The San Francisco Giants want to lock up their young stars. After signing both Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner to long-term contracts, the Giants have now reached out to Buster Posey’s agent about an extension. In his short time in the majors, Posey has emerged as one of one of the best catchers in the game. And while some young catchers recently received significant extensions, Posey’s combination of skill and age make it tough to find a great comparison.

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The trend of giving out long term deals to premium young players continued today, as the Giants locked up Madison Bumgarner through at least 2017, and the deal gives them team options for both 2018 and 2019. In exchange for long term control over Bumgarner’s future, the Giants guaranteed him $35 million over the next five years, with an additional $5 million possible if it turns out he would have qualified as a Super Two after this season.

As the very useful Transaction Tracker at MLBTradeRumors shows, the five year extension for quality young pitchers has been quite popular in recent years, but in general, teams have waited until they’ve had two years of strong performance before giving them this kind of contract. This deal looks very similar to the ones signed by Jon Niese, Derek Holland, Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill, Yovani Gallardo, and Jon Lester, but in each case, those pitchers had already accrued 2+ years of service time.

Bumgarner’s deal tops Ricky Romero’s as the largest contract ever given to a pitcher with just 1+ year of service time under his belt, and reflects the fact that Bumgarner has been excellent at a young age and that prices for talent in Major League Baseball look to be going up. With the recent extensions signed by Joey Votto, Matt Cain, and Ryan Zimmerman – each of whom got over $100 million in guaranteed money despite not being free agents – teams are beginning to take steps to get cost certainty through the best years of their core players.

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A few hours before first pitch in the San Francisco Giants game against the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday evening, news broke that Giants catcher Buster Posey was pulled from the lineup. The problem? Posey’s come down with shingles.

Shingles is caused by the same virus (varicella-roster) that causes chicken pox in children. The virus remains in the body’s nerves in a dormant state until activated years later. According to the National Institutes of Health, those adults most likely to develop shingles are over the age of 60, had chicken pox before the age of one, or have an immune system weakened by medication or disease. Stress, and stress-related fatigue, can also trigger a shingles outbreak.

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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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