What is Prince Fielder worth?

Comparing Prince’s ‘06-’09 to other elite 1B is a little unfair because Fielder is so much younger than them (excluding Cabrera). Fielder’s weakest season in that range is his 1.5 WAR 2006 (age 22), but neither Howard nor Teixeira were even in the majors at that age.

If you compare Fielder to Teixeira by age you get 12.4 WAR for Teixeira (ages 23-25) versus 14.7 WAR for Fielder (ages 23-25)

Cabrera was worth 15.6 WAR over his age 23-25 seasons, but two of those were playing full-time third base. If all three of those seasons had been spent at 1B with the same defense (-30 runs in positional adjustments) it would have been only 12.6 WAR, though obviously that’s unfair to Cabrera since his defense at 1B is better than it was at 3B.

Ryan Howard hadn’t played a full season in the majors at Prince’s current age, so it’s difficult to compare them.

Cabrera is probably better than Fielder, but if we assume Prince develops similar to Howard/Teixeira, he’s clearly the most valuable of the latter three (and any substantial contract would cover the “prime” years that Teixeira and Howard are now leaving)

I think Fielder has less and less value as Casey McGehee keeps showing he could be molded into a cleanup hitter. Fielder is a better……fielder, but Casey is quicker and seems to have better contact than Prince at times. I could see us letting prince go, and signing a 1st baseman, or using Gamel in that spot. Casey would move to 4th in the lineup with Gamel or Edmonds 5th.

I think your number is very close to what he is worth, but I dont think its in the best interest of the team, nor can they afford to pay it. Not only that, but Boras is never going to allow Fielder to sign a deal with the Brewers, simply because he isnt going to let him sign an extension before his FA time comes up.

Pecota has Fielder pegged at 21.5 WAR for his age 28 through 32 seasons, which adds up to about $96.2 million. Figure he will get a premium on that contract of at least 10%, and youre looking at 5 years $106 million. The “market” is actually higher than that, and there is probably going to be a bidding war between at least 2 teams for Fielders services, so that market will increase.

As many know, I am in favor of moving Fielder to replenish the farm system either at this years deadline or during the offseason of 2010. At season’s beginning, I had figured Fielder’s surplus value at approximately $27 million. This of course figures 2 full years of projected WAR. A premium will probably be paid by any team that wants to acquire him (if in July this year) so that amount maybe doesnt change very much.

Using Victor Wangs prospect values, and given that number above of $27mm, and considering what the Brewer farm system needs (pitching), the Brewers could get 1 pitcher ranked 75-100 in Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list, two additional pitchers given B grades by John Sickels, and then a B graded hitter as well. This may not sound all that spectacular, but when the Rangers traded Teixeira to the Braves guys like Neftali Feliz were ranked in that lower half of BA’s top 100 and had B type grads from Sickels. This type of player is usually a guy rising fast in an organizations farm system who is currently in low or high A ball.

Would Brewer fans be happy with a package of pitchers who are 20 years old and no one has ever heard of for Fielder? Probably not, but Ranger fans probably werent happy a few years ago, but they love Feliz now, as well as the other “no names” acquired in that deal. And the beauty of it is that they are team controlled for 6 years and even if they are average mlb players (2 WAR lets say) their collective output beats that of what Fielder would have given, once they mature. Get the right guys, and that output increases.