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| Like father, like son. Fat. (Sports Illustrated) |
Answer: You go out and sign another DH to a 9-year contract worth $214M!
That solution doesn't seem appropriate to the problem at hand, but nonetheless that's exactly what the Tigers did yesterday when they reached an agreement with Prince Fielder.
The next question then is, was this a smart decision? The short answer is no - signing Prince Fielder and his body type (5'11'' and at least 275 lbs) to the 4th largest contract in baseball's history isn't likely to produce fine results towards the middle and end of the contract. I'm not sure anyone's body will age like a fine wine, but Prince's may just have an earlier expiration date than most. However, the Tigers are also paying Prince to play right now, and right now the Tigers are trying to win a World Series. As they say, flags fly forever, and Prince should help the Tigers raise a flag in the near future.
By how much though? It's important to note that the Tigers aren't simply upgrading their division winning roster with Prince Fielder, he's replacing Victor Martinez who was pretty good himself last year, as David Schoenfield notes:
By how much though? It's important to note that the Tigers aren't simply upgrading their division winning roster with Prince Fielder, he's replacing Victor Martinez who was pretty good himself last year, as David Schoenfield notes:
2011 Victor Martinez: 91 runs created, 389 outs made, 6.34 runs per 27 outs (595 PAs) 2011 Prince Fielder: 130 runs created, 423 outs made, 8.29 runs per 27 outs (692 PAs)
If we extrapolate Martinez's 2011 season to 692 plate appearances, we get:
Martinez: 106 runs created, 452 outs Fielder: 130 runs created, 423 outs
In sabermetric analysis, every 10 runs is roughly equal to one win. So Fielder created about 24 more runs while using up 29 fewer outs. That's an extra game's worth of outs for the Tigers, or roughly an additional five runs. So under this very rough cut (leaving aside ballpark effects and so on) we're talking about 29 runs -- or three wins.
The Tigers won 95 games last year, add the additional 3 wins that they will get from Prince Fielder and they're a 98 win team, and one of the favorites in the American League, right? Wrong. The Tigers run differential last year was that of an 89 win team, making the Tigers a 92-ish win team with the Prince Fielder addition.
Prince Fielder maintains the Tigers edge on division that they had before the Martinez injury, so in the short run it's not necessarily a dreadful signing for them. But 9 years and $214M is a lot of money for a 3-win upgrade, to say the least.
If the Tigers win a slew of pennants or the World Series in the upcoming years they can rationalize to themselves that it's all worth it. Me? I'll believe it when I see it and what I see is the year 2015 with two, $22M+ DHs hoping to get on base at a higher clip than their weight with a fanbase who has long forgotten about a couple of now meaningless division titles.
To change gears for a second, as a baseball fan I am definitely excited by this deal. I'm excited to hear the backlash against Scott Boras. I'm excited to see Miguel Cabrera possibly play third base, a position he played several years and several pounds ago. And I'm excited to see what Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder will do together, which also means I'm excited to read sportswriters ramble about how much this will help Cabrera and bloggers-in-their-mother's-basements argue that assumption.
How many days until opening day?
Prince Fielder maintains the Tigers edge on division that they had before the Martinez injury, so in the short run it's not necessarily a dreadful signing for them. But 9 years and $214M is a lot of money for a 3-win upgrade, to say the least.
If the Tigers win a slew of pennants or the World Series in the upcoming years they can rationalize to themselves that it's all worth it. Me? I'll believe it when I see it and what I see is the year 2015 with two, $22M+ DHs hoping to get on base at a higher clip than their weight with a fanbase who has long forgotten about a couple of now meaningless division titles.
To change gears for a second, as a baseball fan I am definitely excited by this deal. I'm excited to hear the backlash against Scott Boras. I'm excited to see Miguel Cabrera possibly play third base, a position he played several years and several pounds ago. And I'm excited to see what Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder will do together, which also means I'm excited to read sportswriters ramble about how much this will help Cabrera and bloggers-in-their-mother's-basements argue that assumption.
How many days until opening day?
Dude, you need to get a job with MLB your analysis straight up punishes
ReplyDeleteThank you very much anonymous. I liken your kind words to anonymous celebrity philanthropy, it's genuine, you're not doing it for the attention!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'll keep up my punishing MLB analysis if you keep reading!
Thanks again bud, really appreciate it!