Fielder contract welcome news for Cardinals
Seldom does anything that the Detroit Tigers do impact the St. Louis Cardinals (unless it’s fielding in the World Series). But the Tigers’ signing of Prince Fielder is welcome news for a couple of reasons: First, it validates their decision not to over-overpay for Albert Pujols. And second, it means that Fielder won’t be blasting circuit clouts for the team’s division rivals.
If Keith Law’s #1 free agent — ahead of Pujols — inked an overvalued contract that is no better than Albert Pujols’s — similar average annual value but one fewer year — then it stands to reason that the Cardinals did well not to succumb to the pressure to sign their former first baseman. Given that Dave Cameron of Fangraphs and other keen minds are giving the Fielder deal mixed reviews, one can only assume that by extension, Pujols’s deal is similarly or more inflated. Granted, in his prime at 27, Fielder produced value comparable to Pujols at age 31 (5.5 WAR to 5.1), Pujols is at minimum already 32 years old and his career already in its second year of decline, Fielder is only 27. Fielder will be more than halfway through his new contract by the time he reaches the age that Pujols signed with the Angels.
Cameron reasons that the Tigers, because of their being on the cusp of greatness, place a higher value on a win, and therefore are more understandably willing to pay a bit of a premium for Fielder’s services. The Cardinals were in a similar position to pay above the going rate (~$4-5 million per win) because of their projected win total as well as because of the unique marketing value that Pujols offered. But not that much: If the Tigers overpaid, then how much more so did the Angels? And the same would’ve been true of the Cardinals, who were apparently willing to pay upwards of $220 million.
Not only does the Fielder signing validate the Cardinals’ “losing out on” Pujols, it also of course improves their own chance of winning the division in 2012. Fielder was almost certainly already not returning to the Brewers, but he theoretically could’ve landed in Chicago. So now neither division rival has the fearsome slugger, nor any other National League team that might be contending with the Cardinals for one of the two (sigh) wild-card spots. The Cubs and Brewers are weaker without the league’s most productive hitter, so the Cardinals improve relative to them without making a single move.
In an odd, perhaps unexpected way, Fielder leaving the division also makes more possible the chance of Marc Rzepczynski entering the rotation at some point this season. True, Fielder is but one lefthanded hitter for whom Scrabble is reserved as a LOOGy. But if Mike Matheny eschews conventional wisdom that says he needs two LOOGys in the pen, Rzepczynski could be freed to start.