Prince Fielder: 9 Year Deal with Detroit

[Metes]

Perhaps that will make the new slogan for idiottown

[kusch]

Got em

[Big Z]

Several gm's think Boras could do a 3 year Prince deal @ $26M per year, go back on the market @30 and beat Pujols' AAV

Peter Gammons (twitter)

[Miamarlin21]

Let's just sign him.

[emkayseven]

at 3/80 I'd be upset if we didn't go for it.

[lou]

It would be pretty interesting to sign Fielder for 3 years on a massive deal (talk about type A/B compensation coming back with Anibal, Nolasco, Johnson, Hanley, Buck, Infante, Bonifacio, Prince, Mujica, and Bell, all off books in next 3 years and team unlikely to keep most of them), and then in the short term deal Morrison/Gaby/farm arms to the Rays/Mariners for a big SP controllable for 3+ years and flip Volstad/Dominguez into some sort of average young center fielder.

Would be pretty serious team to open the stadium, and still massive young building blocks with Stanton, Reyes, multiple strong pen arms, god willingly 3-4 projectable farm kids, and tons of payroll in 2015 to resign/sign 2-3 major guys. Not a disaster longterm if they can get something out of the farm.

Makes sense short and longterm, but immediate payroll would easily get to $115 range in 2012, and closer to $125 13/14. That sounds like a lot to me, but would be fun.

[Miamarlin21]

Lou, are you not a fan of having Bonifacio starting in center?
--------------------
Well maybe not:

Updating a previous item, Prince Fielder's agent Scott Boras told Bruce Levine of ESPNChicago.com that the free agent first baseman will not consider a three-year deal worth $26 million per season.
Boras was responding to a tweet by Peter Gammons which said several general managers thought Fielder could agree to a three-year deal and return to the free agent market as a 30-year-old. "Not only is that inaccurate and delusional, but it seems that some people have gotten into their New Year's Eve stash just a little bit early this year," said Boras. "It appears some baseball people are just bored. That's when you hear ideas like that floated." The market for Fielder has been pretty quiet, but Levine reports that upwards of six teams have expressed interest. And Boras apparently isn't wavering from a long-term deal.

-Rotoworld-

[lou]

I have no problems with Bonifacio there now, but they need to find a more longterm option at the same time. In the event they do something nuts like bring in Fielder, the obvious next moves are to get rid of the two first baseman on the roster as they wouldn't be needed, as well as some minor league pieces, to bring in more parts to win now. i.e., a big time SP and then use whatever else to find young outfielders. Considering they have Stanton, and down the road hopefully one of Yelich/Ozuna, for the corners, the smart move would be to make that outfielder a young center fielder to hopefully have for awhile as the team would just shift Bonifacio/Coghlan platoon to left short term.

[Todd]

Or you could just keep Morrison and leave him in LF.

[lou]

Or you could just keep Morrison and leave him in LF.

Not that I wish to discuss in detail a hypothetical situation of the Marlins acquiring Prince or another longterm 1B, but in the event that happened it would be pretty stupid to have a young 1B play in LF (he is truly horrible defensively) where he cannot stay for more than a year as is and would not push Prince off the 1B position. This is only going to work in 2012 as both he and Gaby are club controlled. Once that ends next year with Gaby's arbitration tender, there is no way the organization moves forward with both of them and they'll make a decision to keep one of them. As for Morrison in this situation, he could be easily cashed in for a big pitcher in a 4-1 like Latos/Gio, which this team could really use. They would become a big time contender with another big time starting pitcher, and longterm Anibal is off the books in 2012, Johnson and Nolasco in 2013, and nothing is really coming up the farm. It makes a lot of sense to acquire a young starter.

Signing Prince, and turning Morrison, Gaby, Dominguez, Volstad, and AA and up farm arms into a good young SP and CF, would be absolutely tremendous. I doubt they'd push payroll to $110-120 range, but I think I would be comfortable saying the Marlins are the NL favorites if they went all out in such a way.

[Todd]

I think you overvalue the talent on the farm. I am not sure they have the pieces to acquire a Gio Gonzalez even if Morrison is included in the deal.

[lou]

I think you overvalue the talent on the farm. I am not sure they have the pieces to acquire a Gio Gonzalez even if Morrison is included in the deal.

Morrison is worth more than any individual player traded from Cahill, Gio, or Latos. That's the difference.

[Todd]

How do you figure?

[Bobbob1313]

Because he's better than any of them?

[Todd]

That is worded poorly, is he saying Morrison is more valuable than Cahill, Gio, or Latos or that he is more valuable than any other player they would get in return?