Windhorst: Before it’s All Over, LeBron Will Play for Cleveland
January 24, 2012Cavaliers Taking Their Struggles To South Beach to Face the Heat
January 24, 2012Not long after catching wind that they will be without catcher/first baseman Victor Martinez thanks to a torn anterior cruciate ligament, the Detroit Tigers opted to add highly-coveted first baseman Prince Fielder for the reported cost of $214 million over the course of nine seasons.
Originally reported by Yahoo! Sports’ Tim Brown, the Tigers apparently jumped into the bidding war for the slugging 27-year-old and immediately came out the victors – no pun intended. The Washington Nationals and Texas Rangers were also rumored to be in the mix.
In 2011, Fielder hit .299/.415/.566 with 38 home runs and 120 RBI in 162 games last year for the Milwaukee Brewers. In 998 career games, Fielder has amassed a .282 career batting average, 230 home runs and 656 runs batted in.
Miguel Cabrera, the team’s first baseman last season – hitting .344 with 30 home runs and 105 runs batted in – is expected to slide over to designated hitter. The two men will likely provide the biggest one-two punch in the American League Central.
The Cleveland Indians are rumored to be looking for an upgrade at first base. It is largely anticipated that, with the most-coveted free agent now signed, the rest of the chips are will to fall into place.
[Related: Pena to the Rays: So Now What, Tribe Fans?]
(Source: Tim Brown, Yahoo! Sports)
69 Comments
Arghhhhhhhhhh.
There goes our shot at the Central.
$24mil/year for 9 years? wow. that’s alot of dough.
yes, it helps Detroit next season. it basically makes them a slightly better offensive team than they were last year. if Prince takes the year to adjust to AL pitchers, then it could make them equal (since VMart is gone).
longterm, that is an awfully big risk.
No, it’s not
Yeah ummmmmmm so where are we at on Spilborghs?
/Dolan’d
nice symmetry, going where his dad was a star.
Can’t wait to see the embarrassed look on Mike Ilitch’s face when he’s reminded that he owns a small market team. Such nerve, dude, ya think you’re rich or something?
I am not one of the crazy Dolan bashers, but I am incredibly frustrated and beaten down by this signing.
i’m wondering if he knows about a big bump in their local TV contract. it’s the reason teams like the Angels and Rangers have been able to spend more.
apparently, it hasn’t changed since 2009. they get $40mil/year from local TV:
For $1 billion, FSN Detroit locked up the rights to air all the games of each team over the next decade. The Tigers’ portion is worth $400 million and doubles the cash the team received under its prior deals with FSN Detroit and local free television station, WJBK Fox 2.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/22/cable-television-baseball-values-09-business-sports-cable.html
welp..
It’s stuff like this where I really think baseball should realign and have two divisions per league. The big spenders and the cheapskates. Top two in each division make the playoffs.
With that being said…bring on year 2 of Laporta at first!
Days like today make me hate MLB and they also prove the small market “woe is me” attitude of the Dolans is BS. If you’ve got the money to spend, it doesn’t matter what market you’re in. Detroit is probably the most economically depressed city in America yet their baseball team’s owner finds a way to bring Prince in on this ridiculous deal.
I do agree with mgbode that this deal is a big risk long term as Prince has never shown a real concern to be in peak physical condition. In the short term though, it sure hurts the Indians current supposed window of contention.
in the non-PED era that we are in, players in their 30s are aging more like players in their 30s are expected to age (so, not getting better like Bonds, etc.). Fielder is a slugger who strikes out a bit but balances that by walking a bunch. The general principle is that as he ages, his bat speed will decline and he’ll walk less, strike out more and his value will precipitously drop. 9 year contract means he’ll be 36 by the end of the contract, so he should be well past the point of decline.
he could be one of the few players to not decline like that, but it is a big risk to say he will avoid it.
agreed on the short term hurt it just put on us. 2012 looks awfully tough unless we can get some career years out of our pitchers.
Yikes, that’s a lot of money. I can’t think of any deals this long — off the top of my head — that were successful until the end. I think he’s amazingly good for 3 years, at most. Then mediocre. Then a disaster.
Still, sucks to be a Tribe fan today.
No, it’s not…they are not paying to contend for the next decade. The are paying to be the odds-on favorite to win their division for the next 5 years. They don’t care if they’re overpaying a guy when he’s 33. Chances are they won’t be competing for much then.
Same thing with the Pujols deal. It’s simply not a risk. They expect him to decline. Risk–exposure to the chance of injury or loss–is not what’s going on here. They are paying him upfront for 5-6 great years. It is calculated, and is assumed that he will decline.
The only risk is season/career-ending injury. But he’s been pretty durable…
This move just sold a LOT of tickets for the tigers and automatically makes them a contender for the WS…not just the central.
I only wish my team would take such a risk. Why do we have to have a “poor” owner?!
Might have closed it.
Before I clicked the article and saw the team I was so hoping he was going to the Royals. LOL. This is bad. I mean. How are we supposed to compete with these guys?
I will say this for Detroit economically, the are just as bad off maybe worse than Cleveland but they support there Tigers. They are a baseball town. Cleveland is a football town.
The Tigers owner is a billionaire and can afford to operate in the red. Dolan cant, not to that that extent anyway. I remember reading that the Tigers lost 29 million dollars in 2010. Adding Prince might bring in some additional TV revenue to offset that though. The Indians cant operate that way, losing that kind of money. The only hope is that a billionaire like Ilitch buys the Indians, and I dont see that happening anytime soon.
It sucks but it is what it is.
Co-signed.
fwiw, just looked up his dad’s career stats. Prince is the better player but his father had a similar body type and seems to me that genes are at least one pretty decent indicator as to how long the son will produce. Dad had significant statistical drop-off at age 33. As I recall, his weight did not help with injuries and he had a problem with significantly slowing bat speed in his drop off years..
As others are saying, may be a horrible deal on the back end but makes us queasy now. That’s one hell of a middle of the lineup.
Detroit is insane.
So wait, now my hope for sports success in Cleveland has to go back to the Browns? Already? We couldn’t even get a few crazy months of summer first?
I have to say, as a long-time reader of this site (and one who generally respects what it’s about), the obsession with level-headedness has become a bit cloying/grating. Sports were founded on principles of furious passion…
…I don’t advocate insults or incivility, and Craig, there’s no need to “be a crazy basher” or to be irrationally irate, but why don’t you people with communicative channels at your disposal rally the troops if you’re feeling so defeated? How about an opening day protest? An internet or social media campaign? Anything…
I mean, despite all the preaching of patience/the system is what it is/blahblah bologna that is thrown up here, you people do realize that we will never be able to sustainably enjoy an Indians team ever again with this ownership group, right? That sons will never get to love a player for more than few seasons before having his heartbroken, right? And that this is due in large part to the wretched ownership group we have…
At some point, doesn’t a fan, it if they’ve bought in (both literally and figuratively) have to articulate his frustration in a more meaningful/constructive way? There is a group of people here who could have something relevant to say, but instead everyone just says, ‘Oh, I’m deflated,’ and then we get some article like, ‘Tigers Snag Fielder: What Does This Mean for the Indians?” in which Scott or Andrew or whoever will point out the obvious problems we face, and the equally discouraging options we have to counter…that’s getting pretty stale.
Man, this one hurts.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
Nothing attracts a potential billionaire buyer (necessary in MLB) like torches and pitchforks!
But seriously, I get where you’re at with this, Jack. It’s just that, for many of us, the fact that we the fans are ultimately just a small part of it all is abundantly clear. No amount of love or internet/social media protesting (had it existed as it does now, anyway) was keeping the Browns in Cleveland in ’95. The business (there’s that bothersome but accurate word) up and left. Money talks to these teams. We stop showing up or turn off the financial faucet, and they look for greener (see what I did there? Because money is–well, I’m sure you get it) pastures. Besides, I’m not sure the amount of blame the Dolans get is entirely fair, given the fact that they own a team in a blatantly rigged system, and they do what they have to in order to get by on a thoroughly un-level playing field. All that said, I’d love to hear a plan that the fans could support that would have real impact for positive change. I just haven’t yet.
Looking back, when have we ever been able to enjoy players on the Indians for more than a few seasons?
Even in the “good old days” of the ’90s, the Indians traded Carlos Baerga halfway through the ’96 season, Albert Belle left after that year in free agency and they traded Kenny Lofton before the ’97 season.
Matt Williams was only on the team for one year, the starting pitching was always changing as Dennis Martinez, Orel Hershisher, Jack McDowell, etc., came through town for just a couple of years.
There has always been churn on the roster no matter who the owners are.
Why is the assumption that if the Dolans sell – if there is even a buyer out there – that things will be better? There’s no guarantee a new owner will splash the cash around, no will spending guarantee winning. The team may very well wind up with another ownership group that used all its money to buy the team and has nothing left in the bank.
Plus, where is the magical revenue stream that a new owner will tap into that has eluded the Dolans through the years?
Not saying they are perfect owners, but the grass isn’t always greener either.
Some of us try, my friend. But then we’re called conspiracy theorists or dumb or stupid or whatever. And then they lose heart a little, because why take all this crap for having an opinion based on facts about your team?
While I agree with you in theory, what exactly is the other option – screeds about how cheap the Dolans are? The sad truth is that the Indians don’t generate enough revenue to compete, regardless of who the ownership group is. Like Ghost said, barring a billionaire who doesn’t care about losing money, this is the way it has to be – building through the draft/prospects, losing players to FA.
I feel your response B-bo. And protest was probably a clumsy characterization of what I meant. And I’m not even suggesting the ideal goal would be running the Dolans out of town or something like that…
…at the same time, I think the voice of many posters and many articles here as become one of resignation or detachment. In certain ways, the fans own a team. And even if a social media campaign, or an opening day demonstration of some kind (wearing black, sitting out an inning, anything–lots of room for creativity)…well at least it would be more productive and cathartic than what’s been going on lately…
…instead of using the power of the internet/communication to amplify the voice of the fan, I feel like we’ve dampened it in many ways–something Freudian–destroying the value/impact of it through gross repetition.
Again, rather than use new, attractive, creative channels to elevate fan participation, I feel like we’ve defaulted to a larger scale depressing Midwest bar sulk-fest. Mass virtual community commiseration only has so much cathartic value…
I agree Craig.
And it’s over before it ever began baseball has a major problem. No spend, no contend!
This probably won’t have a positive effect on season ticket sales.
Help us Dan Gilbert. You’re our only hope.
I really don’t think this is a white-flag type situation for the Tribe. He’s replacing Martinez, who is a helluva hitter in his own right. Granted, Fielder has higher power numbers, but there’s not a ton of difference between Cabrera/Martinez and Cabrera/Fielder. Remember the Frank Thomas/Albert Belle combo? Didn’t turn out well.
The key for the Tribe is health/pitching. If they can work some magic out of the starters and keep the regulars generally healthy, this team will be all right. The bullpen should be solid again, and all we did was complain about Fausto anyway, so I’m not sweating his loss much either.
Can anyone name a stud free agent to sign with Cleveland — any sport? Is Eric Steinbach the most prized free agent to sign in Cleveland?
Well said. It’s like holding a rally demanding jobs. You can demand a better team, but where exactly is it supposed to come from?
Lol at Detroit! In 2020 they will be paying a fat old guy 24 million. BWAAAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! I just unfollowed baseball. Again.
Is it any consolation that at least the Yankees didn’t get him?
Guess not.
Obama?
Hey we did sign Andre Rison back in the day….
LeCharles Bentley was a 3-time Pro Bowler when he signed with the Browns. Didn’t work out, obviously, but doesn’t mean he wasn’t a stud at the time of the signing.
Jack McDowell was only a couple of years removed from winning the Cy Young when the Indians signed him. Big name, but not big results.
LeCharles Bentley was considered the best center in the game when he signed here. Of course, he lasted a whole 1 play in practice.
there’s also the weird Prince even year effect. No OPS+ over 135 in even years, no OPS+ under 159 in odd years (full seasons).
V-Mart had an OPS+ of 132 last season, so if Prince just replicates that, then all hope isn’t lost (but I don’t think many of us were all too hopeful before the V-Mart injury).
What about you? Didn’t we sign you when you were still good?
Ride out and meet them?
I’m not saying we should build a monument to the Dolans or anything, but we do have to be realistic.
If your definition of a bad owner is “one who does not have deep pockets,” then yes, the Dolans are bad owners. But there has to be more to it than that.
The Dolans are not Peter Angelos or Frank McCourt, they’re not bankrupting the team while they sit at home laughing on big piles of money, or anything like that.
But the reality is, no matter who owns the team, no one is going to give the Tribe the kind of local TV money that teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels and Rangers enjoy.
And that is going to keep the Indians, and a lot of other teams, at a disadvantage for years to come unless MLB gets its act together and does something about it.
Jack, I get your frustration and respect your passion, but I think the woeful attitude you see here comes from the realization that anger isn’t appropriately directed at the Dolan ownership group as much as it should be directed at MLB write large…and changing that landscape really does feel impossible. It’s such an uneven playing field — heck, even Metro Detroit has a million more people than Greater Cleveland — that the prospect of action seems dim, at best.
Basically, the entire small-to-mid-market fanbases would have to dramatically redirect their spending dollars away from MLB until it demonstrates that the league can’t continue on 4-5 fanbases alone…
…or you’d have to convince all those people who moved out of the area over the past several decades to reverse course and move back, and preferably to move back within the city limits; while spending their evenings either going to games and watching them on TV.* This would be AWESOME for a whole bunch of reasons Tribe- and non-Tribe-related, but I think you’d agree it’s pretty unlikely to happen in the near term.And for what it’s worth, the second solution would feel sort of like joining the Dark Side, baseball-wise.
*(On this note, it seems like a serious distortion of free-market capitalism that we spend so much fan money on a franchise that has been nothing but inept for the past decade, while we spend so little time/money on our other franchise that has been generally stable, intelligent, and competently run.)
*writ large
This is strangely comforting…we always needed a lot of chips to fall into place for us to make a run in 2012, anyway — bounceback seasons, youngsters developing, Supermannahan Returns, etc. The Fielder signing just adds one more chip. So why lose hope over that?
Count me as one of the “level headed” ones who tends to preach patience and as a person who doesn’t keep my pitchfork sharpened and my torch burning in hopes the mob comes to burn down the Jake or Cleve Stadium. Maybe your lives are different but after dealing with the 10,000 things that life throws at you everyday I’m just fresh out of anger when it comes to sports. I love my teams, root/pray for wins, and don’t turn on ESPN for a week after bad losses, but screaming borderline mindless bile at the owners and coaches of teams? No thanks, its lifeshortening, and contrary to what some of you think it doesn’t accomplish anything.
IMHO Larry Dolan (why is this the only franchise whose ownership gets pluraled? We don’t say “the Lerners” own the Browns) overpaid when he bought the franchise, he doesn’t have Cuban money or Steinbrenner TV deals and he simply isn’t going to lose money on the chance it brings in a title.
Rich as he is had Dolan plunked down 10-20 million a year out his own pocket to buy Fielder, and the Indians slumped do you honestly believe people would pack the Jake? BS, you can’t give the Indians 1/10 of the love and undying forgiveness you give the Browns and expect 100% commitment out of the team. I guarantee if we filled that stadium, and boosted STO’s rating so a more lucrative advertising deal could be struck, the tribe would be in play for some big names. But unlike the Browns we want success before we buy in.