THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Or, they could use the money they had but didn’t spend on CC Sabathia to keep Fielder, and try to build a decent team around him. Fielder/Braun/Gallardo gives them three stars.  Three stars and decent talent around them gives the team a shot at the playoffs.

I agree that trading Fielder likely kills attendance.

If the Bewers were going to spend big money, I’d doing it on pitching and/or run prevention (not to the extreme Seattle did, but you know ...).

I think Fiedler is closer to the .270-30 HR player than he is the .290 45 HR player. He seems to alternate every other year. I think he’ll hold his power for some years, but not the 45-50 HR stuff. He’s a DH waiting to happen.

He’s never really had a serious injury, so one could either say “he’s durable” or “he’s due”.

The fact that he’s big, and by big I mean fat, worries me in regards to decline in performance and/or rebounding from an injury. Blame it on Mo Vaughn if you want to.

He’s good, but I don’t think I would want to committ as much money to him as he is going to ask for. Blame it on Ryan Howard if you want to.

As for Prince’s established level, I’d split the middle and call him a .280/.550 guy.  About a 3 WAR player considering his poor defense, worth 12-15 million per year.

With his body type, I don’t expect him to have much value at all in his 30’s.  He’ll probably have more trouble staying in the lineup, and when he does a .240, 35 homer year from a DH isn’t worth getting excited about. 

He’s only 26 right now, so he’s got some prime years left.  But if you sign him after 2011 and have to give him 5-6 years at a high rate it won’t be worth it. 

I suspect there will be a correction, and while Prince is a similar player to Howard, teams will look at each other and expect somebody to cough up that kind of money, but nobody will actually want to be the sucker.  So Prince might have to accept a contract, maybe 4/50, that is actually appropriate for his talent level.  Problem for the Brewers is he won’t take that kind of contract and pay cut without testing the market and finding no alternatives.

So if I were the Brewers, I’d trade him.

If the Brew Crew can get a decent return on him, I say jettison him. But in all honesty I don’t think that a good enough return is out there for a hit-only kind of first baseman.

Just look at the struggles of pretty good first basemen in landing contracts this year - Adam LaRoche, Hank Blalock, etc. Also, over the hill sluggers like Jermaine Dye and Gary Sheffield can’t land a job, even though they can still hit. And they will soon be joined by the likes of David Ortiz, Pat Burrell, Adam Dunn, etc. I think teams would rather take a cheap flyer on these guys rather than pay Ryan Howard money for the Prince.

Oops and I forgot Jim Thome. No disrespect to him.

You’re stretching the bar pretty low to consider Hank Blalock a pretty good 1B.  But Adam Dunn is a good comp.  Dunn took 2 years, 20 million from the Nationals.  I don’t see what Fielder gives you that Dunn doesn’t.  Fielder’s making more $ than that even in his arbitration years, so maybe there isn’t any perceived surplus value to trade.

Might be best to keep him for another year and then take the two draft picks.  It all depends on what another team wants to offer.

I’m with Rally on my expectations of Fielder.

Fielder is like Howard, he’s a very prodigious power hitter who just isn’t likely to hold up as he ages. Going long term big money on Fielder makes even less sense for the Brewers than it did for the Phillies when they preemptively re-uped Howard.

On a different note, holding the line until they make the playoffs probably doesn’t work, but could they say we’re holding out until we get an elite prospect offered for him? Would that quell the fans and signal the market at the same time? Or they could hold the line until they are 5 games above .500.

One of the THT guys just did a post on ticket prices and found the Brewers to be the fairest in terms of BS fees and taxes.

Fans in Milwaukee have pretty much felt since day one that Prince would not be here long term.  My qualitative read on the sentiment is that many fans - maybe half - would prefer that he be traded now rather than risk watching him walk as a free agent.  No one here really feels the Brewers have a chance to sign him long term.

Over the last four seasons, Fielder has started more games in the field than any other player.

Games started in the field (2006-2009)

1. Prince Fielder - 628
2. Jeff Francoeur - 627
3. Adrian Gonzalez - 622
4. Orlando Cabrera - 622
5. Miguel Cabrera - 616

He’s only missed one this year when he started at DH.

Rally/6, of course I agree with you on Blalock now, but I think coming out of last season, the perception of him was quite a bit better than it is now, after a poor 2010. What I mean is there will be a pretty decent crop of 1B/DH types, just like last year.

Agreed, if you can get someone to bite with two very good prospects, I say you pull the trigger. If not, play it out and take two draft picks.