Giants rumors: Tim Lincecum on the trading block?

The San Francisco Giants will make Tim Lincecum available in a trade this offseason, reports Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe:

[Lincecum] will be available in trade, and it will be interesting to see who bites on the two-time Cy Young winner.

The Giants insist his problems this season were strictly mechanical, but opposing teams wonder why his usual 96-mile-per-hour fastball was around 92 most of the season, and why his first-inning problems (28 runs) were the worst in baseball.

Lincecum, 28, is due $22 million in the final year of his contract. Would someone take the gamble?

If you bet someone before the 2012 season that the Giants would be looking to get rid of their two-time Cy Young winner by the time October came around, likely no one would have taken the bet. Coming into this season, Lincecum had a career 2.98 ERA and averaged 225 strikeouts a year.

This season, while his strikeout numbers remained high, his velocity plummeted and his command disappeared, for which his ERA suffered greatly. Lincecum finished the season with league-worsts in losses (15), runs allowed (107) and wild pitches (17), all culminating in his unsightly 5.18 ERA.

There's no telling whether Lincecum will bounce back completely from his sub-par season, but it should be interesting to keep tabs of who may make a run at the right-hander this offseason.