Rick Thurman, the agent for Tim Lincecum, is saying that he and the Giants are going to go to arbitration to settle their salary dispute. Lincecum, as you may know, submitted $13MM as his desired salary, and the Giants countered with $8MM. Now, the $13MM that Lincecum asked for is a record among first-time eligibles, but you won't find many people who think he doesn't deserve it. You know his resume - consecutive 220+ inning Cy Young seasons where he led the league in strikeouts, allows barely 7 hits per 9, only .4 HR/9, and walks just over 3 per 9. In short, he's the complete power pitcher - durable and supremely talented. Plus, he's going to be 26 next year. So he's got that going for him, which is nice. What could be going against him, though, that could cause him to lose the hearing? I'm of the opinion that he's worth the $13MM and then some - FanGraphs values him at $37MM - but I'd like to play Giants' advocate for a second here, and examine the evidence that they could present in their favor.

First and foremost, look at that delivery. I know that his delivery is in all likelihood beneficial for him, helping to effectively distribute the weight and force and getting everything to move at the same time. But it's different and weird and I'm guessing that the Giants could play that up to an arbitrator who may regard Lincecum's parting of ways with convention the same way that Murray Chass treats UZR/150. Plus, even if his delivery enables him to throw as hard as he does, the Giants could argue that his high velocity - particularly when combined with his diminutive stature - could put undue stress on his ligaments and put him at greater risk of injury. It's no secret that young pitchers aren't exactly the most stable investment around, so any added injury risk would diminish Lincecum's value.

Of course, it might be rather tough to argue that a guy who's made 33 and 32 starts in the past two years has durability issues. But Lincecum has missed a start with back inflammation, and back issues tend to linger - particularly, the Giants will say, when a pitcher has an unconventional motion like Lincecum does. Plus, there's the issue of the Sports Illustrated cover story on him awhile ago, wherein it was revealed that he'll pop a backflip with no provocation, and doesn't ice his arm after starts. Neither of these things are bad in and of themselves, but the Giants could argue that such behavior demonstrates a carelessness that could negatively impact his future performance.

I've been emphasizing this, because a typical arbitration tactic of looking at comparable players and basing a decision off of what those guys earn isn't really favorable for the Giants, as Lincecum stacks up favorably to CC Sabathia and Johan Santana, who both make ~$23MM (CC earns a touch more than Johan, because why not?). But if they want to test the limits of selectivity, they could point out that Lincecum's most comparable pitcher through age 25 is Roy Oswalt, who received a 550% increase in salary in arbitration. Such an increase for Lincecum would mean an award of $3,300,000. Clearly, this isn't a strong argument for a couple reasons, chief among them being inflation and the fact that Lincecum is better. But even adjusted for inflation and talent, it'd be hard to justify a $10MM differential between Lincecum and Oswalt as a reward for the first three seasons of their careers.

Now like I said, I think Lincecum deserves more than $13MM, and he's got a much stronger case than the Giants. But maybe the arbitrator will be loath to award the record-setting amount for fear of perpetuating the precedent that younger players have been setting in recent years. Arbitration awards have been getting bigger as younger players have been getting better, and the arbitrator might want to stop the bleeding, as it were. And, really, that's the best hope the Giants have for getting an $8MM decision - that, or hoping that they're the only ones who actually show up to the hearing.

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