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Royals Review

Your Reaction to The Gigantic Prince Fielder Signing

The Tigers have signed Prince Fielder to a nine-year, $214 million dollar, contract.

Poll
My reaction as a Royals fan to the Prince Fielder contract is:
Upset, this hurts our chances to win the division
509 votes
Gladdened, this hurts the Tigers long-term
286 votes
Excited, the AL Central just got more interesting
184 votes
I have no reaction
109 votes

1088 votes | Poll has closed

0 recs  |  110 comments

Comments

My Tigers Prediction

I had pegged the Tigers for 91 wins, considering Verlander, Fister, and Avila are all due some regression.

The Martinez injury took that down to 89 wins.

The Fielder signing takes them back up to 93. The Royals will finish in 2nd place, 9 games behind them.

Even with the pitching we added?

I was hoping the number for Royals up in the 90 range this season. Guess, we won’t know how well our pitching staff will be until game time. Do they televise, Spring Training?

you'll get a few games here and there on mlb network....

and normally fskc has two or so games on right before the season i believe

The contract allows for 2 games, exactly, on FSKC during spring training.

But almost all games on radio with Steve Stewart.

Thanks, to both

Then, I’m hoping the Angels game will be one televised..this will give us a view on what we will be experiencing on opening day. It’s been a long summer season waiting for baseball season to start. Wish it was today!

We're still going 162-0

So I don’t give a damn

They are critical spirits
MOAR FAT JOKEZ!
YOU MEAN JOAKZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111ONE THREESIX
The Tigers lineup just go more interesting

Should make for some fun late inning moments in the coming years.

Which of the big $ multi-year contracts do think will end up being the best, which one will be the worst?

Reyes, Prince, Albert, or CJ?

oh and Darvish
My prediction

Reyes accumulates WAR closest to his contract. But the only of these to not win a division. Therefore still not worth what the Marlins pay him.
For some reason I think Wilson is going to fail to the degree of Zito

wilson cant fail to the degree of zito simply b/c zito got like 60% more money
and it would be impossible to pitch that much worse than Zito?
Frankly, yes.

He would never have that kind of leash. They’d send him back to the pen were it to become that disastrous, thus mitigating the damage.

Prince Albert Together

for some reason gives me a huge urge to roll some shit up

do it.

I am.

Should I be concerned that I'm not sure what this means?

Or happy that I have a suspicion but am not positive?

that or

get my dick pierced.. can I say that?

You probably can. The real question is "should you say that?"

yeah pierced is a pretty offensive word

1. Yu (young, great success that should translate)
2. Albert (will dominate for the first few years, should age well too I think)
3. Prince (he’s fat, but young)
4. Reyes (I don’t trust his hamstrings)
5. CJ (not an elite pitcher)

I like your list, and I think you'll be right.
Worst deal definitely CJ Wilson.

But I think Reyes will return more for his contract than Albert and Prince, even though Albert and Prince will put up good numbers.

I'm not the biggest Wilson fan

But what evidence is there that he won’t live up to his contract if he stays healthy? He improved in basically every category in his second season of starting last year.

So much for any hope of signing Hoz

If he turns out to be a premium hitter that is. So do we hope he never becomes that good? We’ve got five years to win a pennant, clock is ticking…

Not so sure about that.

We’ll just have to see how well Hosmer plays. We’ll see whether he’s good, really good, or a star.

Simple, just throw a fastball at fielder's head everytime he steps to the plate

or just throw around him

as hefty as he is, throwing around him wont be easy.
you have to keep the ball in the park
Went and checked out the Bless You Boys reaction.

They seem to think their lineup is ridiculous now, which means they thought their lineup was good before Fielder. I think their lineup was okay, but it can’t be very good when you have Miguel Cabrera hitting 3rd and [next best hitter] Avila hitting 7th.

Well, VMart obviously changed that

I would certainly say VMart was our second best hitter.

It's close.

But it didn’t matter to Leyland.

Yeah, few things matter to Leyland

Because he’s going to do thing his way, by damn! Sometimes that guy scares me.

4th in the AL last year...
I think they had some major regression candidates though.

Their infield situation was not to be envied.

Here are some of the OBAs in their lineup

Austin Jackson .317
Ramon Santiago .311
Delmon Young .302
Ryan Raburn .297

I think those guys are fine.

Well, Delmon Young isn’t really fine. But my point was that Fielder does not take them from top 5 lineup to greatest in the history of whatever. Their 2012 lineup was looking very questionable, and I thought it would be worse than 2011.

Gladdened.

I don’t think Fielder puts up the same numbers that he did as a Brewer for a number of reasons:
(1) age, (2) body type, (3) transition to AL pitching, (4) transition to a colder, bigger outdoor stadium, (5) dissatisfaction with playing time arrangements, and (6) potential clubhouse conflicts

Prince seemed to be in an ideal situation in Milwaukee, and I think it’ll be tough to repeat his success. I’m not saying he’s going to turn into Adam Dunn, but I don’t think he’s going to be as good as Miggy either.

Also, as a counter-move, we should sign/trade for Guillermo Mota
I don't know what your talking about about
This was clearly a counter move to us signing Yuniesky. After all both players fit on their teams rosters just as well.
How could anyone who reads this blog...

have selected the last option, “I have no opinion.” If you’re reading this blog, it means you’re an informed fan. Informed fans have opinions on one of our direct competitors vastly improving their team.

i went with that option b/c i have yet to decide what i think...

short term…clearly bad…long term…3-4 years from now, when we should be peaking…who knows

I almost clicked "no opinion"

because my opinion was very strong, but it wasn’t one of the options…see below for my opinion…if you care

I selected it because my reaction did not meet any of the other options
My opinion was a combination of all of them.
I didn't vote for the same reason.

I feel like it hurts in the immediate future, but could conceivably help down the road. Whether or not that damage begins after the Hosmer/Moustakas window closes is another thing entirely.

Agree. Where was that choice?

“A little from Column A, a little from Column B.”

The Tigers now have three proven superstars

We have zero.

Little Ceasars dude just wants to win championships

Sucks for us.

in 3-4 years (when all our young guys are hopefully peaking) Fielder will be at the age

where his body starts breaking down. that breakdown will be accelerated due to his wieght and he will regress rapidly. so hopefully when KCs young team peaks, the Tigers and their older lineup will be falling off.

and then we sign him?
Trade Hosmer For

Him.

Riveting television

My opinion is that it will make riveting television when Prince shows up at Hard Core Pawn and makes a guest appearance on American Muslim.

I don't think this makes Detroit all that much better...

V-Mart was pretty good last year (.368 wOBA), and though I expect Fielder to be an improvement (.408 wOBA), it won’t be all that much better than what Martinez would have given them. If V-Mart were healthy and Fielder could play left, then I think Detroit looks wicked, but they can only have two of those bats in the line-up at the same time without there being some major defensive liabilities in the field. This makes the Tigers better for 2011, but not by as much as a $210 million player should.

Yes.

My main problem is the defensive liability. But maybe Cabrera can take care of 3rd base. But even if he can, how long can he do it? Obviously not for 9 more years. Maybe not even the next 3 years. One of those guys will be DHing in 3 years, I think.

plus wont there be more NL games?

I cant remember but arent the astros switching for sure to the AL so there will be an NL and AL team playing every day? That means cabrera will have to play 3rd and prince play 1st a lot more even for all 9 years. Plus the world series, if they make it, will be the same deal. I would imagine a lot of bunts down the first or third base lines against the tigers for years to come with those two as the corner infielders. Dyson comes on to pinch hit and bunts down the line and detroit cant do anything, he steals 2nd and 3rd and bam haha

plus wont there be more NL games?

no

why do u say no?

When the astros move to AL it will be 15 NL and 15 AL. There will be an NL vs AL series every day… On ESPN they even said it could make the dh less valuable because they have less games against the AL. So explain your answer

its not changing this year and they havent announced what will happen in 2013 when the astros move
so there will be 2 teams with 3 straight off days at the same time??

One AL team and one NL team would have to not play for 3 days in a row while waiting for the other 14 teams in their leagues to finish there series… When the astros move there will be an odd number of teams in each league. They have no choice but to play interleague games every series…

there will be interleague series going at all times....

but it could just be one going on most of the times…that doesnt amount to more interleague games. they may very well add interleague games, but that hasnt been decided and shouldnt be assumed, nor will it be necessary

I may be wrong

Cabrera gives me the impression..of being slow for third base as a defense.

I think you're right.

I think many of us think Cabrera will not be able to play third base well. He doesn’t look much like his 2003 self anymore. But, then again… third base doesn’t require a lot of range, and it’s his natural position.

and he's played passable 3b far more recently than 2003
As I Said

Elsewhere, he’d be replacing Brandon Inge. That’s .197 .265 .283, 35 year old Brandon Inge.

the thought of Prince playing outfield makes me giggle
the thought of Prince playing outfield makes him jiggle
Don't know if this will work..trying to share a picture!

You should be able to.

If you go to a hosting site like yfrog or something. Then get a url that you can link to and put it on the hyperlink box on your comment.

Thanks, going to try in a few minutes.

Would like to share a link with all.

How do you share a picture? Please help..thanks
If this hyperlink works..it's a picture I have on my fb timeline for the royals.

I give up, cannot post picture or hyperlink to share.
Don't Meche this up...

Grab a URL link that allows access. When I do it I go to google pics. Find the one I want. Click the pic. Get the actual URL of the pic. Click the little green tree here on RR. Put the url in the box then preview to see if it pops up.

Don't Stop Believin'

http://youtu.be/L9jYbrM4P_4
Looks like this may work..thanks both of you for help! I’m not an expert with you tube. I created this. Enjoy!

Well, here's why I said I don't really have an opinion

1. We were not going to win the division this year anyway. If you think that we were, you are being too optimistic by at least 5-6 games.

2. I honestly don’t think Fielder adds too much for them. They’ve already got Miggy at 1st and had Martinez hitting pretty well at DH last year. Sure, Fielder adds some value, but the effects of a DH, as we should all know, are not staggering.

3. If 1 out of 4 of our minor league arms come anywhere close to what we think they could be, our pitching should be really impressive in a few years, same goes for hitting if Hos, Cain, Myers, and Moose (and Gio perhaps) come close to their potential. That should make up the gap, especially if the organization is willing to spend money to sign an ace.

Essentially, I guess I maybe care a little bit, but I don’t think he adds enough value that we can’t catch up in a couple of years and I think his impact on the Tigers is being overstated.

I should point out

That this is only my stance if Fielder is primarily a DH, which is my assumption. If they have 3 big bats in the lineup pretty much every night…well, then it’s a bit more of a problem. But I still don’t see it as too big to overcome in a couple of years.

they wont have 3 big bats in the lineup this year...

unless you wanna count avila….and next year, they’re all a year older

Well, I was referring to Martinez

and then I realized that he tore his ACL. So now I care EVEN LESS

I don't get the reports that they want Miggy

to drop weight to play 3B. What’s he need to drop to get any sort of quickness back? 25…30lbs? What’s that going to do to him at the plate? I’d say it effects his power somewhere in the range from “a little” to " a shitload". Why take the risk? Ask him to drop 10 lbs and go play a shitty D in LF and keep putting up 950+ OPS years.

I hope they screw him up by asking the guy you pay to hit to spent all of his time worrying about his weight. And considering his drinking and general insanity…it just may happen.

wait...

they are really asking Miggy to drop weight after signing the player most people consider to be the most overweight??? once again…Ilitch & Dumbrowski must have a wheelbarrow to carry their balls in…let’s just call them The Wheelbarrow Bros.

I don't get it, but for different reasons...

I think Miggy actually probably has 25-30 pounds to lose without losing any muscle mass. Being fat doesn’t make him a power guy. So they’re basically saying “hey, we really need you to stop being fat, could you P90x it up this spring? Or at least switch from chips to pretzels or something?” He’s a pro, but he’s obviously not had any reason to have a professional physique since he was like 20, so bringing in a fatter guy is going to motivate him now/

I honestly have no idea if losing weight will cause him to lose power

What I do know is that he has it now. If there is one thing I wouldn’t tinker with as a GM is a guy who hits like Miggy. Dude is crushing…in his prime…and they want him to start changing shit. Maybe it’ll work out, but I won’t be shocked if it goes horribly wrong and I’m not really sure it’s worth the risk.

he absolutely mashed when he was 30 lbs lighter, 50 lbs lighter and 70 lbs lighter...

it shouldnt have any effect

Eh, that was years ago.
the dodgers offered prince 7/160+ with an opt out after 4....

so, there were two ‘mystery teams’

Unless they bring the fences in ever further and somehow find a way make him passable defensively it won't make a whole lot of difference.

He’s moving into a division that has some pretty large ballparks instead of the bandboxes he is used to. I have no pretty stats to make an argument with so its just my gut reaction.

his average home run went 10 feet further than cabrera's last year...

cabrera doesnt have problems hitting home runs

Who's Prince Fielder?

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