Not Expecting Much Today
On the national front, it seems likely that we’re going to get resolution to the Albert Pujols situation today, but in terms of the Mariners, I don’t know that we’re going to see much happen today. The M’s are basically in a holding pattern while they flirt with Prince Fielder, and that’s not going to get resolved today or this week, in all likelihood. Since signing Fielder would take all of their available dollars (and then some), they essentially can’t do anything that costs money until they get a decision on him one way or another.
It’s possible Jack has a trade up his sleeve that we’re not expecting, but my guess is this holding patterns going to go on for another week or two, and we’re not going to see the M’s do anything today.
Although I have to say– seeing the dollars and years for Pujols in print puts the Fielder negotiations in a broader perspective… Down the line that 10 year deal is going to be a HUGE albatross for the Angels… You’re talking about paying a guy $25 million a year as a 40 year old slugger, if he’s even STILL playing? And that’s going to be 1/6th, or 1/8th, of your budget…
And Boras is going to explain to everyone why Fielder deserves as much if not more, being younger, and NOT in a decline…
No thank you.
I think the only way this makes sense is to offer more, for fewer years (5 years, $140 million?) but we can’t afford that, so we’re out of it.
It’s going to be easy to be over-reactionary to this news, but it does seem the ability for the Mariners to reach the post-season has changed significantly, and for the worse.
Given this situation — that the Mariners are now probably further from contention than they were yesterday — I wonder what this does to the price tag of Fielder to come to Seattle. If anything, I bet the price doesn’t go down.