Money, Winning and Comfort – What’s Important to Prince Fielder?

Prince Fielder and Scott Boras are playing things close to the vest as one would expect, which is starting to make me wonder, does Prince even have an ideal situation for the 2012 season in mind.  To borrow a phrase from one of our countries’ favorite fictional prison guards, we really haven’t heard so much as a “mouse fart” out of either one of these guys.  Well, other than the infamous 73 page manifesto Boras wrote up for his client.

This leaves guys like myself to just sit around and speculate, because at the moment, that’s pretty much all any of us can do.

In thinking about this, we can bring up the three most important factors concerning the situation.  Those would be money (or scrilla if you will), organizations with a need for a 1B/DH who are built to win now or in the near future, and comfort.  In reference to comfort, I’m referring to finding a city he would be happy living in.

Let us begin with this notion of scrilla.  One way or another, he’s going to get a ton of it.  The question is does he choose door number one or door number two.  In door number one, you have a four to five year arrangement with a boosted annual average salary.  Then, if he can finish such a stretch with a strong rate of success, he can enter free agency one last time and go after another big wad of cash.

Behind door number two, you have the eight to ten year contract, where the annual average salary would be smaller, but he’d have the guarantee of being rich beyond most peoples’ wildest dreams.

There are clearly benefits to both situations, but each of them yields a certain amount of risk.  If Fielder decides he’d like a shorter deal, he runs the risk of getting hurt, therefore jeopardizing his chances at another lucrative deal.  Now if he takes the mega-deal, one similar to Albert Pujols’ contract, he could be in a situation two or three years down the line that he’s not happy with.  This could create a giant mess if such a team was uninterested in the idea of trading him.

Let’s jump to the issue of pairing him up with a winning ball club.  Here’s a question that I’m not sure anyone knows the answer to.  How much does Prince Fielder care about winning?  For his sake, I almost hope money is more important to him.  Just look at the teams being thrown out there that are coveting the mammoth left-handed bat – Washington, Miami, Seattle, Chicago, Baltimore…yikes.

Yes indeed, Toronto and Texas are in the mix as well.  The Texas Rangers are establishing themselves as a potential dynasty, and Toronto appears to be on an upward slope too.  But if Toronto lands Darvish, will the cash flow be there to add Fielder as well?  Some think it could be, but from the outside looking in it seems unrealistic.

If Prince Fielder wants the money and the winning atmosphere, Texas could realistically be the only spot that makes sense for him.  However, if that is the case, Scott Boras begins to lose some leverage as Rangers’ GM Jon Daniels can play the situation to his favor.  If Fielder has his heart set on the huge deal, Daniels can say something to the extent of, “If you want to be on a winning club, this is all I have to offer you.”  Perhaps this is the reason Boras and Fielder have their mouths zipped shut.

Let’s very briefly get into the notion of comfort.  I have no idea what type of community Prince Fielder is looking for, but I do know it is seriously hot come late August in Arlington.  I would attest most people would find that uncomfortable.  Also, another tidbit about Prince that’s been made public is that he’s a vegetarian.  If I’m thinking of the top vegetarian cuisine towns in our country Arlington Texas doesn’t jump out at me.  Chicago has awesome vegetarian restaurants actually – maybe he should take less money to be a Cub.

At the moment, I’m sitting here laughing to myself thinking about the possibility Prince turns down the Rangers because it’s too hot and the local cuisine happens to be 99% cowboy food.  But heck yeah – these things factor into the equation.

Ultimately I’m looking hard at the situation in the Pacific North-West.  Prince Fielder would look good on just about any team you put him on, but he might really be able to turn things around in Seattle.  The pitching is ready to be dominant, and if Prince goes to the Mariners they’d have one of the few players in baseball strong enough to consistently whack baseballs into the Safeco bleachers.

I also think Seattle would offer some flexibility in the negotiations of the contract.  They could be willing to sign him long term, and with the pieces in place, i.e. Pineda, Felix, Ackley, Smoak, the addition of Fielder may be able to help Seattle at least ruffle the feathers of Texas and Anaheim.  Seattle is also the type of market that will show up for the games if the ball club starts winning too, so the M’s front office can count on that from a finances standpoint.

Fielder may be wise to take the gamble of the short term deal.  If he doesn’t find a situation he’s in love with, his body has proven up until this point that he can sustain a high level of durability, thus making it more likely he could hit free agency one last time.  Since Scott Boras will inevitably fail at matching the contract Dan Lozano connected on for Pujols, Boras might take solace in the fact he could very possibly help Prince ink a deal high enough to surpass the contract with the highest AAV in history.

While this may not be the “insider” type post you were hoping for, the reality is these are some of the very questions Fielder and Boras are mulling over as we speak.  The $200 million question is, which of these three aforementioned things are the most valuable to him?