{"id":3708,"date":"2012-01-12T09:30:58","date_gmt":"2012-01-12T14:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=3708"},"modified":"2012-01-12T09:39:07","modified_gmt":"2012-01-12T14:39:07","slug":"at-this-point-what-really-is-the-fielder-fa-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=3708","title":{"rendered":"At this point, what *really* is the Fielder FA market?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3709\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/FielderPrince_eatingcheeseburgers-via-the-onion.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3709\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3709\" title=\"FielderPrince_eatingcheeseburgers via the onion\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/FielderPrince_eatingcheeseburgers-via-the-onion-300x170.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"170\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/FielderPrince_eatingcheeseburgers-via-the-onion-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/FielderPrince_eatingcheeseburgers-via-the-onion.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3709\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">I swear, I wasn&#39;t looking for the obvious pun photo of Prince Fielder eating.  Photo: The Onion<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Unless you&#8217;ve been living under a rock, you know by now that <strong>Prince Fielder<\/strong> is looking for a 9 figure contract, that there doesn&#8217;t seem to be a lot of suitors for him, and that he keeps being linked to the Washington Nationals, despite sources <a href=\"http:\/\/tracking.si.com\/2012\/01\/11\/report-99-percent-chance-the-nationals-wont-sign-prince-fielder\/\">saying we&#8217;re not interested<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So I thought to myself; what *really* is the market for Fielder right now?\u00a0 Who wants, or more importantly needs, a big-money, big-time hitting, trip-over-his-feet defending at first base Fielder?\u00a0 Here&#8217;s each of the 30 teams organized into categories to help get some clarity:<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>1. Teams that have long-term, major money commitments to established 1B stars, right now.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>These teams are absolutely not in the market for Fielder.\u00a0\u00a0 Team and current 1B:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Boston: <strong>Adrian Gonzalez<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Chicago WS: <strong>Konerko\/Dunn<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Detroit: <strong>Miguel Cabrera<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>LA Angels: <strong>Albert Pujols<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Minnesota: <strong>Justin Morneau<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>NY Yankees: <strong>Mark Teixeira<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Cincinnati: <strong>Joey Votto<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Colorado: <strong>Todd Helton <\/strong>(not that he&#8217;s a major committment, but he did just re-sign thru 2013).<\/li>\n<li>Miami: <strong>Gaby Sanchez<\/strong> (not really a major star, but he was a 2011 all-star and is pre-arbitration)<\/li>\n<li>Philadelphia: <strong>Ryan Howard<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You could quibble with the selection of Miami as not being in the market; after all they were throwing money at Pujols and have committed something in the range of $165M in heavily back-loaded contracts already this off-season.\u00a0 But I havn&#8217;t read a single sentence indicating any interest with Fielder.<\/p>\n<p>You could slightly quibble with Colorado, but if so I&#8217;ll say that Colorado also falls into one of the &#8220;No&#8221; categories below.\u00a0 Read on.<\/p>\n<p>2. <em><strong>Teams that are so bad, right now, that I couldn&#8217;t imagine Fielder actually going there<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Baltimore<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Baltimore.\u00a0 That&#8217;s it.\u00a0 Anyone that signs in Baltimore is essentially saying, &#8220;I want to play for the worst organization in baseball and guarantee myself 5th place finishes for the entirety of my contract.&#8221;\u00a0 Who would possibly go to play there unless they&#8217;re a lower-tier FA who wants to guarantee himself a starting job?\u00a0 Such a shame; this was the highest payroll team in the game in the mid 90s.\u00a0 We talk about how <strong>Bud Selig<\/strong> needs to take away the Mets &#8230; how about forcing <strong>Angelos<\/strong> to sell this former jewel franchise to someone who actually wants to see them win?<\/p>\n<p>3. <em><strong>Teams that are aren&#8217;t in the market for financial reasons<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>LA Dodgers<\/li>\n<li>NY Mets<\/li>\n<li>SF Giants<\/li>\n<li>St. Louis<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Obviously the situation with the Dodgers and Mets prevents them from doing such a franchise-altering commitment.\u00a0 Plus both teams have half-way decent options playing at 1B for them now (<strong>James Loney<\/strong> and <strong>Ike Davis<\/strong>).\u00a0\u00a0 The Giants were at $118M in 2011 and seem tapped out; they have $84M committed prior to their Arb cases, including a potentially record-setting arbitration case with <strong>Tim Lincecum<\/strong>.\u00a0 They&#8217;ll easily be above $100M once these cases are said and done.\u00a0 Lastly St. Louis: if they were willing to pay $25M\/year, they would have re-signed Pujols.\u00a0 So clearly they&#8217;ve reached a financial threshold themselves.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d also put Colorado in this category; they aren&#8217;t exactly a small-market team but they also don&#8217;t seem like they&#8217;re in the mood to increase payroll $25M\/year.<\/p>\n<p>4. <em><strong>Teams that have waved the white flag and are in 100% rebuilding mode<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Oakland<\/li>\n<li>Houston<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Both these teams should be obvious just by their mention.\u00a0 Oakland is going to try to field a $20M payroll team, and Houston has bottomed out and clearly is starting over.<\/p>\n<p>5. <em><strong>Teams that have big-name prospects currently installed at 1B and who don&#8217;t seem like they&#8217;re in the market<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cleveland (<strong>Matt LaPorta<\/strong>); also arguably in the &#8220;Small Market&#8221; category<\/li>\n<li>Kansas City (<strong>Eric Hosmer<\/strong>); also in the &#8220;Small Market&#8221; category<\/li>\n<li>Seattle (<strong>Justin Smoak<\/strong>); also in the &#8220;Teams that are really bad&#8221; category<\/li>\n<li>Atlanta (<strong>Freddie Freeman<\/strong>): also in the &#8220;Teams that are tapped out financially&#8221; category<\/li>\n<li>San Diego (<strong>Yonder Alonso<\/strong>); also in the &#8220;Small market&#8221; category<\/li>\n<li>Chicago Cubs (<strong>Anthony Rizzo<\/strong>): probably more in the &#8220;rebuilding mode&#8221; category; Epstein likes Rizzo, just re-acquired him and I&#8217;d be shocked if they blocked him by getting Fielder.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Most of these teams could fit into multiple categories.\u00a0 Lots of rumors out there saying that Seattle is a natural landing spot for Fielder but I don&#8217;t see it: Smoak is the reason Seattle agreed to trade <strong>Cliff Lee<\/strong>, and you don&#8217;t just give up on guys like that.\u00a0 Meanwhile Seattle is now miles behind their divisional rivals and may not compete for a decade.\u00a0 Why would Fielder go there?<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the Cubs seem like an interesting case.\u00a0 NL team, NL central team, storied name.\u00a0 But they didn&#8217;t hire <strong>Theo Epstein<\/strong> to just make the leap; their ownership clearly realized that their franchise was on the downside both at the MLB level and in the farm system.\u00a0 Bad contracts, bad clubhouse.\u00a0 They&#8217;re rebuilding for a renewed run in a few year&#8217;s time.<\/p>\n<p>6. <em><strong>Small Market teams that certainly don&#8217;t seem to be in the market for a $25M\/year player<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tampa Bay<\/li>\n<li>Arizona<\/li>\n<li>Milwaukee (else he&#8217;d be looking at re-signing there)<\/li>\n<li>Pittsburgh<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All these teams seem to be pretty self-explanatory.\u00a0 Maybe Arizona gets into the market, but they&#8217;ve gone to great pains to lose payroll, paring it down to just $56M last year while somehow winning the division.\u00a0 Their highest paid player in 2011 was just $5.8M.\u00a0 A $25M\/year guy doesn&#8217;t fit with their team.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>So, after all that, Here&#8217;s the teams Left: This is the actual Market for Fielder, right now.\u00a0 Teams listed with their current starting 1B<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Texas: <strong>Mitch Moreland<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Toronto: <strong>Adam Lind<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Washington: <strong>Adam LaRoche<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And here&#8217;s arguments for and against each team:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pro Texas: they are getting a massive amount of money influx in.\u00a0 They may or may not win the <strong>Yu Darvish<\/strong> sweepstakes, meaning they may or may not have an &#8220;extra&#8221; $120M or so sitting around in a couple weeks.\u00a0 Moreland isn&#8217;t exactly lighting the world on fire and wouldn&#8217;t be an impediment.<\/li>\n<li>Con Texas: They don&#8217;t NEED more offense; they&#8217;ve bashed their way to two consecutive AL pennants by having an offense ranked in the top 3 in pretty much every category.\u00a0 They had a guy who hit 29 homers batting 7th for them in the off-season (<strong>Nelson Cruz<\/strong>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Pro Toronto<strong>:<\/strong> they have payroll room.\u00a0 They can let Fielder DH some of the time.\u00a0 They have a good young pitching staff they can build on.\u00a0 Lind hit 26 homers but isn&#8217;t blocking them from acquiring someone better.\u00a0 They do need to improve their offense and he&#8217;d fit naturally behind <strong>Jose Bautista<\/strong>, giving him even better pitches to turn on.<\/li>\n<li>Con Toronto: they&#8217;re the 4th best team in the AL East and havn&#8217;t made the playoffs since the Wild Card era.\u00a0 What makes you think they&#8217;re going to catch the 3 teams above them, no matter how much they spend?\u00a0 This has to come into Fielder&#8217;s thought process, doesn&#8217;t it?\u00a0 They also don&#8217;t have the pitching right now to really compete in the AL East, having traded away their main studs for prospects in recent years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Pro Washington: This team needs offense; we&#8217;ve declined in runs scored 3 years running.\u00a0 Plain and simple.<\/li>\n<li>Con Washington: he can&#8217;t DH.\u00a0 We&#8217;d be lighting the $8M we owe to LaRoche on fire.\u00a0 He doesn&#8217;t fit Rizzo&#8217;s pro-defense concept of finding players.\u00a0 He may expose a payroll ceiling that the team hasn&#8217;t broached before, resulting in the team possibly losing franchise players in the future because &#8220;we can&#8217;t afford them.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the end though, if Texas signs Darvish I&#8217;d think they&#8217;d be out of the running.\u00a0 And Toronto hasn&#8217;t really shown an inclination to spend Fielder kinds of money, and seem more in a rebuilding phase than a &#8220;go for it now&#8221; phase.<\/p>\n<p>Which means the Fielder market may be &#8230;. just Washington.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think?\u00a0 Are there any teams besides Texas, Toronto and the Nats that are *really* in the conversation?\u00a0 Or is Boras negotiating against himself right now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unless you&#8217;ve been living under a rock, you know by now that Prince Fielder is looking for a 9 figure contract, that there doesn&#8217;t seem to be a lot of suitors for him, and that he keeps being linked to the Washington Nationals, despite sources saying we&#8217;re not interested. So I thought to myself; what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[139,184,689,403,123,593,365,246,415,187,685,686,148,592,404,677,413,674,687,405,129,688,358,676,379,183,675,180,249,316,684,588,300],"class_list":["post-3708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","category-natsgeneral","tag-adam-dunn","tag-adam-laroche","tag-adam-lind","tag-adrian-gonzalez","tag-albert-pujols","tag-anthony-rizzo","tag-bud-selig","tag-cliff-lee","tag-eric-hosmer","tag-freddie-freeman","tag-gaby-sanchez","tag-ike-davis","tag-james-loney","tag-joey-votto","tag-jose-bautista","tag-justin-morneau","tag-justin-smoak","tag-mark-teixeira","tag-matt-laporta","tag-miguel-cabrera","tag-mike-rizzo","tag-mitch-moreland","tag-nelson-cruz","tag-paul-konerko","tag-peter-angelos","tag-prince-fielder","tag-ryan-howard","tag-scott-boras","tag-theo-epstein","tag-tim-lincecum","tag-todd-helton","tag-yonder-alonso","tag-yu-darvish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3708"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3716,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708\/revisions\/3716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}