Yahoo.com: Could Lincecum file for $23 million at arbitration?

Tim Lincecum is due a large raise.

Fortunately, baseball has a system in place for the occasion.

It’s called salary arbitration, and Lincecum has been around just long enough to qualify for the first time. Conveniently for him, it arrives just in time to celebrate his second consecutive Cy Young Award. The system has never processed anyone quite like Lincecum, and now the question it might have to consider about his 2010 salary is this: Is 23 million and one dollars a starting point, an ending point or just some wild concept hatched to ratchet up the final number another hundred grand or two?

Soon, San Francisco Giants owner Bill Neukom and his GM, Brian Sabean, will submit what they believe Lincecum should earn for 2010. The agents at Beverly Hills Sports Council, in this case headed by Rick Thurman, will do the same on Lincecum’s behalf.

You may assume the Giants by then will have researched the largest salaries granted to pitchers who were first-time arbitration eligible. Dontrelle Willis, in 2006, received $4.4 million, the most for a starting pitcher. Three years later, Jonathan Papelbon’s $6.25 million (he settled with the Red Sox before the actual hearing) was the most received by a pitcher of any type who was an arbitration newbie.

That’s as close as the Giants are going to get to measuring Lincecum’s value by the regular standards. People in the business call them “comps.” Which, in this case, possess a minor flaw.

They’re not comparable.