If Tim Lincecum and the San Francisco Giants continue down the road into arbitration, the highest figures ever exchanged and a lot of potentially bad feelings will be the result.

While most players compromise and settle their cases long before the actual arbitration process, the Giants and Lincecum are on a collision course to let a neutral arbitrator decide Lincecum’s 2010 salary.

So far, the Giants are offering eight million dollars for the season while Lincecum is asking for 13 million. Lincecum, who has won the Cy Young Award for the past two seasons, made only $650,000 last year.

Unfortunately for the Giants, money is definitely a concern, since they continue to waste boatloads of cash on long term contracts to mediocre players like Barry Zito, Aaron Rowand and Edgar Renteria.

Lincecum, a 5-11, 175 pound phenom who was said to be too small to be a major league starting pitcher, has led the league in strikeouts the past two seasons and has been as close to unhittable as any pitcher in the major leagues.

Since the Giants’ job will be to convince the arbitrator that their lower figure is appropriate, they are sure to bring up his occasional lack of control, his inability to win the big games down the stretch last year and his bust on an Oregon highway last fall when he was caught driving around with a pipe and a bag of marijuana.

I would look for the Giants to offer Lincecum somewhere between 11 and 11.5 million dollars to settle, since they probably don’t want to upset the mindset of their best pitcher. Again, if the Giants hadn’t been so foolish in throwing around big bucks to underachieving bums for the past five years, they wouldn’t have this problem.

Regardless of whether the case winds up as an eight million dollar “bargain” for the Giants or a 12 plus million dollar raise for Lincecum, the figures will result in the highest ever. The 13 million would easily top the previous awarded high of 10 million to Philadelphia’s Ryan Howard, and the eight million would be the highest losing figure.

It should be interesting to see where it all pans out.

By: Ian Glassman