FanHouse Sf Giants

Since Zack Greinke and Tim Lincecum won Cy Young awards this week with modest victory totals, there has been much discussion about how baseball writers are finally moving into the 21st century and looking beyond the win column.

Although I'm all for patting baseball writers on the back -- since I am one, and I did vote for Greinke -- I think in the case of the NL Cy Young, my colleagues may have looked past victories, and still picked the wrong guy to make their point.

Let's start with the ol' FIP, or Fielding Independent Pitching. FIP is a stat intended to quantify how well a pitcher performed based solely on the things in his control (strikeouts, walks and homers) without regard to the vagaries of the defense behind him.

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Tim Lincecum won his second consecutive Cy Young Award on Thursday, pulling out a narrow victory that is likely to be the story of this awards season.

The Giants' 25-year-old flame-thrower edged out Cardinals' teammates Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright in an election that was just as tight and unpredictable as expected, with a twist at the end.

Lincecum (15-7, 2.48) had the fewest victories of any starter to win the Cy Young in a nonstrike season, and he also became only the second pitcher to win the Cy Young without getting the most first-place votes.

Lincecum received 11 first-place votes among the 32 ballots cast, from two writers in each National League city. Wainwright got 12 first-place votes, but he finished third because he had only five second-place votes. Carpenter, the only one of the three who was not named on all 32 ballots, got nine first-place votes and finished second.

Though he hasn't made anything official and he's gone ahead and filed for free agency, Jason Schmidt is sounding more and more like a man who's thrown his last major league pitch. When approached by Ken Gurnick of MLB.com, Schmidt says that he field for free agency simply to "keep his options open," but in his mind, he retired when his season ended in August.

If that is the case, that means that Schmidt's All-Star career will end with a whimper. After signing a three-year, $47 million contract with the Dodgers prior to the 2007 season, two shoulder surgeries limited Schmidt to only 10 starts in Dodger blue. Because of the injuries, he missed all of the 2008 season and huge chunks of 2007 and 2009.

The nature of his contract and the amount of time missed to injury (Schmidt ended up being paid almost $5 million per start in LA) are what a lot of people associate Schmidt with now, but there was certainly more to his career.

It's a baseball podcast. The math is easy, right? BaseCast. Let's rock.

The American League Cy Young Award winner, Zack Greinke, was announced Tuesday and the National League Cy Young winner will be announced Thursday, so what better time for the MLB FanHouse crew to discuss both pieces of hardware.

In this edition of BaseCast, Jeff Fletcher, Ed Price and I discuss the implications of Greinke capturing the award, both for the voting body and for the team he plays for, before trying to wrap our head around the intriguing NL race, which features three excellent pitchers (Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Tim Lincecum), but no clear favorite.

Listen in after the jump.

If Pablo Sandoval took a month or two off after the season to enjoy himself before working back into game shape, no one would have blamed him. After all, the rotund 22-year-old slugger blossomed into a star in just his first full season at the major league level. He hit .330 with 25 home runs and 90 RBI. His OPS of .943 was incredible for a player so young and without much lineup protection.

Apparently, Sandoval wasn't satisfied, though. He hasn't been resting, nor does he plan to. In fact, he's going through an intense training regimen in which he intends to lose a significant amount of weight and build muscle instead of fat. Naturally, it's been dubbed "Operation Panda."

Editor's Note: FanHouse's Jeff Fletcher contributed to this report

CHICAGO -- The Reds' need to slash payroll, according to a major league source, could lead them to explore trading second baseman Brandon Phillips as well as right-handers Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang.

Cincinnati's 2009 payroll was about $71 million. General manager Walt Jocketty said during a break Tuesday at the GM Meetings that he "might" have to move some high-salaried players to meet the 2010 goal.

"We're going to probably have less to spend this year than we have in the past," Jocketty told FanHouse. "It just depends on how [ticket] sales go this offseason."

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Tim Lincecum was cited by the state police in Washington for possession of marijuana this week. The pot was found in his car after he was pulled over for speeding near the Oregon border on Oct. 30. It was a small amount, and the police determined that Lincecum was not intoxicated while driving, so he's been cited for misdemeanor possession. After his hearing on Nov. 23, that will likely be the last we hear of this particular incident.

Andrew Baggarly, the San Jose Mercury writer who wrote the blog entry linked above, guesses that this incident won't be much more than an embarrassment for Lincecum and that it's unlikely to affect his potential arbitration hearing early next year. He's probably right that it'd be wrong for the Giants to accuse their superstar pitcher of being a dirty hippie for having a few grams of pot in his car, but that's a funny mental image I'm stuck with and now I hope you are, too.

The San Francisco Giants announced today that they've come to terms with second baseman Freddy Sanchez on a two-year deal. Terms weren't announced, but with the Giants holding an $8 million option on Sanchez, it's probably safe to assume that the cost for them per year will be less than that. T

That option would've vested for Sanchez on its own if he'd reached 600 plate appearances, but a shoulder and knee injuries limited him to just 25 games in a Giants uniform after he was traded to San Francisco from Pittsburgh. The shoulder's been a nagging problem for Sanchez for some time, but when healthy Sanchez has been one of the best hitting second basemen in the NL over the past few seasons, being named to three of the last four All-Star teams and winning a batting title in 2006.

There wasn't much drama involved with the Giants decision to re-sign general manager Brian Sabean and manager Bruce Bochy, each of whom got two-year deals with options for 2012 on Tuesday. It was widely assumed that they would be back once the team established itself as a contender at midseason, and it was reported a couple weeks ago that it was a fait accompli.

In fact, managing general partner Bill Neukom said the decision "was fairly easy. The team played so well and the results were positive. It was clear the direct affect of the work and leadership of each of these people toward that record "

Should it have been easy?

There was not much doubt that Giants general manager Brian Sabean and manager Bruce Bochy would be back next year, considering the team jumped into contention following three losing seasons, but the San Francisco Chronicle has reported that it is a done deal. An announcement could come sometime next week.

Managing general partner Bill Neukom, who is completing his first year on the job, has been complimentary of the jobs done by both men all season, but he insisted throughout that the Giants would not make any final decisions until after the season.