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Fielder Not Happy With Renewal
3:28pm: Fielder gets $670K, to be exact. Doug Melvin was surprised at Prince's public displeasure.
1:46pm: Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that Prince Fielder is not pleased with his contract renewal, executed this morning.
Rumored to be in the $650,000 range, Fielder's agent, Scott Boras, indicated his client's displeasure. Ryan Howard's $900,000 contract for 2007 was cited as the figure the first baseman hoped to fetch for the season. Fielder made $415,000 last season.
According to Haudricourt, the Brewers used a formula they go by for players with zero to three years experience, a formula which they also used to renew the 2008 contracts for Ryan Braun and Corey Hart. While the amount of Hart's renewal is unknown, Braun's contract was renewed at $455,000. Haudricourt goes on to conjecture that this morning's renewal has hurt the Brewers' chance of negotiating a multi-year deal with Fielder before he is arbitration-eligible next winter.
Haudricourt has predicted that Fielder will pull roughly $10MM if his case goes to arbitration, in light of Howard's recent arbitration victory.
Upsetting the youngest player to reach 50 HRs seems like an unwise decision on the Brewers' part. It would be nice to lock up a player of Fielder's talent long-term, but it seems the Brewers have made that prospect less likely.
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He got his money when he signed out of the draft. Let him wait until he is up for a real raise before he gets to complain about making a buttload of money to play baseball.
Posted by: XD23 | March 02, 2008 at 01:36 PM
Boras was going to take him to free agency anyway. The Brewers would be milked for all they were worth no matter what. They wern't going to get a discount. Why should they give him money they don't have to. What a crappy double standard.
Posted by: TheAngelicDoctor | March 02, 2008 at 01:47 PM
Waa, I'm tired of these young players complaining about the salaries they receive one or two years out of the gate.
Baseball is a unionized sport, you get your salary in due time. If you want to be paid like a champ right out of the gate, then fight for the players union to be disolved, and make everyone free agents the minute they break with the club.
Posted by: Mr. JavaScript | March 02, 2008 at 01:49 PM
Howard wasn't going to sign long-term anyway. As far as I can remember, Boras has NEVER had a client buy out his arbitration years. Thus, it doesn't really matter if they piss him off, if he's just going to go for the biggest money either way.
Posted by: Brickhaus | March 02, 2008 at 02:01 PM
Uh, make that Fielder, not Howard. Dumb typo.
Posted by: Brickhaus | March 02, 2008 at 02:01 PM
The Formula that Melvin and the Brewers go by usually comes out better than what most at that age and year in Service usually make...
Prince is probably traded at the end of the 2009 season..because the Brewers have a very good Firstbase prospect in Matt Laporta...who is learning OF right now, but will be moved back when Prince leaves...
Fielder was fine last year when they could not reach a deal and had to have the contract renewed
I can understand him wanting money..since his 5 million dollar signing Bonus was stolen by his Dad..when his Cecil was his sons agent...
This really is no news...Its not like Fielder can sit out and demand more money because that would kill his arbitration money...
Posted by: erbacaine | March 02, 2008 at 02:25 PM
Fielder is lucky that his inside the park home run counted when it was really a 4 base error. 49 bombs just isn't the same as "youngest player to hit 50."
Posted by: Victor | March 02, 2008 at 02:35 PM
How many people get to make 650,000 a year to do what they love? Basicaly no one. Get over yourself kid. You've been up here for two years and you are going to make a fuss over 250,000 your third year! This just proves though what kind of player he is this is a problem waiting to happen. But what can we expect from someone named Prince for crying out loud.
Posted by: joemorgan=#1 | March 02, 2008 at 02:56 PM
I was afraid of the after-effect of the Phillies' moronic decision to give Ryan Howard $900K when they didn't have to give him nearly that much. Now the Brewers have to deal with this crap because the Phils made a mistake? Ridiculous.
Someone above mentioned he got his bonus. If you remember, good ole daddy Cecil blew Prince's signing bonus on gambling debts and bad business deals. So maybe Prince wants to recoup some of it now, which is stupid because he's going to make more than enough to make up for his dad's mistakes in a couple years. It's the lack of patience on his part that bothers me. Hit 50 again and then he might have a case.
Posted by: JakeOD21 | March 02, 2008 at 03:22 PM
Process or not, Prince Fielder IS being underpaid. He's a young power hitting phenom playing at an MVP-caliber level. He will have an opportunity to make a big leap in salary next year.
Was Prince Fielder out of line to make a stink about it publically? YES. He absolutely has a right to feel slighted but this was the wrong battle to pick. This is going to cause negative backlash at him, not the Brewers organization despite the fact he's in the right here (he is being slighted). He'll be making at least $7M (probably closer to Ryan Howard's $10m) next year thanks to arbitration. This was the wrong time to bring up money. If the Brewers came to him next year and offered something like $4m to avoid arbitration, yeah, make a big public stink. Unfortunately this outburst makes Prince look like the bad guy.
Posted by: TNS | March 02, 2008 at 04:43 PM
"How many people get to make 650,000 a year to do what they love? Basicaly no one."
What's your point? It's stupid to compare an "average" person to a celebrity / professional athlete / etc. Their lives are completely different, and so not looking at it from their context is worthless.
Posted by: google_bought | March 02, 2008 at 04:44 PM
Sort of how taking one sentence out of a good post and quoting it out of context and analyzing it is pretty stupid. He is right, Prince is being a baby. This is the way the league works. They have no obligation to pay him more money then they have to before his arb years. Plenty of better players then Prince made less then a million dollars when they were in their second year of ML baseball. Wait one year and you are getting Ryan Howard money. I think somehow the Prince can somehow manage to survive on a pathetic 650 grand for next year.
Posted by: nrmax88 | March 02, 2008 at 06:37 PM
Based on performance of course Fielder is being underpaid. He will be making $1.35MM less than Alex Cora this year. But we all know that's how it works, and so should he. Regardless of how much in the right he is, he needs to shut his mouth, play to the best of his ability, and in short time he's going to be making bank somewhere soon.
I'd agree the Brewers will probably trade him after next season. If he turns in two more 50HR seasons Doug Melvin should get a killing for him.
Posted by: JakeOD21 | March 02, 2008 at 06:39 PM
He shouldn't complain. Almost all young players deal with this. If he keeps playing well, he'll get paid in arbitration and free agency.
Also, he makes Daryle Ward look like Iggy Pop. I'd be careful about dumping money on him if I didn't have to. Of course, once the power shifted in his favor, I'd have no problem paying him Howard money, because that's how things work.
Posted by: Marvel | March 03, 2008 at 07:12 AM
I wouldn't worry about upsetting Fielder. He'll eat himself out of the league by the time he reaches free agency.
Posted by: misterpet | March 03, 2008 at 07:22 PM