Giants, Lincecum "Not Close" In Contract Negotiations

This morning, reports surfaced that the Giants offered ace Tim Lincecum a three-year contract worth $37m. Lincecum's side made a counter offer in excess of $40m, but in case you were thinking that meant they weren't far from an agreement, Buster Olney's sources are here to tell you that, no, they are.

The newspaper reported that Lincecum's camp responded with an offer worth more than $40 million.

However, baseball sources told Olney that as of noon ET Thursday, the two sides were not close to a deal.

This isn't much of a surprise, given the $5m disparity between their respective arbitration proposals, but with the arbitration hearing scheduled for tomorrow, it does paint a dire picture of the state of negotiations. It's beginning to look highly likely that this will advance to the arbitration stage, and while arbitration isn't the end of the world, having a team representative argue in front of a judge that a player isn't worth what he wants can do a number on the player-organization relationship. Several general managers pride themselves on never letting players get to arbitration, as the hearings can be negative and contentious.

Tweets Olney:

Heard this: The Giants might wind up sending as few as one member of their front office to the Lincecum hearing. The heavy lifting...on management's side of the case will be done by MLB, and not the Giants.

This has the potential to turn into a real messy situation, between the Giants and Lincecum, and between MLB and the union.