Fielder To Complain Less About Contract This Season

Well it appears that the Brewers and 1B Prince Fielder have a deal in place to pay the big man $18 mill over the next two seasons, thus buying out Prince's first two years of arbitration. The deal is expected to be made "official" tomorrow after his physical. Of course everyone remembers Prince's well documented distaste for having his contract renewed before the 2008 season for only $670,000, after he just belted 50 HR's in 2007, the youngest player ever to do so.

I would imagine there will be no talk of that now with Prince about to sign this very nice contract. I would say this is actually a better deal for the club then for Fielder. If Prince has another big year in 2009 you don't have to worry about having to go into arby before next season with him where he could possibly ask for and get more then $12 mill. Also if you decide to trade Prince before the 2010 season a team will see that $11 mill salary for 2010 as a bargain plus having the opportunity to have him for his 3rd and final arbitration season and that could get the Brewers more value in a trade.

Maybe the best piece of information around all this Prince news the last two days is that Satan, oops I did it again, I mean Scott Boras told Haudricourt that Prince has lost weight since the end of the 2008 season and is committed to a conditioning program. Thank God for that, because he gained quite a bit of weight from 07' to 08' and was probably the most fat vegetarian in history.

Second Thoughts On CC

As much as I love, admire and will never forget the time CC Sabathia spent as a member of the Milwaukee Brewers for one magical half of a summer in 2008. I'm starting to think re-signing him would be a mistake. Now I doubt he will take the rumored 5 year $100 mill contract that Doug Melvin has offered him anyway. But when you think about for a team that will probably have a payroll in 2009 around the $90 mill range, it's hard to get missing pieces when $20 mill of that payroll is wrapped up in one player, a pitcher at that who only plays once every five days. Because of this I'm starting to hope that it's true that the Yankees will offer CC a contract HIGHER then the 6 year $137.5 mill that Johan Santana got from the Mets. Don't get me wrong, if Sabathia for some reason is a trend setter and becomes the first player to leave money on the table to stay somewhere he really likes, so be it. It would be hard to complain, but in the best interest of the club and with the other needs we have such as a closer, 3B, maybe 2B and bench help it would be better to not re-sign CC. It's just the life a medium market ball club lives.