….The two-year, $40.5 million deal, which was completed Tuesday but will not be official until he passes a physical next week…

This deal shows that Lincecum is saying that unless the Giants start building an offense that matches his talents, he won’t be a Giant once he reaches free agency. Another two seasons of winning 13 games instead of 20, of seven starts without a single run to work with, of losing four 1-0 games…. these things are not acceptable to him, and if they continue, he will become a Yankee.

…. After trying forever to talk the Mariners into trading Felix Hernandez, (Brian) Cashman instead convinced them to give up Michael Pineda, the 6-foot-7, 98-mph throwing righthander with seemingly unlimited potential, for Jesus Montero.

Watching Montero explode onto the scene last season, it sure seems like a big risk. Pineda faded badly down the stretch last season, after making the All Star game. So far, all the buzz is that Cashman had to make this deal, and he’s getting kudos for doing so. It’s a bigger gamble than that. Montero is as close to sure thing as you’re gonna see. Is Pineda?

UPDATE: SI’s Cliff Corcoran delves deeper into the trade, and thinks it was a real steal for the Yanks:

…. The impact of the Pineda/Montero swap will extend far beyond the coming season, however. The Yankees will have control of Pineda, who will turn 23 on Wednesday, for the next five seasons, while the Mariners will own Montero’s rights for the next six, and these are two of the top young players in the game. Pineda, who was an All-Star as a rookie, is a solid 6-foot-7 stud with mid-90s heat that can spike up to 98 miles per hour and a devastating slider. Both of those pitches are legitimate major league out-pitches, and scouts believe that if he can improve his changeup he could be one of the few legitimate aces in the game. As a rookie last year, he was second in the AL in strikeouts per nine inning at 9.1, besting MVP Justin Verlander in that category, ranked eighth in WHIP at 1.10, and was 14th in strikeout-to-walk ratio with a solid 3.15 ratio. Those peripherals speak louder than his 3.74 ERA and 9-10 record for the lowest-scoring team in baseball.

Well, OK. I still think Montero is gonna solve his position problem, end up a decent first baseman, and win an MVP somewhere down the line.

…. The same organization that gave Aubrey Huff 2/22 couldn’t give Beltran 2/26, especially after giving away its top pitching prospect to get him in July?

It is a fair question that speaks to a disconnect between the faithful’s expectations and the team’s philosophy, so soon after a World Series championship and a year of 81 sellouts at AT&T Park.

This is not new. It actually began 15 years ago when Brian Sabean, just named GM, traded one of the game’s best hitters (Matt Williams) to Cleveland essentially for three players: second baseman Jeff Kent, shortstop Jose Vizacaino and pitcher Julian Tavarez, who actually was the key to the deal.

…. Sabean always has believed that it makes little sense to have one or two big players if the supporting cast is weak. He would rather own a room full of toys than one Xbox 360.

First of all, the Williams deal –which has to be considered one of the luckiest deal of the last two decades– has no connection whatsoever to trading one of the top pitching prospects in the organization for a two month rental. And it has no relevance when considering whether to trade more prospects to acquire a mediocre hitter and fielder, as opposed to just ponying up for a top of the line hitter that the team actually needs.

Schulman’s whitewash asks us to accept the premise that Sabean knows all, that he can see how every deal is going to work out, that he is always successful. None of those things are true. He’s been fleeced far more often than not over the last decade. Name the trade over the last five years that’s been a huge win for the Giants. If Wheeler is starting for the Mets this season, and winning, that’ll be the third big deal in a row where Sabean got his lunch handed to him.

Oh, and by the way, when Sabean had the one Xbox 360 –Bonds– the team contended for a title for basically fifteen straight years. If not for the Giants miracle run, coupled with the Padres staggering collapse in 2010, Sabean would be watching the playoffs on TV for the last 8 seasons.

Oh, and the losers, retreads and has-beens he’s been parading around dressed in orange and black aren’t toys. They’re lumps of coal.

…. I must admit I think folks are underestimating Cabrera’s potential impact. The guy did come to bat 706 times for Kansas City last year and hit .305/.340/.470 with 18 home runs from the second spot in the order and playing 81 home games in a pitchers’ park. An outlier year? Kind of hard to say that when the guy is supposed to be 27 years old.

Wow. Sabean couldn’t have said it better. Of course, that’s a line of bullshit a mile deep. You wanna know what Cabrera’s gonna bring to the team? 500 outs, that’s what. FIVE. HUNDRED. OUTS.

UPDATE: LOL. Sorry. Christmas. Busy.

This deal highlights our GM’s failures. He couldn’t get a deal that well thought out if he sacrificed his first born son. Jocketty and the rest of the Cardinals front office have consistently out-performed the Giants team of crack baseball minds, as evidenced by their 2 world championships over the last decade –most in all of baseball– while the Giants have now missed the playoffs two of the last three seasons while running out some of the best overall pitching the game has seen in decades.

Two years, $26 million. I have listed some of the money that Sabean has thrown away during the last decade so many times, I can find that money in about ten seconds.

…. Sabean has thrown about $35 million in 2010-2011 commitments at DeRosa, Aubrey Huff, Freddy Sanchez, Bengie Molina, and Juan Uribe.

…. Don’t give $18 million to Dave Roberts, $12 million to Marvin Benard, $8 million to Shawon Dunston, $14 million to NEIFI-FUCKING-PEREZ!!!!!

There, that was easy enough.

You want a rant, I’ll give you a rant.

…. Nearly nine years, thousands of attorneys’ hours and reportedly more than $50 million of taxpayer money later, Barry Bonds has finally received notice of punishment for what prosecutors insist was his lying under oath about using performance-enhancing drugs.

Considering the sizable investment of prosecutors’ time and Americans’ tax dollars, the “punishment” may seem a little light: U.S. District Judge Susan Illston sentenced Bonds, who in April was convicted on one count of obstruction of justice but escaped conviction on perjury, to 30 days of home confinement, two years of probation and 250 hours of community service.

UPDATE: It didn’t take long for the slam jobs on Bonds to start rolling in:

…. It should be an honor and a privilege to be voted into a place that represents and symbolizes baseball’s very best, and if you think of in that context, how can you vote for someone who so blatantly and arrogantly cheated the game?

Just know that in his rush to make sure we know he stands for all that is good and right, Harper has forgotten that Bonds’ didn’t cheat.

…. It is my pleasure, as founder and editor of this site, to present the second-annual list here of the 50 best baseball players not in the Hall of Fame.

I debuted the first version of this project in December 2010 and based it around a simple idea. Rather than have rankings be based on some all-powerful stat or my opinion, I sought votes from fellow baseball writers, researchers, and anyone else interested. Sixty-three of us voted in all including yours truly, thousands more read our work, and it was an easy decision to make this an annual thing. Truth be told, I’ve spent much of the year looking forward to this.

I used my old work on McGwire, and Graham updated it.

…. You’ll Get Nothing And Like It.
This year’s free agent market includes five of the best players in the game at positions the Giants have been pathetic at for years.

And we get none of them. ’nuff said.

Bochy envisions Huff playing some left and right to give Belt more consistency by settling in at first. Nonetheless, we’re gonna need huge seasons from Belt, Posey, Sandoval and Sanchez to have any chance to overcome the huge numbers of outs our outfielders are gonna produce. (not to shortchange Brandon Crawford, but, come on)

I think it’s safe to say that pitching against the Giants pretty much won him the award.