Darn you Doc for getting my hopes up ;)
All your above arguments make sense. I for one am veryyy comfortable with an 8-year contract.  However what about the Jays? They seem like your classic sleeper team that didn't get talked up much but then you realize, "Jeez, there's no reason for them not to be involved." They are AL, have only $47 million committed and a 2012 payroll likely north of $70 million, and have Adam Lind and his 734 OPS at first...
The only consolation is their FO's philosophy on +5 year contracts, but I have a hard time believing Fielder wouldn't necessitate an exception...
Thoughts?
-Nick

Toronto?  They've been linked a couple times and have even less payroll obligations than the Mariners and it's not like Adam Lind would keep them away from Fielder.

They aren't supposed to go past five years on anybody. It's the Cardinals I'm worried about, although they also can't DH Fielder so we'll see how long a contract they are willing to offer.

OK....Well analyzed Doc,
I've assumed the M's were the favorites the last few days, and actually expected an announcement.
8X$20M? The Pujols-set market says that's the price......or at least Boras believes so. But it doesn't appear that all the likely suspects buy into that market evaluation.  Boras bets that the pot will simmer for a bit and some GM will boil over. 
But what does $6X25M and a mutual option get you, right now? 
That would make it $160M vs $150M and the chance that Prince still pulls down some big green when he opts out.  Were I ownership, I would rather spend the extra $5-large for the first 6 years than the extra $20-large for the final, two.
That is the Moe line, and I'm wondering if the Mariner offer on the table doesn't look something like that.
BTW, I'm wondering if the Angels would hit the Redo button if they could?
Go team.

Beni,
In years 7 and 8 it would still be a $20M whack, because that is the number that a front office would count against any budget cap.  If Fielder were injured and done by then he would be a $20M anchor and nobody would look at it as a $5M salary.....mostly because it wouldn't be a $5M salary.
No matter how you look at what Figgins salary MIGHT have been, we still owe him $9M a year for three years. 
I suspect that if years 7-10 (or 7-8) were no-brainers then Boras would have already been offered the contract he wanted. 
Doc, you've already postulated the great drag that Pujols' contract is going to place on the Angels in years 5+.  Just because they might have offered him 8X$32 that doesn't mean that years 9-10 are somehow free years.  In years 9-10 he's still getting $25M.  You could argue the inflation factor, I suppose.....But you haven't yet.
moe

And I figured they'd be a real threat since they have to replace Pujols. But their GM was interviewed this week and had this to say:
Can we safely assume you will not be in the Prince Fielder sweepstakes?
“That’s a safe assumption.”
 
With that things are looking fabulous. During the season people just assumed that there would be twenty teams throwing crazy offers at Prince and that he was guaranteed to get a deal that was absolutely ridiculous. As I tried to explain, the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Phillies and Dodgers all would be completely uninvolved which meant the M's actually were in a great position to not only land him but get him at a reasonable price. So far that seems to be exactly the case. There is absolutely not a bidding war going on, instead we just have a handful of teams timidly sniffing around and none of them have given any indication they will go all out for Fielder. What we have been hearing is that teams don't have the heart to give him a monster deal and Boras' faux-cockiness is giving away the game which is that he doesn't have the type of market he was expecting.

Were there not a budget cap for 2017 then every team would be throwing around Pujols type contracts, willy-nilly.
Of course, that doesn't happen.  It doesn't happen because of financial reasons.  It doesn't happen because of ROI reasons.  It doesn't happen because there is some nebulous cap that front offices adhere to. 
We're I an Angels fan, I would certainly think that the $20+ gabillion that we spend on Pujols (I'm assuming he's underproducing at that point) in years 8-10 are $20+ gabillion that we don't spend on someone else.  It's an anchor.
The $9 million we're spending on Figgins this year is $9 million we're not spending elsewhere.  Cuddyer might be automatic if we had that $9M back.  If Figgins remains an expensive, less-that-replacement player, then he is certainly a "drag" on the M's ability to spend elsewhere.  Not many people are disputing that, I think. 
moe
 

First, we aren't assuming that Fielder will be worthless in 7 or 8 years, nor are we saying that spending $20 million+ on a worthless player wouldn't hamstring the team. What we are saying is that even if he pulls a Bagwell and practically doesn't play at all the last two years of his contract it wouldn't necessarily mean that the M's are doomed. It's just a way of illustrating that overpaying him at the end of the contract isn't some deathnell to the franchise that must be avoided at all costs.
Second, you can't just look at the last couple years of a deal and come to a conclusion. As Tango explains here, you have to look at the contract in it's entirety. The team will likely get a significant discount at the beginning of the deal which will offset the overpay at the end.
That's why Fielder makes sense for this team. The M's can push some of his current costs on to later years which allows the team to get more talent in the short team and thus makes it easier to start winning in the next two years. And once the team becomes a winner again revenues will increase which will offset the declining value of Fielder's contract.

Doc,
That's a point I'll definately agree with.  Have said so already. Signing Fielder means you go with a bunch of young guys and some of them are going to be real good in the next 6 years.
I love that idea.
I just worry whether we get 3, or even 2, WAR out of Fielder after 6 years.
Boog Powell and Jack Cust both lost their skills about age 32 or 33.  That's my type of concern.
However, Willie Stargell (who became a BIG man despite starting out relatively svelt) continues on until he was 37 or 38, as did Frank Howard (the original).  Howard may be the best body comparison, and he kept crushing the ball until he was 37 or so.
Just looked it up, by the way, B-R has Prince as the 246th best hitter of all times....and Hondo as 247.  Interesting.
I'm not against signing Fielder, at all.  Just give me the 6X$25 over an 8 year deal.
And I think this is where the M's are right now. 
moe
 

The one thing with Boras clients. They almost always take the best deal.
Rooting for the Fielder market to stay cold..

Basically, some random mystery team is more likely to land Fielder than the M's because, well, it's the Mariners. Only a money grubbing wh*re like ARod would go to the Mariners.
Do all 29 other GM's have to announce publically that they aren't interested in Fielder before the media will admit that the M's are the easy frontrunners for him? Because the Mariners are the only team who have been linked to him that haven't already done so, with the slight exception of Toronto (and if they get Darvish then what ever sliver of a chance they had will be gone).

Isn't it kind of worrisome that 29 other teams are NOT interested in Fielder? Are we missing something here?

He's a bad long term fit for every NL club but that's just because of the rules. In the AL, the biggest spenders already have first base locked up and Toronto and Texas need pitching more than offense (and Texas doesn't seem to have the cash right now that every seems to think they do). There just aren't a lot of teams that have the money to spend and are a good fit. The current situation was entirely predictable before the season so it shouldn't be scary that it has developed.