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Every player CAN get hurt.  Doesn't matter the size of the contract or talent of the player.  Injuries, (by and large), cannot be predicted.  In some cases, however, if you have a player with history of injury ... then you might add some weight to that variable in choosing what a reasonable signing scenario is.  Doesn't mean you NEVER go and get a Bedard ... but when you do, you MUST understand that your odds of getting 200 innings is below the norm.
My point about age and length of contract is that out of 100 batters, 98 of them *WILL DECLINE* after age 30.  The inability to peg "exactly" how much a specific hitter will decline doesn't change that reality. 
Paying Ichiro $17 million for his 90 OPS+ this year was "predictable" at the time they extended him for 5 years. 
And while I get that most don't agree with me, from my GM armchair ... there is a GARGANTUAN difference between extending a home grown icon player who has for many years given value above his contract and knowing you're investing in decline versus going out and doing the same thing for a mercenary. 
The organizational impact when someone like Bagwell is getting paid $16 million to suck for Houston vs. paying Sexson $16 million to suck for Seattle is gigantic.  People will come out to see a fading hero (Junior?), and clap politely, hoping he succeeds.  Fans will not come out at all ... or if they do, they will simply shower someone like Sexson with unceasing boos.  Given identical "direct" hits to production, extending the home town hero will have vastly better secondary results.
"Ideally" (and I concede that not every decision will be ideal), you'd rather use your long-term risk deals on fixtures rather than imports. 
But, what I've been preaching for the last couple of years is that you BETTER have all your "free" players *already* lined up when you opt to make that long-term gamble, because you've destroyed your ability to recover from a mistake via that route until that contract is gone.
If the club goes and signs Fielder for 8/160 (or something like that) ... then, the club has no choice but to produce their entire OF from within ... or settle for million dollar reclamation gambles from the garbage bin. 
If you're planning to win for 10 years ... then you BETTER be planning on at least general guidelines for how you are going to swap out talent to stay young.  If you don't ... even if you succeed in developing a 116-win team ... if you let them all reach age 34 together, you're going to have a disaster.
Tampa is the org that really impresses me at this point ... doing a masterful job of combing the bargain bin for 1-year FAs ... then getting draft choices for them when they let them go.  They "overstock" their minors, because they know from day one, they have two financial behemoths in the division, and they simply cannot compete dollar for dollar.  So, Boston picks up guys like Crawford and AGON.  But even in Boston, those guys are added to home grown talent like Pedroia and Ellsbury.  Tampa "must" get more value out of their "free" players, so they make moves to ensure they have MORE "free" players than the big guys.
Z started rebuilding with Guti and Carp.  He added Smoak and Ackley.  He's building the needed foundation.  While I still have doubts as to whether the base is strong enough, I certainly get the argument that it might be time to plug in the 'needed' FA help.  My view is the club is close.  But, the risk of a Fielder solution is that (IMO), you're giving yourself a likely maximum 4-year window to do your winning ... and then you're in a 3-year lose while rebuilding cycle.