Fielder agrees to a 2 year/$18 mil deal, buying out his first two years of arbitration (reply #48ish)

[yount19.u]

I like this deal a lot. If Prince stays healthy, they will likely save a few million dollars and they can budget for next year without worrying about what he'll get in arbitration. As for Prince, I think it will help him focus on baseball more, and worry about his contract less. It's only two years so I don't think we have to worry about him getting lazy, as he still has a monster pay day to look forward to in 2012. Nice job Doug!

[rm121978]

Consider me a skeptic until I actually see him on tv, but if he's lost a significant amount of weight I will be surprised and very happy. From this latest news alone, it sounds as if he's being way more mature compared to last year.

 

I saw Prince 2 weeks ago in Vegas (he was signing autographs at the CES convention). I did remember thinking that he looked like he lost a few pounds. Nowhere near how he looked when he first was called up, but there was definitely a difference from last year.

[kramnoj]

IIRC, before Fielder had a late season surge, his offensive advantage really wasn't that much greater than what his defense was costing the team. While it wouldn't be accurate to say that he didn't provide much value now, it wasn't that ridiculous for a big chunk of the season.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

Fangraphs had him at -7.8 runs on defense and +23.9 on offense. in 2007 he was -7.3 runs on defense and +49 on offense. In 2008 he was worth $12.1M in 07 it was 20.8M.

I've seen other defensive metrics that had him closer to -12 or so. So roughly 1 or maybe 2 losses from his fielding.

That really puts into perspective how little defense means at the 1B position if he only costed our team 7 runs last year. Sounds like a decent deal then for the Brewers for the next 2 years.

[And That]

To say his defense does anything close to negating his offense is absurd.

I don't know that anyone is arguing that his defense completely negates his offensive value, which is indeed great. However, as you admit his defense is crappy, doesn't it make sense he'd be a much more valuable player if he played even average, break-even defense? His defensive shortcomings definitely do negate some amount of his offensive production.

[Fatter than Joey]

That really puts into perspective how little defense means at the 1B position if he only costed our team 7 runs last year.

 

I think all it puts into perspective is how lacking defensive stats are. There are a lot of throws Fielder should pick but doesn't for example that aren't measured.

 

His bad defense costs us wins. If he keeps hitting 40 HRs a season we can live with it.

[Ennder]

I don't know that anyone is arguing that his defense completely negates his offensive value, which is indeed great. However, as you admit his defense is crappy, doesn't it make sense he'd be a much more valuable player if he played even average, break-even defense? His defensive shortcomings definitely do negate some amount of his offensive production.

He actually gains value as a DH because his defense at 1B is worse than the positional adjustment they apply to DH. Fangraphs did an article on him that suggested if he plays to his projections he'd be worth 6.1M this year and something like 9M next year so most likely we didn't get a good deal here. Of course if he goes to arbitration at 8M this year and wins then the deal probably was a good one.

[CheezWizHed]

I'm glad this happened for no other reason than we have avoided two possibly ugly arbitration hearings. Publicly bashing one of your best ball players is a no-win solution.

 

If you break it out as 7M for 2009 and 11M for 2010m it seems fair based on other examples. And there is a pretty low chance Prince will "flame out" this year (basically the only way he doesn't get $10-11M next year). If Prince hits big again, $11M is probably low for next year.

 

And as others have mentioned, they know his price for two years.

 

So for Milwaukee, its a win-win-win.

[steve267268]

Fatter than Joey hit it right on the head. There are a lot of things that Fielder does wrong which can't be accounted for by stats. He can't pick balls out of the dirt, he's slow to the bag, he's slow to react, he isn't tall and cannot jump very high.. i almost feel bad for Rickie!! I'm not excusing the errors that Rickie makes but it's hard to improve when your first baseman is Fielder. With Fielder, he isn't going to save many errors, and he's going to make bad throws look even worse than they would if it were Derek Lee or someone..

 

Not a whole lot of players try as hard as he does, though... That's why i'll hate to see him go, when he does..

[cwolf2012]

How does this contract affect his trade value? I almost think it improves it. Stability is a nice thing for a contract.

[rluzinski]

Since UZR doesn't account for Prince's bad scooping ability, I think it's fair to call him -10 runs, defensively. That's alot. It turns him from a great player ( 2 wins above average) to only a good one (1 win). Of course, that still means that he's worth over $13 mil on the open market

[3Putt]

rm, thanks for the update on Prince's weight. I'm always amazed that we have to wait until spring training to find out if our players are in shape. Don't they leave the house during the off season?

[sheetskout]

Does anybody know how many runs/wins Prince costs our team from his bad defense?

Like four or five runs and maybe one win at the most. People overvalue the 15-19 errors that a first baseman makes.

 

Seriously, they just don't get the error chances and the impact is at the beginning of the diamond most of the time.

[PeaveyFury]

Like four or five runs and maybe one win at the most. People overvalue the 15-19 errors that a first baseman makes.

 

Seriously, they just don't get the error chances and the impact is at the beginning of the diamond most of the time.

 

From earlier in the thread:

 

Fangraphs had him at -7.8 runs on defense and +23.9 on offense. in 2007 he was -7.3 runs on defense and +49 on offense. In 2008 he was worth $12.1M in 07 it was 20.8M.

 

I've seen other defensive metrics that had him closer to -12 or so. So roughly 1 or maybe 2 losses from his fielding.

[sheetskout]

Like four or five runs and maybe one win at the most. People overvalue the 15-19 errors that a first baseman makes.

 

Seriously, they just don't get the error chances and the impact is at the beginning of the diamond most of the time.

 

From earlier in the thread:

 

Fangraphs had him at -7.8 runs on defense and +23.9 on offense. in 2007 he was -7.3 runs on defense and +49 on offense. In 2008 he was worth $12.1M in 07 it was 20.8M.

 

I've seen other defensive metrics that had him closer to -12 or so. So roughly 1 or maybe 2 losses from his fielding.

Totally agree. I may have been on the lower end, but basically we agree in games . The real question here is what's the ratio of games he's blowing with his defense (1-2) to the games he's winning with his offense (?).

[BrewCrewForever]

I would have to say that I love this deal. It seems to favor the Brewers much more. Especially if Prince has a season more like 2007 then 2008. And even if it is like 2008 it is still a good deal. And it still leaves the door open to trade him after this season or after 2010 before he hits free agency. Good job Mark, Doug and Gord.

[rluzinski]

It's impossible to gauge how many losses Prince's defense cost the Brewers last year but in general, ~10 runs = 1 win. An average infield error costs about .75 runs.

[Yeti73]

Maybe Prince has seen the light a little bit and maybe he has seen what can happen if you play solid ball and work hard day in and day out like CC did--you get yours. He's still incredibly young, incredibly talented, incredibly left-handed and I'm glad we have him for three more years at a decent price. The average first baseman makes roughly $7.1 million a year. Prince is easily in the top 5-10, so you have to think it is a solid contract. I'd only rank Tex, Poojols, Howard, Morneau and Cabrera ahead of Prince and I think Prince is there with D. Lee, Berkman, Delgado (post-Willie) and Youkillis in the next tier. In fact, I'd take prince over all those 2nd tier guys even if you include defense (though a healthy 2006 D. Lee would be tough to pass up)

[Ennder]

The biggest problem with this thread is somehow blaming 2008 on his conditioning which is a flawed statement at best. Fielder put up a .922+ OPS in 3 of the last 4 months of the season, he slumped a bit early but there is no reason to think that this is some new level of production brought on by weight fluctuation. That is completely people grasping at straws to explain a dip in production. Most likely he just had more slumps than hot streaks which happens to every major league player every few years.

[logan82]

The defensive metrics only include fielding(I believe). They don't take into account scooping balls out of the dirt or saving errors on errant throws. With an infield that had all average or better fielders it wouldn't be much of an issue. However, we have Weeks at 2B and Hall/Lamb at 3B(I know Hall is solid for the most part). Hall and Weeks are prone to making bad throws that an average or better 1B could catch and make our overall infield defense better. As it is, Fielder just compounds the problem. How much is tough to sort out. That isn't to say he has negative value, but he has to hit very well to make up for his defense and why many people feel that an average hitter who could play good defense would be almost as good as having Prince at 1B.(and likely come much cheaper) We have Prince for right now and I am ok with that.

[Ennder]

It would take an average hitter who played amazing defense to match Fielder, not just good defense. Overbay as an example was not as valuable as Fielder in 2008 even in his best season.

[logan82]

Their cost on the free agent market would be dramatically different as well. I would expect an Overbay type player to have less risk going forward because of his physique as well.

[PeaveyFury]

That isn't to say he has negative value, but he has to hit very well to make up for his defense

 

Right. It's considerably easier to appreciate Fielder if he hits more like 2007, where he gave us nearly 5 wins with the bat before taking 1 or 2 away with defense than in 08, where the next return was only 1.

 

But that also shows the argument for how much trade value Fielder has to an AL team that can DH him and not worry about the subtraction from defense....

[phxMILWfan]

Don't want this to seem like I'm making this about me at all but I wanted to share my experience a little bit. I think Prince giving up meat caused him to gain weight. I recently gave up meat and have found it hard to keep the weight off too. Unless you love vegetables it's easy to be eating a lot of french fries, quesadillas, potatoes, and rice. I think Prince should hire someone to plan his meals or even prepare all of his meals. As a person who loves animals and doesn't want to eat them but isn't the biggest vegetable fan in the world, it's very easy to eat carbs/starch.

[rluzinski]

To expand on defensive metrics, Dewan's system had Prince at -45 plays, compared to an average 1B, from 06-08. Only Jacobs was worse (-49). Using .75 runs/non-out, that works out to -11.25 runs/year. He was -9 runs last year.

 

I think that baseball Info Solutions (Dewan owns it) subjectively keeps track of how good 1B are at digging out balls. I think Pujols is ussually rated the best. If we could see that, we could have a more objective number to us as a worst case. Even if you use a really bad number (-10 runs/year) you still end with something -2 wins for his defense. That would pull him down to a league average 1B, which is worth around $10 mil/year.

 

Basically, Melvin is pretty protected over the next 2 years. It's possible that Fielder will get more in 2011 than his production will be worth to the Brewers. Might be a good time to trade him.

 

On a side note, Tom H. wrote today that the 5/$60 mil deal would have bought out his first TWO years of free agency. If the deal was for 09-13, Prince would have been stupid to take it.