Prince Fielder has just one more year to go before becoming eligible for free agency, and as a result many around the game expect the Brewers to shop their hulking first baseman. GM Doug Melvin told USA Today's Bob Nightengale that isn't the case however, saying explicitly "We're not shopping Prince." Here's the full quote…
"We're not shopping Prince,'' said the Brewers GM. "I'd like to keep him. He's a homegrown player who wants to play every inning of every game. But we'd like to get something done by the end of the off-season. I don't want to negotiate during the year.''
Melvin indicated that the end of Spring Training is the team's deadline for working out an extension with their two-time All Star. Fielder, 26 and a Scott Boras client, is a .279/.385/.535 career hitter, averaging 38 home runs in his five full seasons as a big leaguer.
Nightengale also lists a number of players that are already "under discussion," including Zack Greinke, Dan Uggla, Adrian Gonzalez, Bobby Jenks, Jonathan Papelbon, Nick Swisher, Jason Bartlett, Mark Reynolds, and both Justin and B.J. Upton.
JUSTIN UPTON IS GETTING SHOPPED?!!? If he ever got dealt, that would be a historic deal. How much would it take for Towers to even listen?
Upton OPSed under .800 and struck out over 30% of the time last year and is set to make over 50M over the next five years. Of course I’m cherry picking a bit off of one down year and he is exceptionally valuable based off his skill set but he may not be as insanely valuable as you may think.
the fact that he is even in the majors and OPS’d anything close to .800 at age 21/22 is remarkable. you can’t discount his 2009 either.
Would love to see him in a white sox uniform but we’d probably have to give up john danks carlos quentin jared mitchell brent morel and chris sale
Both Uptons are great 5 tool players but they strike out too much & I would not give up that much for either. John Danks is the is only guy I wouldnt want to deal on the team, I view him as a young Buehrle that could be our ace for 10-15 yrs. They really need a LH bat but I would not want to trade for Prince since he wants $200 mill & they can just wait a yr & try to sign him. I would like the Sox to go after Sandoval if SF shops him since they think hes eating himself outta MLB.
This is not a knock on you, but B.J. Upton should not be mentioned in any sentence with the word great in it, a more fitting word could be disappointment (thus far).
It would be Beckham not Quentin. The Diamondbacks won’t wAnt CArlos back.
Yes it is very impressive. He would comand a M.Cabrera type haul if more but he isn’t without warts that would make teams pause before giving up their entire farm.
Let’s not forget the tear he was on before he got hurt. His does need to strengthen his shoulder though.
General Mangers would having to pay a listening fee
You guys smell that? What is that….? Oh..it’s bulls#!t
I don’t believe you, Melvin.
Doesn’t make sense at all…How does a bad team with an potentla. 180MM contract go about winning?
As you and I talked about before, there are many options of packages out there.
I think it’s more appropriate to say that I don’t want to believe him. Lol. The Brewers have an opportunity to restock their rotation, and the cost that it would take for them to resign Fielder would limit them in the future. With Corey Hart and Ryan Braun locked up, I’d deal Fielder in a heart beat. I don’t know about fans in Milwaukee, but I think the sense around baseball is that they won’t be able to resign him, and remain competitive. If I was Melvin, and I had an offer for two pitchers with top of the rotation potential, I’d pull the trigger in a heart beat. Who knows where the Brewers will be by the time they groom two draft picks if they offer Fielder arbitration after the season.
The Brewers need to keep an eye on whats going on with San Diego and A-Gon, because if they deal him first, they will have an even lesser amount of teams that would give them a nice haul of prospects. It MAY effect the quality of offers the Brewers recieve and in a worst case scenario, let Prince walk.
I don’t think nobody would be crazy enough to offer them a top 10 prospect or so and more for 1 year of Fielder and then let him go to free agency anyways…….
One year of Fielder and two draft picks from his type A FA status….
Type A status is not a rare feat at all.
Melvin should wait until the big free agent 1b/dh types are off the market and preferably when A-gon has been traded or extended. Without the other options, the demand for Fielder will go up giving Melvin a potentially better deal.
I’ve heard nothing of Justin being shopped.
Swisher to the back too the Whitesox 🙂
at least Swish would be entertaining to everyone but Ozzie
Swisher is always way more demonstrative when he homers when the Yankees roll into Chicago, its amusing
If Justin Upton is traded…. My Lord.
It’s things like this that scare the bejeesus out of me. Say it ain’t so, KT. PLEASE.
Im under the impression that Justin Upton got a 6 year 50 million extension last year, so shopping him doesn’t make sense. (unless u got the entire Yankees with Steinbrenner covering their salaries (optimistic to the point of foolishness))
Upton will be well worth his contract.
The Brewers would be smart to start listening to offers for Mo Vaughn now, he isn’t getting any smaller. Wait, did I say Mo Vaughn? You know what I meant…. and what I mean. They can’t afford their own version of Mo Vaughn, they need to get something more than draft picks if they can, like good pitching now so they can contend next year.
Poor Prince, fighting the bad body stigma…he’s a pedigreed hitter though, and moves well for a big man. Vegetarian thing probably hurts him too (perception)
Have a feeling the 2 draft picks are more than the Brewers are being offered in return and that is the only reason people are reading these kinds of stories about supposed non availability.. Look at his dad Cecil, then look at his mirror image son, who has his same body, no fitness and how he plunged from around age 29-30 onwards, though Cecil did have some 30 HR years after, the bat was just not the force it was in his 26-27 age year younger and certainly not what Boras thinks he is going to get as a FA.
Be prepared after 2011 for the absolute funniest, Boras rubbish anyone has ever heard trying to pump up this tub of lard and getting him a 7-8 180M contract that will never, ever happen. I see him falling to whoever fails to land AGone/Pujols as a consolation *prize* and 3/4 years most and nowhere near 18M a year.
Well, he’s what 26-27 now, with one more year under contract right?
I’d offer replacing the next season of his contract with a 5 year 75(ish base) Million dollar contract extension that includes performance incentive bonuses in the 3rd, 4th and 5th years. I’d look to put team and player options as well, give him the chance to opt out in the 4th year if he wants..or something…then you have the choice of dumping him when he’s 32, and that NEXT contract after that is the one that will blow up on some team….but to Prince and Boras, he’s still young enough to get a big final deal. How about that?
That would work, but Boras is going to hold out until both AGone and Pujols sign cause they are going to be the FIRST options next off season almost certainly and then the leftover teams that failed to land either will look at Fielder, I also think it will be an AL team, maybe the O’s even and really.. Maybe a 1 year deal after Boras finds out there is -0- market for a absurd deal available and the 2 top FA’s have far eclipsed “his” best client of the off season.
15M over 3 seasons as a guarantee though? That would be a fair deal for a team, thing he could produce at that level, but not sure many teams would be willing to guarantee him longer than that, maybe a team option, you go longer with the way his body is and are asking for some serious trouble, especially an NL team without the DH. I remember his dad very well and liked him, but he was basically immobile when the Tigers even attempted to use him at 1B later on during his career in later years and Junior is the mirror image.
This guy needs big warning tags stuck all over him next off season if anyone guarantees him big money longer than 3 years and not trying to hammer the guy, he is electric with the bad and would be a terrific DH for a team, but look at how the salary scale has hit bottom dollar for them? Vlad was let walk over his paltry 9M option, Ortiz got lucky his 12.5M 1 year option was picked up and his numbers also were close to Fielders. You just don’t go off and give someone like this big money.. it’s just not worth it.
I have a hard time believing him when he said he became a vegetarian because he looks bigger than a Goodyear blimp
Vegetarian doesn’t mean fat-free, depends what and how much he is eating.
I am sure you could take in a heck of a lot of sugars and fats on a vegetarian diet.
He can eat lots of potatoes and fries…and other starchy foods.
I wonder if the Angels would go after the Prince or A-Gon in next years offseason. They have a ton of money coming off the books in 2012, and the Angels could finally bring another big bat without losing any players. I think a 1b/dh platoon between K-Mo and Prince would be interesting
Ok, it’s not that I’m doubting that the Sox might shop Papelbon… but I am doubting there’s a trade market for an expensive closer, especially when you could try to sign Soriano. If Paps does get traded, my bet is it’ll be a team panicking because they lost out on Soriano.
I agree with you 100% he is expensive and a free agent at the end of this season and will want more money. It is going to be hard to try and sell to teams that Paps would be a good investment.
Yeah, I hope BoSox fans aren’t hoping to get a lot for Papelbon at this point.
All bias aside, if they are hoping for a huge haul they will be extremley disappointed. His numbers had been slowly going down before 2010, and than he just nosedived this year. He would need to have a strong bounce back year if they want a solid package
Not buying it Doug. Anytime Doug says something pertaining to roster moves or offseason related things, there’s a 99% chance that he’s flat-out lying. So, this probably means that he is aggressively shopping Prince and trying to send him out on the next plane.
Now, if I were to take him on his word: He may not be shopping Prince, but he’s sure as hell listening to offers on him. C’mon, though, how stupid would Melvin look to NOT trade Prince?
Shortly after the interview, Melvin went back into his office and remarked, “Well, the price of Prince just went up again.”
If J-Up gets traded, Towers should be fired. Hell, we should consider firing him for even thinking about it.
Upton is the next Carlos Gonzalez. He’s going have a huge year in 2011 with Baylor (who made Gonzalez and Tulowitzki so good). There is a reason they kept him over Gonzalez.
“We’re not shopping Prince.”
Translation: Prince won’t fit into our shopping cart.
Nick Swisher would look real good in LF for Cinci.
If we can have Volquez than you can
Doug Melvin would be stupid not to at least listen to offers. This guy always humors me though somehow.
Okay so Towers said no one is untouchable but he’d only trade Upton or Drew if the deal was too good to pass up. So it would probably have to be similar to what the Rangers got for Teixeira or what the Indians got for Colon.
Braun has a full no trade clause this year.
Braun would probably waive his no-trade clause if he got paid money to do it. Just saying.
Trading Braun would be the dumbest move in GM history, for his contract, you won’t get anything close to his value in pitching.
Prince should be traded this off-season. It’s one of the few ways the Brewers will be able to acquire some quality starting pitching that they desperately need, if they hope to compete next season. That said, if the trade market for him is as seemingly tepid as it was this past July, Melvin may just hold onto him. They could try flipping him in July ’11 if the team is out of it, or just let him walk and take the draft picks.
He already reportedly turned down a deal worth over $100 million from the Brewers, so I don’t see any way they end of re-signing him.
The Brewers were prepared to go 6/120-130 for Sabathia until they found out the Yankees offer. Doug Melvin has been quoted saying that there is more risk giving big deals to pitchers than hitters, so maybe he will go even higher for Fielder. Maybe more per year also. Something like 6/150 with a option for a 7th year with a big buy out might actually do it.