O/T, Prince Fielder to Tigers for 9 year deal

[iwantitiwinit]

Tigers next club to go bankrupt. It amazes me that every individual and every corporation or corporate like entitiy continues to leverage their future. This will turn out badly for everyone. In my opinion of course.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by jcmtiger

Did anyone of you know that Price Fielder is a vegetarian?

Joe

He must be deep-frying them.

[jcmtiger]

Originally Posted by iwantitiwinit

Tigers next club to go bankrupt. It amazes me that every individual and every corporation or corporate like entitiy continues to leverage their future. This will turn out badly for everyone. In my opinion of course.

Please, how many teams are bankrupt? Yankees?, Red Sox?, I don't think so. Name the teams that are bankrupt. I don't think you realize how much money the Ilitch family has. Owner of Little Caesars pizza, Wife owns Casino in Detroit, family owns the Fox Theater and many more entertainment sites. And he owns the Red Wings. Come On! This is not a small market team no matter what you think.

Joe

[iwantitiwinit]

Originally Posted by jcmtiger

Please, how many teams are bankrupt? Yankees?, Red Sox?, I don't think so. Name the teams that are bankrupt. I don't think you realize how much money the Ilitch family has. Owner of Little Caesars pizza, Wife owns Casino in Detroit, family owns the Fox Theater and many more entertainment sites. And he owns the Red Wings. Come On! This is not a small market team no matter what you think.

Joe

Curious where you think I said or implied that the Tigers are a small market team.

What I am saying is that player salary outlay is too high. Ticket prices cannot continue to escalate to offset these costs, fans cannot afford it, the Mets are a clear example of this. It will also be clear to many observers that the Yankees will see a large decline in season ticket sales this year. I work for a large investment bank, we have had over 2 dozen season tickets to the Yankees for years, this year we are reducing that to 6 seats total and they are much less expensive seats. I know others in the industry are doing the same and the financial industry holds a lot (many more than you would think) of those seats. Entertainment spending is being reduced much much more than it was during the crisis of 2008.

In my opinion the finances of MLB are in trouble and we are going to see many many teams stressed.

[packs]

I think it would be a mistake to assume ticket prices are how teams make their money. TV deals and merchandising will always bring in more money than ticket sales IF you're a team people want to see play baseball.

I still think the Tigers are going to stink 4/5 days. Their pitching is terrible besides Verlander and everyone knows you can't slug your way to a World Series title. Just look at what happened to the Tigers the last time they were in the Series. Kenny Rogers was their second best pitcher and Todd Jones was their closer. You can't win that way.

Not to mention how awful Verlander is in the post-season.

[jcmtiger]

Originally Posted by packs

I think it would be a mistake to assume ticket prices are how teams make their money. TV deals and merchandising will always bring in more money than ticket sales IF you're a team people want to see play baseball.

I still think the Tigers are going to stink 4/5 days. Their pitching is terrible besides Verlander and everyone knows you can't slug your way to a World Series title. Just look at what happened to the Tigers the last time they were in the Series. Kenny Rogers was their second best pitcher and Todd Jones was their closer. You can't win that way.

Not to mention how awful Verlander is in the post-season.

Not sure where you got your stats: below are the wins using the 5 starters for each team. These are for the top 6 teams in the American league for last year. I only used the 5 starting pitchers for each team. Gave Cleveland 6 pitchers to help their total. And Kenny Rogers and Todd Jones are not here anymore. You don't like Valverde as a closer?

Detroit 73 This includes Brad Penny for the 5th starter
Texas 73
Yankees 71
Tampa Bay 64
Los Ageles Angels 58
Cleveland 50 using 6 rather tha 5 pitchers.

Joe

[packs]

I know Jones and Rogers are gone. I was just pointing out how bad pitching and great hitting led to the Tigers failing to win a championship the last time they had a mashing team.

I wasn't looking at wins. I was looking at ERA. Here are the ERA's of the Tigers' five starters last season:

Verlander : 2.40 (led the league)
Scherzer : 4.43
Procello : 4.75
Penny : 5.30
Phil Coke (started 5th most games) : 4.47

Fister may be good, he may be bad. It's hard to tell. Penny will probably be gone. Valverde was very good last year. Alburquerque was good too.

But who will be their 4th and 5th starters? What if Fister's year was a fluke? That's 3 starters they either don't have or don't know what they'll get from. You can add Porcello to that list too, which would leave just Verlander as a guy you know you can count on. But again, not in the post season.

[dherm360]

Originally Posted by Fred

But what does all this mean for the Brew crew? No more Prince and it appears Braun may be serving a 50 game suspension to start the season. What happens when Braun doesn't have Prince to protect him in the lineup?

I think Braun is getting off, Aramis Ramirez will hit behind him or vice versa and Corey Hart is sandwhiched in there. The Brewers if Gamel finally gets it will be a better team than last year

[Fred]

If Bruan wins his appeal (I believe) it will be the first time a suspension like this has been over turned. I honestly hope he's clean. The sad part is that if the suspension is lifted, the cloud of suspicsion will still remain over him.

[jcmtiger]

Packs,



Unfortunately era's are not what they were in past years and never will be. That is why I look at wins not era. You won't find but a handful of pitchers with era's like Verlander. A handful at most. Pitching is always a suspect area, but I think the Tigers will add another, maybe Edwin jackson, he is available. Scherzer is much better than his era a shows. And I think Fister can win with the number of runs the Tigers will score. Porcello has always been a worry, does not throw hard enough for me, what saves him is high number of ground balls hit off of him. Another choice and I think he will get a chance this year just because of this signing, is Jacob Turner the young star in the minors.

I do think the Tigers will get to the post season again this year. The 2011 post seson was affected by all the rain we had also. Timing was off kilter for the pitching staff.

Another thing that bothers me is when Cabrera gets a hit and is sliding into a base. This will be the same thing for Fielder. Possible injuries. I guess the way to stop that is hitting home runs , about 75-80 between them I hope.

Joe

[packs]

They're definitely going to hit. Cabrera is incredible and Fielder going to Detroit not only helps the team, but it's a nice story too. Every team has holes. I think they're the team to beat in the division. But I'm still rooting my Yanks to take it all. Definitely worried though. Especially since you beat us last year. Can you tell I'm still not over it?

[jcmtiger]

Originally Posted by packs

They're definitely going to hit. Cabrera is incredible and Fielder going to Detroit not only helps the team, but it's a nice story too. Every team has holes. I think they're the team to beat in the division. But I'm still rooting my Yanks to take it all.

Ok, we'll leave it at that.

Good Luck for the upcoming season.

Joe

[Kenny Cole]

They better hit alot. I know Miggie will and I suspect that Prince will, even in Comerica. With Prince at first and Miggie at third, I don't see too many gold gloves being handed out in the infield. Last I looked, it seemed like Prince wasn't so much on going more than a few feet left or right. While eating lots of broccoli and carrots may help, you just can't ever call him mobile. I suspect there's going to be a lot of extra base hits down both lines.

[Sixtofan]

I will miss Prince. Happy to see him in the AL though, I think Det will love him, especially for the first 6 years or so. A great hitter and a fun guy. Comparing him to his dad is unfair to Prince for a lot of reasons.

Don't forget he has two career inside the park homeruns, nothing is as entertaining as watching the fat guy run the bases!

[chaddurbin]

Originally Posted by Fred

If Bruan wins his appeal (I believe) it will be the first time a suspension like this has been over turned. I honestly hope he's clean. The sad part is that if the suspension is lifted, the cloud of suspicsion will still remain over him.

braun getting off would set a bad precedence for baseball. roger clemens will misremembered he took the same cold meds as braun then...

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by jcmtiger

Of course it is to long but he might help with a couple of World Series runs.

I'm Happy

Joe

After losing Victor Martinez, we're generally ecstatic in Detroit, but as to the long term view, Joe is of course correct--the old man's last, even half-way decent year came when he was 33. After that, he was too fat to get around on any fastball above the belt (and what big fat guy was effective past 35, other than that guy who started out pitching for Boston, whose PSA 7 M rookie just sold for 200K?)! One problem we see here is that Cabrera is the better fielding first baseman, and we don't really think Miguel can play 3rd effectively. Why shouldn't the slugging fat guy DH, even though he is younger???

Happy days are here again, to all of us Tiger fans in any event!

Larry

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by packs

They're definitely going to hit. Cabrera is incredible and Fielder going to Detroit not only helps the team, but it's a nice story too. Every team has holes. I think they're the team to beat in the division. But I'm still rooting my Yanks to take it all. Definitely worried though. Especially since you beat us last year. Can you tell I'm still not over it?

Yeah, Joe, I can tell.

Best wishes and good luck to your guys,

Larry

[novakjr]

Wait...What happened to the big stick that Tony Clark had until he got to Comerica? How 'bout Juan Gonzalez' big stick in Comerica? Carlos Pena's power went off the charts once he got out of there(if you don't count the year sitting on Boston's bench). Johnny Damon had average power but it disappeared when he got there.

Point is, anything can happen when going to a new ballpark. And Comerica has a history of killing power hitters. This may or may not effect Fielder, because it hasn't really effected Miggy. But in the odd chance that it does, we better be prepared for a lot of long fly ball outs and some of the deepest singles we've ever seen in the history of the game...

V-mart's custom fit for that park. Fielder may not be.

[ls7plus]

They moved the fences in from the original dimensions, David, and Juan-Gone simply never wanted to be here. Tony Clark was just one of those guys IMO whose talent wasn't meant to last in the big picture. Prince will lose a few HR's on long balls hit to the left of the 365 marker, beyond which the fences go out rather steeply to center at 420, but he's a big boy, and doesn't need overly friendly fences to hit his 35+. My prediction for him is 36 HR's, 115 RBI's and his usual 100 or so walks, while hitting about .275 or better. He'll probably have a bit of a slow start adjusting to a new league, just as Miguel did the first couple of months here (although he ended up with 37 homers and
.292, leading the league in HR's, if I recall correctly, that year). If we could just get him to limit himself to one man to a uniform, those 9 years would look a lot better, but that's what it took to sign him.

Contrary to some of the other comments, having seen every one of Fister's starts on a great big HD screen, he seems to be the real deal and may well be a true No. 1 starter. The Tigers' pitching is weak after that, however, with Schirzer inconsistent despite having very high quality stuff, Porchello more than a bit wishy-washy, due to the inconsistent nature of the break on his sinking two-seam fastball and control from start to start, and Brad Penny gone (good riddance there--other than eating up innings, he only qualifies as a No. 5 for a well-under .500 team). We think, though, that having shored up the bullpen with Dotel, Coke firmly back in place as a quality 7th inning guy, and Valverde having learned to throw a pretty decent two-seamer to pick up the slack for a split finger that often didn't do much, that they may well have a real shot at several World Series appearances over the early years of the Fielder deal.

Best wishes,

Larry

[novakjr]

Larry, I know. I was just bustin' balls. I honestly do think that Fielder will be fine for 4-6 years of that deal.. I think he barely replaces V-mart's overall, so I don't think it makes that big of a difference this year. But when Vic's back, with him, Fielder and Miggy, that's gonna be one hell of a middle of the order for the next couple of years..

[jcmtiger]

Originally Posted by jcmtiger

Did anyone of you know that Price Fielder is a vegetarian?

Joe

I have to retract this statement, just read in the Detroit newspapers and Prince Fielder confirmed it. He was a vegetarian for about 3 months and that was it.

I am still estatic that he has joined the Tigers.

Joe