San Francisco Giants Not Expected To Offer Brian Wilson Arbitration, Though Deal In Works

How San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson recovers from his season ending Tommy John surgery is an unknown at this point. It’ll be the second TJ operation for Weezy and generally, they’re pretty run of the mill in terms of recovery, so chances are he’ll be just fine once he gets back into the swing of things.

Oct 19, 2012; St. Louis, MO, USA; San Francisco Giants relief pitcher Brian Wilson talks to the media before game five of the 2012 NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

That said – “chances are he’ll be just fine” and a near $9 million dollar upcoming salary through arbitration aren’t two things that mix so well.

Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal is expecting the Giants to make plenty of efforts to keep their eccentric closer, but it wont be through arbitration:

"Speaking of the Giants, it would be a shock if the team offered arbitration to reliever Brian Wilson, who is coming off his second Tommy John surgery, not to mention an $8.5 million salary.The maximum pay cut in arbitration is 20 percent, so the least the Giants could offer Wilson would be $6.8 million. A better plan would be to strike an incentive-laden, pre-arbitration deal with Wilson, preventing him from becoming a free agent."

I know many (including myself) have voiced concern over retaining Wilson pre-injury on a long term deal, but the injury all but axed out any chance of that – which isn’t exactly the worst thing in the world for the orange and black.

Hopefully, getting Wilson back on an incentive-laden deal as Rosenthal suggests will make both parties happy and the Giants wont find themselves stuck in another sub-par contractual situation.

Assuming it’ll be a one year deal, the Giants can re-evaluate the situation after that.