Tag Archives: Detroit Tigers

Prince Fielder Paid Like Royalty in Nine-Year $214 Million Deal With Detroit Tigers

Posted on by Ryan Kantor

In one of the biggest surprise splashes of the off-season, the Detroit Tigers came to agreement with one of the best power hitters in baseball. Largely as a response to C/DH Victor Martinez’s potentially season-ending knee injury, the Detroit Tigers ponied up and gave former Milwaukee Brewers first baseman, Prince Fielder, a $200+ million dollar contract. It will make Prince Fielder just one of three players in baseball history to receive a contract in excess of $200 million, the other two being Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols.

There’s certainly an element of nostalgia with the signing of Prince Fielder, as his father, Cecil, made his hay with the Detroit Tigers in the early 90s. In fact, Cecil Fielder hit 245 home runs for the Tigers, and Prince spent his youth in Detroit.

The thought of facing Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder in the same lineup is downright scary. The duo will certainly make the best 3-4 combo in the league, assuming Jim Leyland sets it up that way. Let’s not get carried away though. They didn’t just add Prince Fielder, they replaced Victor Martinez with Prince Fielder. No doubt that’s an upgrade, but it’s still not quite the same. Alex Avila has thrived as the Tiger’s primary catcher so when Victor Martinez returns from injury he’ll retake his DH spot with Miguel Cabrera moving over to third base to accommodate Fielder. His return will round out a great Tigers lineup, but until then, it’s not really a murder’s row.

Delmon Young was a key piece to re-sign, and Austin Jackson very well may bounce back, but after that the lineup consists of: Brandon Inge, Jhonny Peralta, Ramon Santiago, Alex Avila, Ryan Raburn, and Brennan Boesch. So you see why they splurged on Prince Fielder?

Now, all us fans of other AL team’s should not get too frightened right away. Justin Verlander is the best pitcher in baseball, but he can’t possibly repeat last year’s MVP season. I’d also expect Peralta to regress. The Tigers are prohibitive AL Central favorites, but I’m not quite ready to call them the World Series favorites. For now, they’ll have to share that distinction with the Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Angels, and New York Yankees. I may include the Phillies in that list as well.

As for the contract itself…it’s really long and Prince Fielder isn’t exactly built like Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols. If Andruw Jones had signed a nine-year contract after his age 27 season he’d still have two year’s remaining. Imagine the position the Braves would be mired in if they were stuck paying Andruw Jones some $20 million annually. Jones hit 250 home runs through his age 27 season (Fielder has hit 230), and is a power hitter built more like Fielder than either Rodriguez or Pujols so the comparison is pretty fair. I think we’ll see Prince be very effective for the first half his contract, and then likely decline hard. That’s the price you pay to sign a superstar these days. The Tigers are just hoping they can win their first World Series since 1984 in the next couple years while they have Fielder, Cabrera, and Martinez in their primes.

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99 Yankee Wins Not Enough For A Trip To The ALCS

Posted on by Ryan Kantor

Dating back to 2001, the Yankees were 0-5 in playoff elimination games on the road. Of course, this streak came to an end in Detroit when the Yankees beat the Tigers 10-1 on Tuesday, but it was all for not, as the team with the best record in the AL lost game 5 at home 2-3, sending the Tigers to Texas for the ALCS.

Consistent with Yankee tradition, one no name, middle-of-the-road player killed the Yankees in the ALDS. Howie Kendrick played this role beautifully back in the days of the Angels consistently killing the Yankees. In the this year’s ALDS Don Kelly fit into that slot hitting first inning home run in game 5, and generally playing out of his mind at the plate and in the field.

After giving up two solo home runs in the first two innings Ivan Nova departed with forearm tightness leaving Joe Girardi to try to keep the game within reach with a patch work effort from the bullpen. Despite succeeding in that effort, allowing just one more run, they mustered only two runs the whole game as the offense disappeared, especially with runners in scoring position. It always seems that offense disappears in the postseason. Maybe we’ll invest in some pitching instead of spending $31 on a 36 year old 3B and another 17 on a SS with warning track power. Then again, it wasn’t really pitching that was our problem.

This is a tough one to swallow. Luckily I have a great Clemson football team to hang my hat on. That, and the Red Sox collapse. Nonetheless, this hurts.

Yankees are a veteran team, and I wonder if they can bounce back. I wonder if we’ve seen the last of Posada and Swisher in pinstripes. What will our rotation look like next year? CC-AJ-Hughes-Nova-Betances? Will a big free agent be in the mix?

I will say this. With all the talk of adding an extra wild card to each league, can we instead consider simply make the first round best of seven instead of five? It’s more than silly that a 162 games season ends with just three losses.

What do you think of making the league division series best of seven? What does this offseason have in store for New York?

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