Still not enough to make up for the huge amount of dead money at the back end of Fielder's contract. They should have asked for more.


That depends entirely on how much their payroll is going to be going forward, which we don't know. Getting out of a massive albatross tied a declining DH certainly won't hurt that effort, though. The freed up money can presumably be spent in a much more effective way.

I ask again - what freed up money?

Yes, it clears some money off the books in 2018, but they'll have already had to expand their payroll substantially to fit Cabrera/Scherzer into it.

If the whole idea behind this is to make 2018-2021 (which are likely just going to be decline years for Cabrera for anyway), I'm not sure they've accomplished much, if anything.

Besides, Ilitch is beyond rich and may well be dead by then anyway.

I do wonder, however, if the Ilitch children don't share his love of sports ownership. If this is done with an eye on perhaps making the team more attractive to a potential buyer in the event of Ilitch's demise, it actually makes a little sense.

From the baseball side, however, the timing and the immediate long-term liability taken on in the Kinsler deal effectively eliminates any benefit to the Tigers and their current roster.

That's a lot of Pizza Pizza.

The freed up money that you get from having a 7 year/168M contract off the books. Even when you account for the Kinsler contract (which isn't bad at all at 4/61) and the $30M they're giving to get rid of the albatross, it's still clearly a net positive to them. Fielder's contract is just that awful.

I think it's just to make the team better, both now and in the long term. This deal has the potential of making their infield defense much better than it was before (instead of two butchers defensively on the corners, they'll presumably move Cabrera to 1st base where his range won't hurt them as much). They may take a minor offensive hit imediately, but Fielder wasn't that good last season anyway and you can bet the Tigers will be out looking for a bat the rest of this offseason now.

The Tigers are still winning the Central with ease in 2014.

Disagree.

It was a salary dump. They got rid of Prince for a guy who will likely give them no more than what Omar Infante gave them last year. The only thing they did is offload his contract so they can make the same mistake with Cabrera.

Their contract with Miggy takes him through his age 32 season. That's a perfect time to cut bait. And in reality, they are saving money by creating a hole. Who plays third for them next year? Castellanos played the entire year in the OF.

It's only a true salary dump if you don't plan on using that money in an alternative way (although even if it was, the Tigers are clearly good enough to take the short term hit). And there are much better ways to spend that money than on a declining DH as he enters his 30s.


I don't entirely disagree there, you might be right about that. But I'd probably be more willing to give out a huge contract to a HOF hitting talent like Cabrera than Prince Fielder. He's the kind of special talent who just might keep going for a while.

Could be Castellanos, but I suspect they go out and get someone. Peralta maybe? Whoever they bring in, it's pretty certain to be a major upgrade defensively.

I heard that the Tigers paid the Rangers with 30 million in pennies….

Well, the Tigers are going to eat up quite a bit of Fielder's contract. It's one of the first times in Fielder's life that he left behind something someone else can eat.

Kinsler was somehow a 5 war player last year (good glove helped) which Price has bested only once.

I'm holding out hope for Peralta until someone else signs him.

He was 2.5 fWAR. His career high was 7.3 in 2011.

Denny McClain hinting that Fielder got traded because of domestic issues.


http://deadspin.com/denny-mclain-say...lde-1469185897