quote:

Originally posted by Tschmack:
I wouldn't assume that all of Boras' clients bail from their teams. I'm pretty sure that Greg Maddux resigned with the Braves back in the mid 90's and Bernie Williams resigned with the Yanks about the same time. Those are just a couple I can think of.

Sure, guys like A-Rod left Seattle (signing with Texas) and Zito took the money and ran (with San Francisco) but it's not like all of his clients split from their current teams.

What is known is this- there's a 95% chance that Boras is going to get you top dollar no matter what. That's not to say Milwaukee can't resign him, but my point is that they will have to compete with a team like Boston or New York and that won't be easy.

Bernie Williams and Maddux both resigned with teams that were loaded and could afford not to be outbid. I can't think of a Boras superstar level client who signed with a mid-market team when he reached free agency. A-Rod with the Rangers would be the closest and that was a quarter billion dollar contract.

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/82441897.html

A good article on the potential of signing Prince Fielder.

Good Article.

quote:

The Trevor factor
Club officials often fear a falloff the next year after a relief pitcher has accumulated a heavy workload.

Brewers reliever Todd Coffey certainly fit that bill in 2009, leading the club with 78 appearances and pitching a career-high 83 2/3 innings.

But, rather than feeling arm weary this winter, Coffey said he actually feels stronger. He credited that strength to a new shoulder exercise program suggested by closer Trevor Hoffman.

"Thanks to those exercises, I feel better than ever," said Coffey, a big (6 feet 4 inches, 245 pounds) workhorse who likes to pitch a lot. "I can't wait to get going again.

"That's why Trevor is the best. He's always willing to share and help make others better. He's not only a Hall of Famer but a great teammate."

Club officials were thrilled last year when Hoffman immediately banded the relief corps together and formed "Camp Hoffman," a daily exercise routine before batting practice. Beyond putting together an all-star season (37 for 41 in save opportunities) at age 41, Hoffman helped make other relievers better.

"There's no doubt they benefited from being around Trevor and his experience," said Ash. "That's all part of being a great player."

Another reason why he is great. These are the types of guys (Counsell also) that Milwaukee needs as veteran presence as they bridge the departure of Prince.

is it any wonder a guy like Trevor endeared himself to this fanbase so quickly?

that and being damn good last year. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when he and Rick talk shop.

If he were a bumb like Gagne was the fans would not have endeared themselves to him. It's easy to be a good guy when you're pitching well and it's easier to be liked when you're doing your job. And I'm not saying that to blast you Ka-Bong, because I think it's an understatement that Trevor pitched great and his impact was felt in more areas than just pitching.

I remember when we signed Suppan, I was in favor of that move at that time because I thought that the best way to teach the youngens how to win and how to compete is to bring players on to the roster who have won and know what it takes to get to the next level. That's why I like Counsell so much. He's been there, he's done it, he knows how to take care of himself. He, like Trevor, is a good role model.

No doubt you have to have great players to win, but you also have to find a way to keep your great players. Im glad we brought Trevor and Craig back this year and my next hope is that they can find a way to be creative and sign Prince.

I definitely don't feel blasted

quote:

Originally posted by TD:
http://www.baseball-reference....rs/f/fieldce01.shtml

Cecil was not even around in 1989.

Excellent catch. A complete oversight on my part. I would have corrected the error had I seen this post sooner.

It doesn't change my feeling on the issue however. Cecil still peaked at a relatively young age and Prince's body does not scream longevity. Again, that's not to say that I consider Prince to be the same player as his father. I'd still love to see the Brewers sign him to a long-term deal if it cost them in the ballpark of 16 to 17 million per season. However, when you are talking about paying somebody 25 million per season, factoring his father into the equation would be totally unfair but I believe it's something that has to be considered. For a deal like that to work out for a small market team, the player would need to play like an absolute superstar throughout the length of the contract for it to be worth it for the Brewers. An .880 OPS is a very solid number but it certainly isn't worth taking up 30+% of your payroll.

http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/83202572.html

Interesting update regarding Prince. Doesn't sound like money is everything contrary to what some have been saying.

wow, that interview changes everything

prince is saying the right things.....i hope he truely means it when he says money isn't everything.

quote:

Originally posted by :

quote:

Originally posted by Orlando Wolf:
What contract terms do u feel fielder will sign for?

quote:

Originally posted by Adam McCalvy:
Don't think he'll sign at all. My bet is he goes to free agency after '11.

link

Must be a challenge moderating X4 and www.tradeprincefieldernoworiwillpout.com. On a serious note, why not take Prince for his word?

Creepy how that kinda looks like me.

I don't want Fielder traded and I would love to see him signed to an amicable contract, I just don't see that happening. It wasn't that long ago Prince was complaining about money. I don't think Prince is lying to us necessarily, but I do think he is talking athlete to us. It is what I would expect to hear from a professional like Prince. That doesn't really mean squat in the long run. I'll run down the scenarios in terms of best case to worst case.

Prince signs a reasonable contract and plays at MVP level
Prince sings a massive contract and plays at MVP level
Prince sings a reasonable contract and plays at occasional all-star level
Prince is traded for super talented prospects, one of which becomes an all star
Prince is traded for super talented prospects and they contribute to the team
Prince is a Brewer and walks as a FA, Crew gets comp picks.
Prince is traded for crap
Prince is signed to a massive contract and turns into Mo Vaugn

So the top options are all tied to him signing with the Crew. The worst options are tied to three totally different philosophies. I don't necessarily want Prince traded, but I do want what is best for the franchise. I like McCalvy, don't think Prince will sign with the Brewers because he will ask for to much for to long. I love watching Prince and I love him coupled with Braun in our lineup. I'm going to enjoy it as long as I can. I just worry that waiting until he walks as a free agent is irresponsible for the franchise (unless we get a WS, then I will dance for joy and thank Prince for his time).

I think it is naive to believe Prince is looking for anything less that top dollar. Unless he has a crappy year or two, he'll get it.

quote:

It is common knowledge that Boras gets his clients big bucks and that usually can't happen in a market like Milwaukee, but Fielder said at the end of the day the decision is his, not Boras'.

There's also pressure from MLBPA, who will want a guy like Fielder to push the arby numbers up and raise the tide league wide. Between Boras and the MLBPA, Fielder will be pressured to get max dollars.

Is there anyone who wouldn't like to see Fielder sign a long term deal in Milwaukee? I don't recall any of us coming out and saying that.

Still, the reality is that Scott Boras is his agent, and Milwaukee is Milwaukee in terms of finances. The odds of the Brewers offering him and him accepting a market value contract are slim to none when you know several other big market clubs can outbid you. That and the fact that if he has another similar season like 2008 you can rest assured he'll be paid as one of the 5 best hitters in MLB.

When you take emotion and bias out of the equation I see almost no practical scenario where he returns to Milwaukee.

Take emotion and bias out of it. Here is what Prince said yesterday...

"I came up here (with the Brewers) and I love it here. I want to stay here as long as possible. For now, I'm here for two more years anyway so I'll just try to see what happens and hopefully all that other stuff will work out."

Some fans' take on this situation is reminiscent of what went on with Greg Jennings and the Packers. Take preconceived notions out of the equation and just listen to what these guys are saying.

I still don't see why what I've put forward at the beginning of this thread won't work ...

Why not up the ante to a place no one has been before on a short-term per year basis ... 25-30 million on a 3to4 year short-term contract(100 million)?

Can you imagine Boston, both Chicago's, LA or both NY's thinking they have to put 4 or 5 more years at that price on that baby ... to them Prince would never be THE Franchise to the Brewers he is 1A or 1B. IMO, this would NOT impact Milwaukee down the road as far as signing average free agents by making those salaries rise. This would not be just "FU money" for a franchise Cornerstone, it would be "F?ck Everybody" money and short-term conceivably blow them out of the water. IMO, a game changer.

The Brewers offer would be conceivably short enough to allow Prince to end up in AL as a DH on possibly another good contract yet down the road.

Match it with Braun's years, build the best scouting team in the minors, build the best minor league pitching staff, watch the advanced sales be INSURED with Braun and Prince signed up ... no doubt they'd always be competitive with those 2 in the lineup.

You would be seeing this as an opportunity that may never come to Milwaukee in a long, long time AND this offer may actually help the franchise be more successfull than if you let Prince go. It would allow a bridge to be built to a pitching staff that would have to lead into the next era of Brewer baseball.

CC Sabathia was always going to be a risk and never really was invested in Milwaukee and vice-versa, Prince(And Braun) is one of the cornerstone's that have come to be ... like a Molitor or a Yount.

We can always and probably would have to drop the payroll post Prince (And probably Braun), we can always find guys like Counsell and Trevor Hoffman to fill in on the budget, we can find guys from the minors to fill in on the budget, during the signed tenure of those 2 sluggers it would eliminate any possibility of dumb-arse Hall/Suppan contracts from being given because there would be very little room for those(Bonus), I'm pretty sure Attansaio could get insurance for injury.

I say it would be a good long-term viability for the franchise and Mark Attanasio's long-term planning as an investment.

(Down from the Soapbox and slinks away before being pelted with various objects)

I was at Fangraphs looking at some of the ridiculous dollar values they assigned to players. They have Fielder at being worth 30.4 million last year.

Before anyone jumps on that and claims that justifies Fielder at a 30+ million dollar rate, be aware you'd also be arguing that Mike Cameron was worth 19.4 million and J.J. Hardy was worth 6.4 million (yes, for his performance in 2009).

While I think Fangraphs has some excellent information on their site the dollar values they assign to players are a joke.

The last hour I went through and added up all the values for the Brewer players in 2009 (yeah, even Carlos Corporan and Josh Butler were included). I adjusted the numbers for players that spent time with 2 different MLB teams. I'll use Felipe Lopez as an example. They had Lopez at a value of 20.6 million dollars...Lopez had 42.9% of his at-bats with the Brewers...20.6 * 0.429 = roughly 8.85 million. So I had Lopez contributing 8.85 million to the Brewers. For pitchers I used inning pitched to divide up the dollar value if that pitcher spent time with multiple teams.

So I did that for all the Brewers, added it all up and according the the values on Fangraphs the Brewers were worth a collective 139.35 million. Wow, either that number is a joke or Ken Macha is the worst manager in the world for taking nearly 140 million worth of performances and getting an 80-82 record out of it. I tend to think the dollar estimates are way out of line. Maybe Scott Boras runs that site? As a side note, the Brewer hitters were worth 125.95 million and the Brewer pitchers were worth 13.4 million .

Anyway, I do put value in sabermetrics and do think Fangraphs have some excellent information on their site. Just comparing the dollar values ranks of the players seems reasonable enough (#1 = Fielder @ 30.4, #2 = Braun @ 21.5, #3 = Lopez @ 20.6 [as indicated above, 8.85 of that credited to the Brewers), #4 = Cameron @ 19.4), it's just that all the dollar values are grossly over-inflated. So while I don't believe those dollar values are a fair representation of what a player is worth, I figured it might be worth the effort to calculate a fudge factor to give a more realistic number.

The average NL team payroll on opening day in 2009 was $83,873,684. The Brewers won 80 games. 81 would have been an average winning percentage of .500. 80/81 = .988. .988 * 83,873,684 = 82,838,206. Based on what the Brewers did versus the average in 2009, I believe a better estimate for their collective performances would be $82,838,206. Not even in the ballpark of Fangraph's $139,350,000.

Obviously there are big holes in doing these simple calculations. It would be much better to crank the numbers for all 30 MLB team but I have neither the time or the will to do it.

But to create a quick and dirty fudge factor : 82,838,206/139,350,000 = 0.594. Based on the what they estimated the Brewer performances to be worth versus what the Brewers were worth when considering the actual team performace and the average NL payroll...I'd have no problem saying that on average players are really only worth about 60% of the dollar values that are listed on Fangraphs.

When I started this it was totally unreleated to Prince Fielder but since the thread is here....they had Prince's 2009 performance worth 30.4 million. 30.4 * 0.6 = 18.24 million. To throw out some other names that might be of interest:
Player / Fangraph's value / Fangraph's value * 0.6
-Braun / 21.5 / 12.9
-Counsell / 12.7 / 7.62
-Hart / 3.2 / 1.92
-Cameron / 19.4 / 11.64
-Hardy / 6.4 / 3.84 (they must factor glovework heavily in that 6.4)
-Gallardo / 12.1 / 7.26
-Hoffman / 6.7 / 4.02
I'm not going to say I agree with all those numbers, but I'd post them and let the reader decide what value, if any, they have. I thought it would be neat to create the fudge factor and maybe get a good dollar figure that way, but Counsell seems way, way too high and Hoffman seems way, way too low. One thing though it that the sabermetic-iac's sure as hell haven't seemed to figure out that hitter value versus pitcher value thing yet, as clearly evidenced by some of the figures above. Although I wouldn't argue that statement that Brewer hitters would have been near 10 times as valuable as the Brewer pitchers in 2009 (see the end of paragraph #5).

BTW trump, the purpose of this post is not to start an argument with you or just totally dismiss the idea of Fielder being worth 30 million dollars. I was just cranking the numbers above for Fielder-unrelated-purposes, but then stumbled in here and thought it might be interesting to throw Fangraphs value and my fudge factored value in this thread. I think most would agree that Fielder's value would probably fall somewhere in-between the two numbers...exactly where is anyone's guess?????

look at that dollar value as a rough estimate at best, a guideline. Your insight into the discrepancy between pitchers and hitters is also correct.

Fangraphs is a great, great site. Just take those dollar values as a work in progress.

To trumps point, I agree. It will have to be a creative offer for it to work. If we wait until free agency, someone else will swoop him up. The Twins are doing that with Mauer. If he gets an injury bug (think Ken Griffey Jr.) that potential contract will pull them down for a decade. But- there is the potential to hold one of the most dynamic hitters in the game and the face of the franchise for a long, long time. I do think there is a chance to keep Prince if we convince him to make his money now knowing that a few other first basemen will saturate the market when he is a FA. I'll give it a completely unscientific 20% chance.

quote:

BTW trump, the purpose of this post is not to start an argument with you or just totally dismiss the idea of Fielder being worth 30 million dollars. I was just cranking the numbers above for Fielder-unrelated-purposes, but then stumbled in here and thought it might be interesting to throw Fangraphs value and my fudge factored value in this thread. I think most would agree that Fielder's value would probably fall somewhere in-between the two numbers...exactly where is anyone's guess?????

No Problem here PJ ... you're kind of making my point.

Fangraph tries to be a generic way of assigning dollar value to total performance, I understand that. I have no doubt that it was put together by Players Union or Agents, understandably. I believe what you said about Prince's discount is true, should be somewhere around 18 million. Which why I if you are going to chat with Prince, restructure to give him more the last 2 years of this contract and go stratosphere for 3 maybe 4 after that ... sync with Braun's as much as you can.

That being said, Prince is a whole other animal when you think about the Intrinsic Value he holds to the Milwaukee Brewers 2010 Franchise, today, right now. IMO, CC Sabathia didn't even have that this thing that Warren Buffett calls "Intrinsic Value" to the Brewer Franchise because he came in as a hired gun, was not from the organization, the fanbase fell in love with him for a very, very short period, we did not hold the negotiating rights with him and the marketing people could not and for obvious reasons have not marketed him(Because he left in case you are wondering).

Now, you couple that with Braun and his contract and that DUO being 1 of, if not the best 3-4 Hitters in all of baseball, factor in that they are homegrown, factor in they are just entering the prime of their careers, factor in the sellout frenzied atmosphere of Miller Park and Renewed enthusiasm of an old fanbase and now a new fanbase ... add all that up and you have 1 helluva a moment in time and Intrinsic Value for the franchise.

Prince Fielder right now is worth more than the discounted value of Fangraph to the Milwaukee Brewers Franchise, he is worth a short-term premium to the Brewers IMO, than he is with any other franchise for reasons I listed above.
Thats why I think it is win/win if you go stratosphere short-term money on him if you're Attanasio ... if you extend him he buys you time to get that minor-league scouting and pitching to a point that the Fanbase can grow and stay Frenzied until "The Bridge is Ready". Right now, we aren't even close.

quote:

That being said, Prince is a whole other animal when you think about the Intrinsic Value he holds to the Milwaukee Brewers 2010 Franchise, today, right now. IMO, CC Sabathia didn't even have that this thing that Warren Buffett calls "Intrinsic Value" to the Brewer Franchise because he came in as a hired gun, was not from the organization, the fanbase fell in love with him for a very, very short period, we did not hold the negotiating rights with him and the marketing people could not and for obvious reasons have not marketed him(Because he left in case you are wondering).

CC could have become a long term fan favorite, so I have no idea what you are talking about.

Intrinsic value my rear. It's about winning and losing. Win games and the fans will embrace you.

Hey,

If you do not understand it then I pardon you ... think more along the lines of Attanasio's perspective in valuing his franchise now and in the next couple of years.

IMO, When Prince leaves Attanasio needs to have either another Franchise Position player batting 3 or 4 ala Prince OR he needs to have 2 more Yo Gallardo's in the rotation or the Brewers will be toast.

Right now they are rolling the dice big-time with the idea of not re-upping Prince for about the length of Braun's contract ... that minor-league pitching staff is questionable at best and Yo is the ONLY young 1-2-3 pitcher you have at the majors. "Houston we may have a problem".

I have no idea what Mark can afford regarding Prince, but I do know that the farm system could use an infusion of talent. If say $20-$25 million a year (for at least five years...Boras won't agree to less than that) is what will be required to sign Prince, and if Mark really wants to keep him, he'll probably have to line up some additional investors.

I'm as sick of the Brewers not getting back to the WS as I am of players making that kind of money. So hey, either bolster the farm system with some 'blockbuster' talent or open the coffers and keep your fingers crossed that Prince stays healthy, motivated and productive and that the Brewers will still have enough $$ flexibility to fill other holes that are certain to manifest as the seasons go by.

I know what I'm about to say will be an arguable point, but it appears as if this franchise simply cannot afford to make mistakes in judgment. We've got some big time talent in Braun, Fielder, and Gallardo. If Weeks can stay healthy and play like he did at the beginning of last season you can add him to that mix. I think a few years ago we were all thinking Hart and Hardy would be in that mix too, but Hardy just didn't develop and Hart has proved to be just another guy. So I agree that we need to draft wisely. We just don't have room to make mistakes because if we truly can't sign our best players to long term contracts then you better have big time players coming up to replace them or this franchise will slip back and simply be a farm team for the rest of baseball much like Pittsburgh is today.

I just believe that those windows of opportunity don't come around often enough that you can afford not to extend yourself when that window is so clearly open.