Now that the Detroit Tigers have officially signed Prince Fielder, we have learned the details of his contract. While paying two guys (Fielder and Miguel Cabrera) a total of 180 million dollars over the next five years seems a tad bit excessive, overall Fielder's contract is not quite the albatross many in the media seem to think it is.
He will make 23 million a year over the next two years, and then 24 million a year for the last seven years of this deal.
First of all we are talking about Billionaire owner Mike Illitch who owns both the Tigers, and the Detroit Red Wings. Not to mention the Little Caesars pizza empire, and just about every valuable piece of real estate in downtown Detroit. We have seen him spend freely both on the Tigers and on the Wings. Let us also not forget he was prepared to purchase the Detroit Pistons last year. In the end the point is he can afford this deal.
In terms of payroll both in 2012 and moving forward. The Fiedler contract does not appear to be that far out of line. Sure, it has changed the way the Tigers operate. Mr. Illitch can no longer claim he cannot afford this player or that one. As it stands the 2012 payroll for this team is just over 127 million dollars. That is a lot of money, but the Tigers have been here before. The 2008 opening day payroll was a massive 137 million dollars. Illitch is hoping that the addition of Fielder will pay off better than what he added to the team then.
Moving forward the contract is large and hard to fit into the payroll and hard to fit into the roster. Assuming Victor Martinez returns healthy in 2013 the Tigers would be overloaded with big deals for DH type players. For 2013 Martinez, Fielder, and Cabrera would make a combined 56 million dollars. When we factor in Justin Verlander’s 20 million dollar salary that is 76 million tied up in four players.
Several things have to happen to make this signing worthwhile. The first and maybe most important is Cabrera has to not only store his ego and accept a different role, but be partially effective as the team's third baseman. He has to do well enough there to justify the decreased defense as a whole compared to the increased offense of having him and Fielder in the same lineup.
The next most important thing would be success of the field. The Tigers will need to make deep playoff runs in each of the next few years to make this deal make any kind of fiscal sense. Furthermore Mr. Illitch is going to have to get comfortable with a payroll north of 150 million dollars to be able to field a competitive team.
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