Ideas to afford Prince Fielder

[AJAY]

I keep going back and forth on whether Prince Fielder is worth the money to sign to a long term extension. . . but I do think signing him to an extension is possible if the Brewers can get a little creative. Here are a few ideas I was thinking about:

 

1. Raise ticket prices by $2 to $3 dollars per ticket. I am sure fans will understand and probably be willing to pay if this helps keep Fielder in Milwaukee.

 

2. Trade Corey Hart and his 10 million dollars per year contract. Don't get me wrong, I like Corey Hart, but he seems much more replaceable than someone like Prince Fielder (both in terms of on-field performance and marketability). I am sure some team like the Phillies would love to have Corey Hart next season. Let's face it, 25 years from now, Corey Hart will be somewhat forgotten just like we stopped thinking about Jeromy Burnitz, Richie Sexson, or Geoff Jenkins. But Prince Fielder has the chance of being a Hall-of-Famer and leaving a permanent legacy. He is the kind of guy who gets a statue outside the ballpark. Teams like Milwaukee really need guys like Fielder to build their reputation and establish their place in baseball history. You become a great franchise by having legendary players and Fielder could be one of them someday.

 

The Brewers could sign a cheaper replacement to play in rightfield (i.e. Jermaine Dye type) or give a kid from the minor leagues a shot at right field.

 

Now I know that winning is the most important priority and that pitching wins. Signing Marcum and Greinke are definitely more important. But I also think that when you have a Braun and Fielder combination in your lineup, you can not break that up either. Players that special rarely come along. All the other parts in the lineup are replaceable in my opinion, and I feel like the Brewers have some flexibility to trade away some salary and prioritize the Prince.

 

Does anyone else have any other creative ideas? Please lets NOT make this a thread about whether Prince is worth it or not. Let's just brainstorm ways to make a contract happen (just for discussion's sake).

[Eck17]

1. As you said, I believe you would have to raise ticket prices. We as fans may not like it, but if we want to keep Prince around, that is what we would have to do.

 

2. Trading flexible pieces around is also a must, and if it means being below average in RF or 3B for example, that is what's going to have to happen to keep Prince.

 

3. I think, that if the Brewers do decide to keep Prince for the long haul, that it means sacrificing starting pitching, particularly Marcum and Greinke. We may have to choose who we want to sign long term. Is this in the best interest of the club long term? I personally do not think so, as Starting Pitching is so hard to come by. Having great pitching will make you a contender year in and year out. Great offense is nice, but as we have seen, good pitching is what is needed to be a contender for the World Series.

[JoeHova]

I think Milwaukee's best hope to keep Prince (assuming they aspire to) is that most of the big money teams have a 1b in place that they are happy with. I guess the Angels don't but they are probably still hoping for a Morales comeback. The Dodgers are broke so I doubt they are in the mix. The Cubs will probably go after Pujols if they want to spend huge money (which is questionable anyway). So, if Prince is only drawing interest from teams like the Braves, Orioles, Mariners, etc., the bidding may not go nearly as high as he hopes, which could leave the Brewers in the picture (assuming he doesn't rule them out at the start if they make a low offer). And if the top bid is 6/$100 or something like that, the option of trading Corey to keep Prince becomes a lot more realistic than it does if Prince is being offered 7/$150.

I doubt they keep Prince but I agree that I would much rather have him than Corey + 2 random relievers. I've always believed that small market teams should spend big money on premium players, not above average ones.

The real reason I can't realistically see the team hanging on to Prince is because I assume they want to re-sign Marcum and Greinke. If they somehow do that for John Lackey money, that's $32 million a year for those 2 starting in 2013. Hart gets $10 million that year. Yo gets $8. Rickie gets $10. Ryan gets $8.5. Add Prince in at (a possibly unrealistically low) $17 million and that's a total of $85.5 million for 7 guys (yes, they're the only 7 on the team worth a damn besides Lucroy and maybe Wolf, Morgan and Axford, but still). That's more than they are paying for the whole 25 man this year and that with what could be pretty conservative estimates of the contracts for Marcum, Greinke and Prince. I wish it was possible for the team to keep all these guys but I don't think they can unless they are prepared to up the payroll to the $120 million range (which would probably require them to win the World Series this year, which would probably mean that some of the guys had excellent years and post-seasons, which would mean that they would want more money, which would mean that the team would still be unlikely to be able to keep everybody). The Twins have recently upped their payroll to that level but they just got a new park and they have a much larger market than Milwaukee (and their cheapskate owner died). I don't know if Attanasio has the money to risk a payroll that large and even if he does and wanted to, I'm not sure Selig would allow him to try it.

[pitchleague]

Mark A. just needs to buy some powerball tickets, win, and give it all to Prince.

 

I'm half serious.

[danzig6767]

I keep going back and forth on whether Prince Fielder is worth the money to sign to a long term extension. . . but I do think signing him to an extension is possible if the Brewers can get a little creative. Here are a few ideas I was thinking about:

 

1. Raise ticket prices by $2 to $3 dollars per ticket. I am sure fans will understand and probably be willing to pay if this helps keep Fielder in Milwaukee.

 

2. Trade Corey Hart and his 10 million dollars per year contract. Don't get me wrong, I like Corey Hart, but he seems much more replaceable than someone like Prince Fielder (both in terms of on-field performance and marketability). I am sure some team like the Phillies would love to have Corey Hart next season. Let's face it, 25 years from now, Corey Hart will be somewhat forgotten just like we stopped thinking about Jeromy Burnitz, Richie Sexson, or Geoff Jenkins. But Prince Fielder has the chance of being a Hall-of-Famer and leaving a permanent legacy. He is the kind of guy who gets a statue outside the ballpark. Teams like Milwaukee really need guys like Fielder to build their reputation and establish their place in baseball history. You become a great franchise by having legendary players and Fielder could be one of them someday.

For smaller market teams like the Brewers, not being able to sign guys like Prince often comes more down to years than per year dollar amounts.

 

Corey Hart only has 2 years and about 20 million left on his deal while Boras will at least be trying to get Prince a 6 or 7 year type of deal at a sizable yearly amount and i can't blame Boras. Hell, Jason Werth was 32 years old and still was able to garner a 7/yr deal for 126 million dollars. Prince is only 27 years old.

 

So my guess is that Prince will get at least a six year offer for someone and at a big yearly salary, that's risky stuff and even more risky for a small market team because if his production falls off in a manner that often happens with guys who have his body type/skill set, it would be pretty devastating to the Brewers.

 

The only very slight chance i could envision where Prince stays a Brewer would be him wanting to stay so badly that he took a significant hometown discount and i just don't see that happening. How often have Boras clients done this?

[GB12]

Off of JSOnline:

 

"In its cover story ranking the 50 best players in baseball, the Sporting News points out three players on the list are eligible for free agency after the 2011 season: Albert Pujols of St. Louis, Prince Fielder of Milwaukee and CC Sabathia of the New York Yankees, who has a player option.

 

The magazine asked three agents to guess what the terms of those players next contract will be.

 

For Fielder:

 

Agent 1: 8 years, $176 million

Agent 2: 7 years, $140 million

Agent 3: 7 years, $160 million."

 

As much as I like having Prince Fielder as a Brewer there's no way we lock up that much money for that long.

[Invader3K]

It's not a matter of can we, it's "should we". I don't think committing 7-8 years to Prince is really wise, as great as he is.

[fondybrewfan]

I am just going to raise my own hopes and think we have anything more than a 5% chance of resigning him. The good news is that many of the big market teams already have a 1B/DH but it really only takes one team to price out MIL. Unfortunately I think that team might be the Cubs.

 

I fully expect Melvin to offer something like 6/126 which while a lot of money just won't quite be enough most likely. The only way I see them resigning Fielder is if he signs a Bobby Bonilla contract. Something like 6/156 but with 3-4 Million deferred every year and repaid over 10-15 years with interest. I really doubt Mark A or Doug would ever entertain that though; you don't want to be paying a 45 year old retired guy $5 Million a year.

 

Personally I think we would be better off taking the $15 Million he is making this year and offer extensions to Marcum & Grienke. We will have plenty of internal options to fill 1B in the coming years; although obviously none of the players are of Prince's calibur.

[CheezWizHed]

It's not a matter of can we, it's "should we". I don't think committing 7-8 years to Prince is really wise, as great as he is.

 

I don't know, it might be that long before our minor league system is built back up anyway... (Not sure if that should be in blue or not)

[JohnBriggs12]

I think they could trade Randy Wolf and his $9.75 million for 2012 in addition to dealing Hart.

 

Could all the college arms being drafted be part of a strategy to try and keep Fielder? No moves that we know of yet have been made to lock up Greinke or Marcum. Replacing either or both after 2012 with talented, yet pre-arby pitching, would free up plenty and both will bring high picks in return.

 

It's all speculative of course. Fielder is playing his way into a bigger contract than it looked like he would get 2 months ago.

[Invader3K]

It's not a matter of can we, it's "should we". I don't think committing 7-8 years to Prince is really wise, as great as he is.

 

I don't know, it might be that long before our minor league system is built back up anyway... (Not sure if that should be in blue or not)

One or two good drafts can go a ways toward restocking the system. It shouldn't take 7-8 years if Seid and company have any competence at drafting. Time will tell.

This thread is ignoring that we have Mat Gamel waiting in the wings, and the possibility of re-signing one or both of Marcum and Greinke. I would rather spend Fielder's potential salary on a couple great pitchers, or one great pitcher and one FA shorstop (as an example).

 

[FVBrewerFan]

I don't think raising ticket prices is the answer. That will happen naturally no matter what. So you're basically asking for an additional $3 a ticket or so ina ddition to the normal increases, and that may be tough for fans to take.

 

Trading Hart, Wolf, or anyone else isn't the answer either. It would help the first 2 years of Prince's contract, but the 5 years after that is the problem.

 

Personally, I think Mark A is at a crossroads. Farm has produced talent, and Mark A has been willing to spend money to a certain point. Now he has to decide if he's willing to increase salary to keep Fielder, Greinke, Marcum long term to go along with Yo, Weeks, and Hart. If Mark A makes theis commitment, the Brewers will be a legit contender for the foreseeable future. If he doesn't, I don't blame him, it's his money.

 

I do think the TV/Radio revenue should increase as long as they keep winning and have legitimate stars like Prince. Mark A. could also hedge his bet a bit that in the next 5-7 years MLB will move towards more revnue sharing and/or some type of salary cap.

 

Here's my opinion. I believe that Mark A. is second guessing his decision not to go hard after Sabathia. Prince will arguably be an even bigger loss. Face of the franchise. He may very well be willing to go hard after Prince, it really won't surprise me. He may decide to roll the dice, and then has a year to decide what he wants to do with Greinke/Marcum.

[LouisEly]

Win the World Series. How much extra revenue will be brought in from home games in the NLDS, NLCS, and World Series? Tickets, parking, concessions, souvies, etc., for 45,000 fans for 10 or so home playoff games - how much would that be? If the average fan spends $200/game for their ticket/parking/concessions/souvies, that's $9M per game, times 10 home games = $90M in additional revenue.

 

Or lose the World Series. They get the revenue from the home playoff games, and maybe Prince takes a hometown discount because he feels he is *this* close to winning the World Series with the Brewers that he wants to stay.

[GoudaBrew]

Raising ticket prices. It looks nice on paper, but if the economy doesn't turn around and if MLB attendance continues to decrease a bump in ticket prices may not help much.

 

People worry about how Prince is going to age. Dude is only 27 and I feel like, offensively, he'll be worth the money through his 33 or 34 age season. Yes, he's a big dude on a short frame, but he's never had so much as a nagging injury in his pro career that I can recall. I truly believe in Fielder's work ethic. He wants nothing more than to be known as a complete ball player. I believe that he can keep the weight off and continue to be a better ball player each year.

 

Now his defense on the other hand....At 27 he's already considered possibly the worst fielding first baseman in all of baseball. That part of his game worries me as he continues to age. Edit: Maybe Mark A can convince Selig to move the Brewers into the AL Central in about 3 years (blue font)

[Invader3K]

I guess I think people are being a bit naive, to put it bluntly.

 

If Prince really wanted to stay, he would have signed an extension by now. The Brewers have tried to re-sign him two or three times already, and Scott Boras is his agent. No amount of camaraderie with teammates or playoff magic is going to make him take a hometown discount at this point. Maybe I am a bit jaded, but people were saying the same things about C.C. Sabathia after the Wild Card run in '08. Let's not let ourselves get burned emotionally again. I'm going to enjoy watching Prince put up monster numbers this year. Hopefully he leads us to the World Series. After that, I'll be fine with seeing him go to another team and netting the Brewers a couple compensation draft picks (as long as he doesn't sign with the Cubs). I'm more comfortable with that than tying up a fifth of our payroll in a first baseman.

[brewmann04]

I think the Brewers will try one more time with Prince he seems to realy like his team mates and know the fans love him.

I still think he will not get close to that 30 Million Number and if the Brewers come up a bit think they can get a deal done.

It been awsome this season to see what both he and Braunie can do. I think Mark will make a play again for Prince and sign either Grienke or Marcum to an Extension.

[Funketown]

Quite frankly, unless Prince gives the Brewers a 15-20% discount I want no part of him being signed long-term. He's a great hitter, but his fielding and baserunning eat away at his value far too much for a 7-year, $140MM deal to be worthwhile for the Brewers. Even if Prince were the complete package, I just don't think it would be wise for the Brewers to have two mega contracts. That's just too much long term risk for a club in this type of market.

[owbc]

Win the World Series. How much extra revenue will be brought in from home games in the NLDS, NLCS, and World Series? Tickets, parking, concessions, souvies, etc., for 45,000 fans for 10 or so home playoff games - how much would that be? If the average fan spends $200/game for their ticket/parking/concessions/souvies, that's $9M per game, times 10 home games = $90M in additional revenue.

 

Or lose the World Series. They get the revenue from the home playoff games, and maybe Prince takes a hometown discount because he feels he is *this* close to winning the World Series with the Brewers that he wants to stay.

Exactly. That is the key.

 

The Brewers need to make the World Series. The added

revenue of making the Postseason has been estimated at about $15

million. Since the Brewers are already popular and in a small market,

the added amount might be more like $10 million. So just making the

Postseason will not be enough. If they make the World Series, the

increased revenue would probably be in the $20-$30 million range. In

addition, the media coverage and the fan interest would put some

pressure on Fielder to stay and keep the team together.

 

It will take some figuring out. But I fully expect the Brewers to make an offer. The free agent market is favorable for the Brewers, many of the teams bidding will be mediocre. So there is potential for him to take a lower offer--but only if the Brewers make a nice postseason run, which is very plausible at this juncture.

[jjfanec]

I dont think there is anyway Prince signs before going to free agency and if he hits free agency I dont like our chances. We have a ton of money locked up into Braun and we cannot afford to lock up a ton more into a non-pitcher in my mind. Marcum or Greinke sure, but Prince I just dont see it going well. He is a great player but if he hits free agency some team with %$@$@+ at first will throw a boatload of money at him. We will get two more picks once Prince leaves and that could go to replenish the farm system. The money saved can go to extending a pitcher or another bat. Gamel is also is there to replace Prince.

[chuckiehacks]

If we were talking about a premium position like SS and a player like Tulo I'd feel differently. But 1B is the easiest position to fill. With Gamel, you get maybe 75% of the production (give or take) at 2% of the cost. Even if, down the road, you have to sign a FA 1B, there are always Lyle Overbays and Derek Lees available.

 

I love Prince, and I hope he goes to the AL so I can still cheer for him. But Mark A is an investment professional, and 7/150 just isn't a good investment for a team with a limited (though large) budget to spend at 1B.

[Hate those Rodents]

How about this.

 

Resign Prince if it's not too outlandish.

Resign Marcum for a Wolf type contract of 4 years-44 million.

Watch Jungmann and Bradley develop for a year and become convinced they'll be at least good #3's

Trade Greinke in the off-season for prospects or a blue chip SS and P prospect.

 

You are left with a future rotation of Gallardo, Marcum, Jungmann, Bradley, Narveson. Not sure how quickly that comes, but we have Wolfie next year and Rivas possibly on the cusp too.

 

You have an even better offense next year. That is, it certainly can't be worse at 3B and SS if "hypothetical Greinke trade prospect is ready" or if Gamel can return to 3B (or Green I guess).

 

Basically, to summarize, I think we should look to resign Marcum reasonably soon. Then, we still have plenty of time to decide if we want to choose Fielder over Greinke longterm. It may even be better to choose Fielder over Greinke after the draft we just had and because we can likely get a better haul for Greinke in the offseason than we gave up (I just don't think much of the guys we gave up other than Jake O).

[adambr2]

Players don't hire Scott Boras as their agent if they're willing to take a hometown discount. It doesn't matter how close we are, Prince will be going to the highest bidder.

[1992casey]

This thread is ignoring that we have Mat Gamel waiting in the wings, and the possibility of re-signing one or both of Marcum and Greinke. I would rather spend Fielder's potential salary on a couple great pitchers, or one great pitcher and one FA shortstop (as an example).

 

Of course, that was the intention. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif The idea wasn't to judge the merits of a re-signing. We've been there and done that, and I'm sure we'll do it again. We haven't spent much time on what it would take for a signing to be financially feasible, tough.

[BrewCityBub]

The way the contracts and the current minor league system line up, 2012 appears to be the last season the Brewers can financially afford to compete. The Brewers just don't have the resources to outbid the market to keep a postseason-competitive team in tact past 2012. With that in mind, it doesn't exactly behoove the Brewers to sign Fielder past 2012. However, I think it would be interesting to see them throw an above-market, one-year offer at him to see what he says. If he's looking at 7/140 or so for his next contract, a one year deal north of $25 million (potentially closer to $30 million) may be enough to get him to at least engage in a conversation.

[JohnBriggs12]

Players don't hire Scott Boras as their agent if they're willing to take a hometown discount. It doesn't matter how close we are, Prince will be going to the highest bidder.

Maybe drafting Boras' son (who'll likely attend USC) was a way to soften him up to the idea. Not likely, but we can only hope.