ESPN’s Buster Olney put out some pretty interesting tweets pertaining to Prince Fielder and the idea of him signing with the Detroit Tigers.
Here are those tweets…
Right now it seems as though if Prince Fielder did sign a one-year deal with a team like the Tigers, he could get in upwards of $26 million dollars.
Olney makes a couple of good points when he says calculates the money the Tigers could throw at Fielder with Victor Martinez being out for the remainder of the season and when he states the Dodgers and Mets could be in a better position to sign Fielder long-term next season.
It’s also somewhat surprising that Fielder still hasn’t signed a contract at this point.
However, heading into the season you have to ask yourself, if the Tigers do in fact sign Fielder what do you do with Cabrera who I believe is a better player? Like Cabrera Fielder wants to play in the field and not be subjected to an exclusive DH role. That means you would have to place Fielder at first and move Cabrera over to third.
Now of course this sounds good from an offensive standpoint but from a defensive standpoint it’s a huge mess.
You also have to consider the fact that Fielder absolutely despises his father Cecil Fielder who was a pretty significant player in Tigers history. Imagine coming back to the city where you’re father played and had to deal with the constant media onslaught of Cecil Fielder/Prince Fielder questions.
Finally, if a team is truly committed to a player like Fielder, they’re going to fork over the money and the years to sign him.
I guess I don’t totally buy into the fact that a team would wait a season to try and lock up Fielder.
Ref: Twitter, ESPN, Sully Baseball (image)