Fernando Rodney has three saves and a win so far this season. Fernando Rodney has gotten eight outs so far this season. As strange as it may first seem for a late-inning reliever to have four decisions with so few batters faced, it’s business as usual in Tampa Bay. Here’s a box score that is fairly typical for the Rays:

It certainly appears that the Rays are micro-managing their bullpen. Perhaps the aim is to gain the platoon advantage in as many situations as possible — teams do that all the time. But which ones are doing it most often?

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Something is wrong with Tim Lincecum. After giving up five runs in his first start this year, things got worse for him last night. In just 2.1 innings, Lincecum allowed six runs on nine hits while walking two and striking out only one batter. While it’s usually not smart to make conclusions based on just 7.2 innings, Lincecum has already shown some reasons for folks to be concerned. And unless something changes, Lincecum could be in for a rough season.

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After three games, five teams — the Braves, Giants, Red Sox, Twins and Yankees — are 0-3. You can hear the hair pulling and consternation all over the land. Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine poured a tanker of gasoline on to the “Daniel Bard going back to the bullpen” story, and Giants manager Bruce Bochy is already benching Brandon Belt, using the old “we haven’t won a game yet” rationale as his reasoning. But even in a weekend of seeming disasters, positives abound for each squad.

Several hitters with question marks had good weekends. None were more encouraging perhaps, than Justin Morneau. After posting just a 69 wRC+ in a second-straight injury shortened campaign in 2011, it was an open question as to whether or not Morneau would ever be right at the plate again. Now, three games against the Orioles are not going to erase doubts, but Morneau showed positive signs. He tallied a hit in all three games, including a double each on Saturday and Sunday. Down in Atlanta, Jason Heyward didn’t collect a hit in all three games himself, but he made his two hits count, as both went for extra bases. Heyward also drew two walks, and looked very much like the guy Atlanta needs him to be this season.

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The San Francisco Giants have finally committed to Brandon Belt. Now the team has to figure out how to best use him.

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Dave Cameron laid out the methodology behind the rankings. Remember that the grading scale for each category is 20-80, with 50 representing league average.

2012 Organizational Rankings

#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston
#28 – Oakland
#27 – Pittsburgh
#26 – San Diego
#25 – Minnesota
#24 – Chicago AL
#23 – Seattle
#22 – Kansas City
#21 – Cleveland
#20 – New York NL
#19 – Los Angeles
#18 – Colorado
#17 – Miami
#16 – Arizona
#15 – Cincinnati
#14 – Chicago NL
#13 – Milwaukee 

San Francisco’s 2011 Organizational Ranking – #12

2012 Outlook: 54 (14th)

Last season, the Giants were the defending World Series Champions. This season, they’re trying to get back to the playoffs.

Since Barry Bonds‘ last year with the Giants in 2007, San Francisco has been all about pitching, pitching, pitching. Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain have been an outstanding 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation. Madison Bumgarner, just 22 years told, was pivotal in the 2010 playoffs and is poised to have a huge season. Ryan Vogelsong is back after his “comeback from out of the blue” year in 2011. And then there’s the $126 million man: Barry Zito, fifth starter.

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A couple of hours ago, the Giants announced that they reached an agreement with Matt Cain on a five year deal worth just over $110 million. Wendy Thurm has already recapped the contract and why this is probably fair market value for a quality pitcher with no health problems headed into his age 27 season. And, she’s probably right – if the Giants wanted to keep Cain, they weren’t going to be able to do it for less than this. This isn’t a situation where they just overpaid irrationally. Their options were either to sign him for this price or watch him get more money from another team next winter. They chose the former.

I would have chosen the latter.

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The San Francisco Giants reached an agreement today with right-handed starter Matt Cain that will keep Cain in orange and black at least through the 2017 season. Cain was entering the last year of his contract and had set an Opening Day-deadline for a contract extension with the Giants. That deal is now official.

The Giants will pay Cain $15 million for 2012 (the salary under his old contract), and $100 million for next five seasons (2013-2017). San Francisco has a club option for 2018 for $21 million but that becomes a player option if Cain reaches a certain number of innings pitched. If the Giants decline the option, Cain is guaranteed $7.5 million. If it becomes a player option, Cain can decline and still receive the $7.5 million. There is also a $5 million signing bonus. The contract includes a full no-trade clause.

With the signing bonus, and assuming the Giants pick up the option for 2018, the total price for the extension is $126 million over six years for an AAV of $21 million. If the Giants don’t pick up the extension, and buy out the option for $7.5 million, then the AAV goes up to $22.4 million.

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It looks like Tim Lincecum is going to put his slider in his ‘back pocket,’ at least to start the season. Manager Bruce Bochy speculated that the reasoning behind the move was that the pitch “probably puts a little more stress on his arm” and that his star pitcher was saving his bullets for the long season.

This will be a decision that will surely be revisited no matter which way the season unfolds, but it’s not as if the slider has been one of his best two pitches recently. Fastballs and changeups make up almost 80% of his repertoire, and it’s the changeup that has helped him remain dominant as his fastball speed has dipped in recent years.

But the implications of the decision — for both the pitcher and the sport — are important.

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Carson Cistulli is still rubbing elbows with Bill Parcells, Celine Dion, Bryant Gumbel and all the other beautiful people who populate Jupiter, Fla., but he will return tomorrow with observations about the human condition as it relates to baseball that are both insightful and humorous in nature. Today, you are stuck with me, and I will provide neither. Sorry about that.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Select Televised Games
2. Things You Can Buy With 2.15 Billion Dollars
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Oakland Radio

Select Televised Games
Notable games available on MLB.TV.

2012 National High School Invitational | 13:05 ET, 16:35 ET
Yesterday, the first-ever National High School Invitational kicked off at USA Baseball’s National Training Complex in Cary, NC. If you’re unfamiliar with Cary, it is located just outside of Raleigh, and is one of the primary towns in North Carolina’s fabled “Research Triangle.” This week, 16 of the country’s top high school programs have descended upon Cary to take part in a single-elimination tournament, and the winner gets bragging rights as the top high school team in the land. But while the tourney is single elimination, all teams will get four chances to play, which is just information overload for the scouting community. Several top prospects are scheduled to participate in the tourney, and you can watch two of today’s games live on MLB.com. Today’s games will be quarterfinal games, with the semis being broadcast live on Friday and the Gold medal game being live at noon ET on Saturday. Usually, we get nothing more than snippets of video from amateur players, so don’t miss out on the chance to watch several players that could go in the first two rounds this June. Check here for more details.

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Matt Cain will be a free agent at the end of this season. He’s been in serious negotiations with the Giants for months on a new contract. He’s set an Opening Day deadline for those negotiations. Here’s why Cain and the Giants need to get a deal done now.

Cain debuted with the Giants late in 2005 but pitched his first full season the following year. By 2007, he was pitching in the shadow of teammate Tim Lincecum and has done so ever since. But Cain is fourteenth in starting pitcher WAR since 2007 (20 WAR), and is tied with Cole Hamels for sixteenth in starter WAR over the last three seasons (12.3 WAR). Lincecum’s been better, but Cain could have been the ace on many good teams over the last five years.

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