Seems to me like there’s just some sort of general “Giants fatigue” throughout the industry this year — like everybody was so disgusted at having been forced to cover the Bonds march last year that now the mere mention of “San Francisco Giants” fills them with revulsion and nausea. Sort of like that beer you can never drink again because it was the first alcohol that ever made you puke (Miller High Life for me). And apparently it’s not just reporters, either, because it’s hard for me to understand why nobody thinks Rich Aurilia could be a useful bench player unless GMs are being afflicted by this malady as well.

However, I do have to question Azmanz’s basic premise that winning the Cy Young Award would enhance the Giants chances of resigning Lincecum long term. To be honest I’m not sure that I see any link between the two. But just to check my assumptions, I went back to 1980 and looked at all the young players who won Cy Youngs with their “parent organization” prior to qualifying for free agency. I believe that includes the following pitchers:

LaMarr Hoyt
Brett Saberhagen
Roger Clemens
Frank Viola
Jack McDowell
Pat Hentgen
Barry Zito
Roy Halladay
CC Sabathia
Fernando Valenzuela
Dwight Gooden
Orel Hershiser
Tom Glavine
Greg Maddux
Eric Gagne
Jake Peavy

And then let’s add to that group a second, made up of young players who won the Cy Young, not with the organization that drafted them, but with a second team that acquired them after no or very little major league time with their parent club:

Randy Johnson
Johan Santana
Doug Drabek
Pedro Martinez.

That’s 20 pitchers. By my count, 8 of them ended up signing contract extensions with their parent organization (Fernando, Gooden, Hershiser, Glavine, Peavy, Clemens, Hentgen, and Halladay). 6 of them filed for FA when the time came and signed with a new team (Hoyt, Zito, Maddux, Gagne, Drabek, and Pedro), and 5 of them were traded prior to qualifying for FA when contract extension negotiations broke down or in Viola and McDowells case, became so antagonistic and public that the team just wanted to be rid of them (Viola, McDowell, RJ, Santana, Sabathia). And finally there’s one player that I just can’t remember the circumstances of and can’t find evidence on: Brett Saberhagen. He played most of 8 season for KC before being traded to the Mets (by which time he was already bothered by shoulder troubles). It seems likely that he had signed an extension with KC and then was traded when his performance dropped low enough to make his $2mil salary onerous, but I can’t find any definite evidence that this was true.

So, it looks like 9 stayed on and 11 left. Which leads me back to my initial suspicions — the award the contract have no direct correlative relationship. If things stay cordial, deals can get done, but there’s no strong likelihood that they will. Apparently Timmy’s agent has already gone on record as saying that they’re not going to buy out his arb years, and will play one-year contracts one after another which isn’t a particularly good omen (as it means there’s the potential for 4 years of rancor to build up) but doesn’t mean that they can’t develop trust and respect during that time.

Oh and for anyone who wonders about Brandon Webb, I didn’t include him in the list because he actually signed his contract extension the winter before winning the Cy Young (though his agent was smart enough to put in significant CY vote incentive clauses).