The Nationals continue to be in on the Prince Fielder sweepstakes, although the club is not willing to give him a ten-year deal like Albert Pujols got from the Angels, a baseball source tells Bill Ladson of MLB.com. Ladson also writes that the Nats are out on Yoenis Cespedes.
While the Nationals won't go to a ten-year deal for Fielder it does appear that the club is willing to give the slugger a no-trade clause. An industry source believes that the Nats want to give Fielder a six- or seven-year deal.
Ladson notes that contract length was also a stumbling block when Washington went after left-hander Mark Buehrle. The club offered a three-year deal but Buehrle ended up signing a four-year, $58MM contract with the Marlins instead.
As for Cespedes, the Nats believe that he is best suited for a corner outfield position and they already have Michael Morse, Jayson Werth, and Bryce Harper as viable options for the corner spots.
I wish the Rays had money . . .
They do. Just not enough to sign Fielder.
They don’t even have enough to sign Manny
LET’S GO NATS!!! GET FIELDER!!!
The nats think they are in the AL? or AL bound?
I don’t get it.
Fielder is going to get a 7 year deal and will be a dh after 3…
Where’d you get your crystal ball? Could you hook me up?
He’s probably saying that Prince needs to be on an AL team because he’ll need to DH. As long as the Nats don’t give Prince an insanely long contract, this isn’t so.
kind of feels like all the teams involved are just waiting for the price to drop.
Fielder is just waiting to see what happens in Texas with Darvish, if he doesn’t sign then Texas might offer him more money. I do think if Darvish signs, Fielder goes to the Nats.
7 years and a no trade clause! That can be a really bad thing half way thru that contract for the Nats. But also maybe not
The thing about the NTC is that it’s really only leverage on the front end of the contract. After he plays 5 years wherever he signs, he’ll be a 5/10 player and have that same protection anyway. This is one of the reasons I was pretty shocked that the Marlins held so strongly to refusing an NTC for Pujols. As a franchise looking to rebuild and rebrand, it wasn’t like there would have been ANY incentive to unload Pujols before he had played 5 years anyway.
I believe the Miami owner is vehemently against NTC’s, no exceptions.
Oh, he is. This just happens to be one of those times where it was pretty much a non-issue anyway so it didn’t make much sense. If you are rebuilding and rebranding around a franchise player with a ten year contract, the chances of you wanting to consider trading him before 5 years are up are close to zero. Salary takes care of the rest of the possibility. After 5 years he gets his NTC whether the oener likes it or not.
I think the Nats are a good fit for Fielder, they are making nice moves. I personally hope Texas signs him though, we would have the best lineup in baseball but I just don’t see it happening. I will never count out Jon Daniels though, Darvish and Fielder is plan A. Fielder and Oswalt/another pitcher is plan B.
I’d be happy with most any deal that’s 6 years or less
Desmond SS
Espinosa 2B
Zimmerman 3B
Fielder 1B
Morse LF
Werth CF
Harper RF
Ramos C
Could potentially be the lineup at the end of 2012
Kinda getting the feeling the market for Cespedes is between Miami and Detroit.
I think Cespedes ends up with the White Sox. Gut feeling. Two fellow Cubans and former teammates (I think) on the same team. People act like that isnt a big deal but think about it. If you were in a foreign country wouldnt you want to go to a place that has two of your fellow countrymen? I think he ends up playing CF for Chicago and they send Rios to Seattle for Figgins. Money would probably have to go to even it up. Kenny Williams drools over guys that he would have like to have played like. Figgins would make a good utilily guy and be insurance if Beckham cant hit himself out of a wet paper bag.