to field a World Series-caliber team beginning in 2012.

It’s not all that reasonable to expect a huge return for Lincecum. See recent trades for Sabathia and Santana as a gauge. While he might get cred for being under team control, he’s had one half-year of visible major league excellence. We can reasonably expect less from a trade involving Lincecum.

Wrong in this regard on Sabathia and Santana. Both were in the last year of their deals. Santana re-signed with the Mets immediately, which was a precursor to any trade. The Yankees and Red Sox both were in contention to give up their very best prospects for possibly 1 year of Santana. The Mets I thought got off easy, but Gomez is very talented (albeit raw) and Mulvey is a solid prospect, Guerra was highly regarded at the time but has fallen off a bit this year, but is plenty young enough to improve.

Lincecum is going to be controllable for another 4 years, 2 of those years being non-arbitration eligible years, that makes him FAR more valuable than Santana and Sabathia for the cheap cost alone, plus the negotiating leverage to have 4 years to resign him before he can hit the FA market. Danny Haren brought so much value for Beane and Oakland because he was on a long-term deal at a very low price for a player of his talent level and production. Its pretty reasonable to think Lincecum would bring a similar haul to what Haren brought. If not more. The problem is there aren’t many teams with the type of depth to pull off such a move. But the ones that do have the upper minors prospects that would bring not only major talent, but help for the Giants very quickly.

I can see your point about waiting another season, as I’ve felt that way about both Cain and Lincecum, that there is time to wait on having to trade one of them, but I just wonder if maybe Lincecum might not get much better at this point, so this might be the highest his value will ever be.

I agree that the Giants should trade all three players. After all, they’ll have to pay those guys in four or five years, and what would be the fun in that. By trading them for the grandchildren of players not yet drafted, they can postpone such fiscal necessities for decades.

much beloved by stathead influenced fans. After years of patient rebuilding, what have they achieved?

The problem with planning years into the future, to want to lump all your talent together is, firstly, prospects don’t develope as expected. Some develope ahead of schedule. Some develope behind schedule. Inevitably, some of those precious prospects in the minors, especially the really young guys in the low minors, are going to bust. It’s unlikely that all 3 of Villalona, Bumgarner, Alderson will fulfil their expectations. Whereas your MLB guys like Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez have all at the very least turned into decent MLB regulars.

Secondly, say goodbye to your fanbase.

I would certainly trade Tim for Jay Bruce AND Evan Longoria, and would at least THINK about dealing him for Even. But I wouldn’t trade Tim straight up for Jay, as I don’t think Jay is going to hit for average.

500 homers? Yes. A batting average above .270? Probably not. Jay strikes out far too often, and he doesn’t walk enough. I see his teammate Adam Dunn as a bit of a hitting comp for Jay, except that Adam knows how to take a walk far better than Jay. Jay is much better in the field and a much bigger threat to steal.

I would trade Matt Cain for Jay in a second.

Remember, Tim is making only $405,000 this season. He pays his salary many times over with the extra crowd he draws.

You really don’t think Lincecum wouldn’t bring back 3 to 4 top prospects if he was on the market?

Look at what the Mariners got for Erik Bedard. Adam Jones, a top prospect. Chris Tillman, a very highly regarded prospect who has gotten even better this year, and is now a top prospect, and a reliever who turned into an All-Star closer.

Just about any team would give up their top prospect for Lincecum, plus some other good pieces as well.

I think the Giants could get four or five good PROSPECTS for Tim. But unless one of them was super or at least two were EXTREMELY good, I wouldn’t consider it.

You don’t trade greatness for mediocrity or even goodness.

All I’m saying is he’s comparable in terms of being very good almost immediately upon entering the league. My main point was to point out that historically these types of rising stars tend to flame out pretty early in their careers. For a multitude of reasons. Usually injury related.

Mechanical analysis isn’t really necessary since there are a myriad of factors that could cause a decline in one’s career.

You can compare him to Hudson, Oswalt, Pedro, Buehrle (not so good anymore), Peavy etc too. (I wouldn’t use Marichal since that was a completely different era altogether.) All but Pedro and Peavy kind of fell off from their early production. They still remained good or great pitchers, but they were slightly to a lot less effective than they were early on (in Buehrle’s case especially). Which is the point I’m trying to make. These kind of players who dominate early as essentially almost always already at their peak value and production level.

The Red Sox have a top system. That’s why there’s a lot of love for their prospects. Its one of the deepest and talented in all of baseball.

It’s not a knee jerk reaction, I’ve contemplated this since last off-season when he was being discussed during the Winter Meetings. Now just seemed as good a time as any to bring it up as he didn’t even have his good stuff today and still was able to limit Milwaukee to 2 runs thru 6 innings. Not really going to count the 7th since he had no business being out there, but that’s a whole other story haha.

I think you mean the Giants unreliability to develop POSITIONAL talent, they’ve done well developing pitchers. And because of that inability to develop positional talent combined with the numerous holes in the organizational depth chart at multiple positions, I think that makes more risky to keep Tim. Obviously you could try to trade somebody else like Cain, or Sanchez, but you’re going to get a lot less back in return.

Must be traded, good player be damned.

Fans wait a lifetime to see a player like Lincecum don their team’s uniform.

Is why being a Fan of the Billy Beene A’s would be perpetual heartbreak.

I think that train of thought is a fallacy.

Sometimes, shitty teams have to trade their best players because the net increase in talent helps the team.

And let’s not get too out of hand with the Timmy praise. He is good, but the jury is still out on his Sandy Koufax or Juan Marichal properties.

Only if we pick up at least half of Zito’s salary. And even then I think we’d have to throw in a prospect to make it work.

Brian was bold with the White Flag trade. And he was wise when he traded for Robb Nen and for Ellis Burks. I always thought it was considerate of Brian to trade for Ellis so he could be closer to his Chevrolet dealership on Van Ness.

I agree he hasn’t been bold since December of 96.

That trade took balls. He must have given them to John Hart in that trade.