"The San Francisco Giants have worked out a new contract for All-Star Matt Cain that will make him the highest-paid right-handed pitcher in baseball history.
Cain's contract is for six years (2012-17) and $127.5 million with a vesting player option for 2018 that can bring the total to $141 million over seven years, sources told ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney. It also includes a full no-trade clause."
Some people think this contract was a little pricey but I have no qualms whatsoever with making Cain the highest paid righty pitcher ever, even if he's the second best right-hander on his own team.
Cain is one of my favorite players in baseball because he's been so solid, dependable, and humble his entire career with the Giants. He's had some of the most pitiful run support of any pitcher ever in the history of history but it never seemed to make him an angrier or less effective pitcher. He's currently 27 years old and in the prime of his career, he's never had injury problems (furiously knocking on wood!), has the second most Wins Above Replacement of any right-handed pitcher since 2006 (more than his teammate Lincecum), and had one of the most dominant playoff performances by a starting pitcher in recent memory during the 2010 postseason. He's extremely underrated and if he had even an average amount of run support, he'd be regarded as one of the game's elite starting pitchers.
Nobody knows if Cain will stay healthy (haven't stopped knocking, don't worry) or keep pitching well enough to validate this contract but I'm pretty confident he'll keep being his old solid self. If he gets some run support (have I mentioned this?), he will only get more confident, and that's a scary prospect for the lineups that will have to face him.
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