Buhner Dot Com Est. 2000, which is like 1947 in Internet years.

The Price For Prince – What If?

When the baseball world learned that Victor Martinez would (likely) miss all of 2012 with a torn ACL, fans and experts alike wondered how the Tigers would replace him. At the same time, those same people were wondering where Prince Fielder (who was still on the market and seeing his big payday options disappearing) would end up. Prince's best options seemed to be the Washington Nationals (willing to spend the money and had the need), the Texas Rangers (less cash, but offered up a team with back-to-back pennants), and the Baltimore Orioles (professional baseball team). When I retweeted Aaron Gleeman's post on HardballTalk about V-Mart's injury, my favorite Tigers mark @phenom1984 responded with this:

@MrWorkrate @aarongleeman Prince Fielder - 1yr/$40M. hehe

It was an interesting thought - something you do in a video game like OOTP and not in real life, because players want guaranteed money and an extended payday - especially Scott Boras clients - so the thought of signing Fielder to a one-year deal was unlikely. Plus, on the flipside of that, paying $40 million for one season of baseball would be - by far - the largest salary for one season of professional baseball in history, a little less than $12 million more than Roger Clemens' "play when you like" contract he signed with the Yankees in 2007.

But let's say he does get offered that deal. If you're Scott Boras, do you recommend that Prince signs it?

Prince ended up signing a nine-year deal for $214 million (reportedly) with the Tigers, which was lauded as great in the short term for the Tigers but a trainwreck in the long term since Miguel Cabrera, the current Tigers first baseman, is signed through 2015 at over $20 million a season and Martinez, who Fielder replaced, will come back in 2013 and 2014 making an average of $12.5 million a season. For those keeping score at home, that's $57.5 million invested - per season - on three players who can play one position. Sure, Cabrera's played third before and is offering to play it again, but this is generally considered a very bad idea. Martinez was a catcher before he signed with the Tigers, but Detroit already has an all-star catcher in Alex Avila - one who put up a better offensive WAR than Martinez last year and isn't coming off major knee surgery. So, basically, come 2013, the Tigers have three first basemen/designated hitters, and the only way they'll be able to play them all is to put together an infield whose defensive highlights would be rated PG-13.

Obviously, it's more of a benefit for the Tigers to sign Fielder to a short-term deal than a long one, but $40 million? Fielder's good, but he's not that good, is he? For that kind of money you could get Ryan Howard AND Derek Lowe! Wait - bad example.

The Tigers could justify it though. They're already paying Fielder $23.77777777777777777777777 million for this season anyway, so we're talking a $16.22222222222222222222222222222 investment extra for this season, which in reality is a $16 million buyout of the rest of his contract. Keep in mind that there's likely some kind of insurance for V-Mart's contract, so the Tigers would potentially be getting back a chunk of the $13 million he's owed this season, which could make up nicely for the extra $16 million they'd have to spend. Would you buy out Prince's contract after one year? Well, if you're the Tigers, do you think you'd sign Prince to an eight-year, $190 million contract with V-Mart coming back? Yeah, probably not.

So the Tigers would offer it, but would Prince Boras take it?

It's a gamble, sure. Prince could have a crap season or worse yet, get injured. If he gets a career-ending injury, he's screwed, unless he can manage to sign some kind of insurance policy that would protect his potential payday if he did get a career-ending injury during the 2012 season (and I'm sure they're out there). But assuming he just plays OK - something like his 2008 or 2010 seasons. The extra $16 million he would have received in 2012 means Prince would have to sign an eight-year, $174 million contract during the 2012-13 offseason to match the contract he ended up signing with the Tigers, which would be less than what Mark Teixeira signed for during the 2008-09 offseason. Could he do that going into his age 29 season? Figure the market would be a little better with the Dodgers hopefully sold and with money flowing back into the organization again, and more media contracts expiring and being renewed for more cash to spend. Also imagine a market where Fielder, not Albert Pujols, is the #1 name.

I think he could do that with an average season, and imagine what he could get with an MVP-caliber one.

Whether this could have happened is moot, since Fielder is a Tiger now, and come next season Detroit will (I assume) start shopping V-Mart around (since he's on the hook for the least amount of money) and keep Cabrera and Prince around, but I'm really curious if - had the Tigers not made the nine-year offer that they did - the $40 million one-shot could have happened.

["Mini-Prince in Zubaz" courtesy of @si_vault (Andy Gray) via Twitter. He posted it yesterday. Go follow him and get gold like that every day.]