Prince Fielder signs with Tigers

by ~ January 24th, 2012 at 1:38 pm

The deal, according to sources, is worth 214 million dollars over 9 years.

I would not have been comfortable with the Mariners giving Fielder a similar deal.  Fielder is guaranteed ~23 million per season until 2020, at which point he’ll be 37 years old.  There’s a chance that Prince craters after the first few years of the deal, and considering his weight and his father’s career arc, that probability is a lot greater than Tigers fans might like.

Since the M’s have not signed Fielder, they still have ~16 million dollars to add to the 2012 payroll.  I would guess that the team pursues a starting pitcher to patch the hole created by Pineda’s departure from the rotation.  If Danny Hultzen and James Paxton are ready for the majors sooner than the Mariners expect, the M’s can always jettison Jason Vargas or Kevin Millwood.

In any case, not signing Fielder doesn’t create any problems for the M’s.  If anything, the M’s just avoided a huge problem.

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  • Bryant Bartlett

    I couldn’t be happier the Mariners avoided this albatross contract.

  • Anonymous

    The M’s dodged a bullet (more like a bomb) on Fielder. Iliych has to sell a lot of pizzas to pay for that contract.  Given that he’s 82 years old I can see his motivation to win now.  I know that there is a lot of supposition around the blogs that the M’s have some millions left in their (never confirmed) budget.  A pitcher seems the most logical target but I’m wondering if they might just go for one of the two Cuban outfielders (Cespedes and Soler) and pitchers (righty Armando Rivero and lefty Gerardo Concepcion) about to be available.  They are limited on what they can spend on domestic draft choices and international free agents but I believe that Cubans are not covered by any bonus restrictions at present.  It would be a means of accumulating extra talent.

    • http://twitter.com/TaylorRobot Taylor

      The M’s haven’t shown any public interest in Cespedes, but considering the secrecy with which their organization operates, they might be on the verge of signing him.  Hell if any of us know what’s going on with Zduriencik and his crew. That being said, I really doubt they sign him; Gutierrez might return to form, and I doubt Cespedes would be happy to split time in center and left – and then switch to right if Ichiro leaves. Highly improbable.

      • Anonymous

        I agree Cespedes is highly unlikely but Soler might be worthwhile as he is only 19 years old and by most reports I’ve read indicate he a pretty toolsy kid.  However that too is a long shot.

    • Anonymous

      “They are limited on what they can spend on domestic draft choices and
      international free agents but I believe that Cubans are not covered by
      any bonus restrictions at present.:

      Well, you’re confusing the issue a bit here–Cespedes can’t be signed as a Cuban, which is why he has been trying to establish residency in another country–and now has done so(the Dominican Republic).  As a result, he *is* an international free agent.

      Not sure if the new limits are already in effect for IFAs now, however, or if they take hold for the next signing season, which begins in July.

      • Anonymous

        All teams will have the same IFA budget this year and in following years the amount depends on team success, or lack of it, and the size of their market.  I get that the Cubans sign in the Dominican, Mexico, Costa Rica, etc. However if they originate from Cuba at present they are not considered IFA.  I know it stretches credulity and I think they are going to change it later but for now I believe the Cubans are not covered by any signing limit, which is why Cespedes is expecting to get more than $30MM, which is about ten times the IFA limit this season under the new CBA.

  • Anonymous

    I hope the M’s don’t take the $16M they just “saved” and stuff it in their pocket like they did with the $10M they stuffed in their pocket when Kaz Sasaki went home.
    When that happened you could hear the life whiz out of the clubhouse,,,,and look what the M’s have done since then.

  • http://twitter.com/95MiracleMs Lance Miller

    I am glad we didn’t sign Fielder. I prefer the cheaper, less productive type players. Better players lead to more success which leads to more expensive tickets and crowded stadiums. I prefer the fact that I can walk up to any Mariners game and buy a cheap ticket and sit anywhere I want to at the last minute.

    Manny Ramirez would be a cheap alternative and for little money. Heck, Dmitri Young is looking for a comeback team so give him a chance as well. We need to find ways to keep our billionaire owner from spending his own money on this team. That would just be unfair if he had too.

    • Anonymous

      Owners set limits on how much they will spend on their teams.  Different owners set different limits. Given any limit, it is important to ration that money effectively.  Would i rather have the Mariners out spend everybody with a $300 million payroll and (hopefully) dominate the league? Yes.  Are they going to do that? No.  Therefore, as a fan, i want the mariners to spend their allotted payroll efficiently because that will give them the best chance to win.

      • http://twitter.com/95MiracleMs Lance Miller

        Two different arguments. You should be pushing for more spending by ownership and not concerning yourself (not you directly) with budgetary limits. Things don’t change w/o change being called for. Ownership won’t change as long as the customers are indifferent to what is happening with this team which is what is happening. Everyone is back to buying in the ‘Mariners can’t spend’ cry of the 1970′s and ’80′s of this organization.

        You say they won’t so there you have it. I say don’t be so easy on letting them get away with not spending. It isn’t a matter of they can’t, but a matter of they won’t. Time to change the perception for ownership that the fans won’t accept this.

        If I was an owner (who are business men and not baseball men in most cases), I would love to have this fan base. I don’t ever have to dig into my pocket, I am still in the black since buying the team with yearly profits, and my initial investment has skyrocketed. All this w/o anyone putting up much fuss at all. Our government has been working off this premise for decades and it seems to work rather well.

        Not arguing with you because I know they haven’t spent money before, but we shouldn’t allow them this same practice forever and they won’t change until we change.

        Don’t accept mediocrity!

        • Anonymous

          At least we are better off than the Dodgers where the owner spent hundreds of millions of team income on himself.  We are also better off the the fans in Miami and Pittsburgh and Oakland, which have paid millions of team profits to the owners while failing badly on the field.  Our owners have never taken any profits from the team, that is a good thing.