Allow me to preface everything by stating this: I do not expect the New York Yankees to sign Prince Fielder. Nor am I advocating a decision one way or another. I just want to look at the situation and discuss some hypothetical pros, cons and corresponding moves. Despite remaining unsigned, Prince Fielder entered the off-season as one of the top five free agent options – maybe top two or three depending who you spoke with or who was compiling a particular list. The New York Yankees seem to be clearly out of the Prince Fielder sweepstakes. They have a first baseman, they have a designated hitter and they seem to have a budget that they are truly committed to adhering to. Even though there are several indications that the Bronx is one of the last places that Prince Fielder will land, more and more New York Yankees fans figure to become more interested in slugger the longer he remains on the market.
I’m not really going to discuss the money too much. We never really know what the Yankees are going to do with their money. If in doubt, the safest bet is to say they’ll spend it. In recent years though, we’ve seen budgets blown when we weren’t expecting any spending and we’ve seen pennies pinched when it seemed like a good idea to open the checkbook. So, for now, we’ll just assume that the Yankees could and would sign Fielder if they wanted to. In my eyes, a much bigger obstacle is Mark Teixeira. It really doesn’t make much sense to sign Fielder for big money when someone is already playing his position. Even though there are plenty of fans down on Teixeira after two sub-par years, I’m expecting his off-season work with hitting coach Kevin Long to help him bounce back with authority in 2012. Not only do I expect Teixeira to match or surpass Fielder’s offensive output this season, but it is virtually a given that he will out perform him with the glove as well. There are certainly fans who do not share my same optimism. To those fans, I’ll simply tell them this: the Yankees are stuck with Teixeira for better or worse. Even if he was willing to waive his no-trade clause, his contract would be nearly impossible to move – especially considering the fact that he’s not at the peak of his prime anymore.
The beauty of the American League is that pitchers don’t have to hit. As 99% of you surely know, the AL allows a designated hitter whose sole purpose is to mash. Perhaps the Yankees could bring Fielder into the fold to fill this DH role – again, we’re pretending that Yankees completely juke us in terms of their “budget concerns”. Fielder would make that lineup look awfully good on paper. That’s putting it a little lightly actually. That would be an absolute juggarnaut of a lineup. That lineup would rip opposing pitchers’ heads off (figuratively speaking of course) and wreak havoc on pitching staffs. On paper and in our imaginations, this idea looks great. In reality, though, Fielder at DH might not be that much better than Jesus Montero. Obviously my money would be on Fielder producing better numbers over the next 2-3 seasons, but when you consider the cost of each player, plenty of fans would easily prefer Montero.
Even though Montero is a more cost-effective option who could possibly deliver similar production to Fielder at some point in his career, let’s just pretend that the Yankees are more iterested in a sure(r) thing at this point. They bring in Fielder to DH and spell Teixeira at first base from time to time. Since Fielder blocks Montero and most baeball people do not have confidence in Montero’s ability to handle the defensive requirements of catching, the Yankees would probably trade him. They could let him serve as Russell Martin’s back-up with the hope that he could become the primary catcher by 2013 or 2014, but I think a trade would be more likely. The good thing about this from some people’s perspective is that the front office could package Montero for a starting pitcher without losing any projected thump from the offense.
Technically, the New York Yankees probably could find a way to bring in Prince Fielder and unleash him on the short porch in right field. However, due to the presence of Mark Teixeira and Jesus Montero at first base and designated hitter, respectively, the chances of this remain slim – very slim. That’s not even to mention the nine figure deal that Fielder is likely to get. It is definitely fun to imagine Cecil’s son unloading on the opposition, but I just don’t think it is a great idea for the Yankees’ long-term plans.
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they should sign him– not doing so would mean they don’t really care any more
I think there are plenty of legitimate reasons not to sign him. One of them was Jesus Montero who is now in Seattle, but some others still remain – cost and lineup flexibility to name two of the biggest. I don’t think it means that they don’t really care anymore though.