Fielder News
..............
Q. Hey Doc - check this out: "Prince Fielder Has Made It Very Clear He Wants To Be With the Rangers."
A. Looking at the headline of the article, you'd think that Fielder had said that. Actually Grant says that the fact that Prince has not signed yet --- > is what makes it very clear that Fielder intends to go to Texas.
:- )
You get down into the article and it looks like nothing more than another round of "Seems logical to me" hypothesizing. The entire substance is this:
But it’s very, very clear that this is where he wants to be. He’s waiting all winter, guys who normally have the kind of contract demands he has usually sign in December. We’re now in the second week of January and he’s still sitting there unsigned. It appears that he and Scott Boras have been waiting all along for the Rangers to get their Darvish situation settled so they could get down to brass tacks between Prince and the Rangers.
That doesn't say that Fielder made such a statement - it is simply Grant reading this out of the fact that he's still unsigned and Grant attaching this to the Darvish delay.
Or did I miss something there?
.............
From a business angle, here's the problem with Grant's logic: the Rangers could very easily work two deals at once, as the Angels worked Pujols and Wilson simultaneously. In fact, GM's don't work two deals at once; they work about twelve deals at once. The only reason to wait-and-see would be because a Darvish signing would preclude a Fielder signing, right? That is the scenario in which Darvish's timing would matter.
In fact, here's an article in which Boras "hopes that the Rangers don't sign Yu Darvish" - because whoever signs Fielder is going to lay out huge cash, or course. The bloggers are thinking, 4-, 5-year discounted deal on Fielder so that they can get Darvish and Fielder both...
..............
On the same radio show, the commenters offer Prince a 4- or 5-year deal:
He was talking eight, nine or 10 years. He wasn’t going to get that from anybody, everybody’s afraid of that body and what it’s going to be like in five or six years. I think if you can get Prince Fielder for four or five years, I think it’s well worth considering in where you’re going to be, and especially as negotiations progress with Josh Hamilton. You have to decide what you want to do with him, because now it's come out that he wants six years. So I think both of those guys, those are both questionable deals to extend them both that far. So I think they’ll have to make up their mind on which power hitter they want.
This blows their cover, as to whether they actually have any feel whatsoever for what is going on with Prince Fielder. Although, to be fair, Grant in this article offers Fielder maybe 7 years if the club has protections in the deal.
Fielder could of course wind up in Texas, but this particular article doesn't give any more credence to the chances of that, in my opinion.
...............
CA, if I recall correctly, heard about 8/$220M on the M's part, option 9th year. Dr. D's grok of the situation is that the M's actually would do something in that neighborhood - Teixeria money, at least.
Could be wrong, but if the M's offer $40M more guaranteed money than everybody else -- right now it looks like that's the case -- then, well, you are talking about Scott Boras here.
Nolan Ryan says today,
ARLINGTON - Rangers President and CEO Nolan Ryan on Saturday described his meeting with free agent Prince Fielder as a "very preliminary" step in potential contract negotiations.
"We're currently trying to improve the ballclub any way we can," Ryan told fans during a question-and-answer session at Rangers Fan Fest Saturday morning. "We're looking at every opportunity we have. We were trying to get a feel for where they are and what they are looking for. It was very preliminary. It was just an initial meeting."
Read: If Prince wants to play here cheap, we might be interested. Let us know, Prince.
Once again, Scott Boras trying frantically to get the price up.
................
C.J. Wilson and Josh Hamilton were, by all accounts, the spiritual leaders of the Rangers' tight-knit family. You know, Albert Pujols to LAA was a gutkick, and CJ Wilson to LAA was a gutkick. But the Rangers swapping out CJ Wilson and Josh Hamilton for Yu Darvish and Prince Fielder? And maybe losing Mike Napoli into the bargain? Why would that scare M's fans?
BABVA,
Dr D