Prince is Peeved…But Should He Be?

March 3, 2008

By: Big Rygg

A lot has been made in the last couple of days about Prince Fielder’s comments to the media regarding his contract renewal for the 2008 baseball fiscal year. There are several ways to look at this issue, some of which I’ll spell out with comments. What I’d like you to do, is tell me where your thoughts lie (even if it’s somewhere not in a way that I listed) and explain why.

It would be nice, of course, if Fielder could share the attitudes of the other two players that were renewed this year (and actually his own public attitude prior to 2007) in that it’s all part of the business, and you have to respect how the Brewers have decided to handle it because it’s their situation to handle. Oh, and the "no hard feelings" aspect shared by Corey Hart and Ryan Braun wouldn’t hurt either.

• Prince needs to shut the **** up
  • This line of thought is characterized by two schools of thought. First, that all players are overpaid crybabies that should just bite their tongues because they are being paid a TON of money to play a game. Second, and perhaps more appropriate to the Prince Fielder situation, is that the Milwaukee Brewers (read: Doug Melvin) have a system in place that treats everybody the same. It takes emotion, personalities, allegiances, etc out of the equation and increases a non-arbitration-eligible player’s salary a certain predetermined amount per year. Melvin has said that they always use it and it’s the way they do things. Therefore, Prince doesn’t deserve special treatment so he needs to hush.
• Prince doesn’t deserve more money
  • This thought process baffles me, but I’m sure there are some out there that would think Fielder hasn’t done enough to warrant any increase in salary.
• Prince may deserve more, but he should know that he won’t get more in 2008, and (more importantly?) should understand why he won’t
  • It’s the same system that all of his teammates are under (assuming they didn’t sign any special long-term contracts) so he should understand the team’s position. If they break the mold for him, where does it stop? They need to stay consistent. The pay scale is what the pay scale is.
• Prince is the type of player that you break the mold for
  • You pay your premiere player enough to keep him happy, regardless of what a pay scale says. Fielder needs to be happy, period.
• The Brewers should scrap their tried and true system because all it does it keep salaries low and tick off the star players; Prince Fielder should have been where that trend was bucked
  • Plainly and simply, the Brewers spend more money now than when Doug Melvin was hired and installed this pay scale system. They can afford to spend more money because they are making more money and because they have an ownership group headed up by a man who understands the concept of spending money to make money. Who better to kick off the next era than Prince "I just hit 50 home runs and I’m only 23 years old" Fielder? The real danger here is that once the current system is scrapped, anybody who has been paid prior might feel put off by the fact that they weren’t special enough to change the way things were done, and they missed out on some money. The other danger is that payroll gets pretty high pretty fast, especially with the amount of young talent both on the team currently and in the minors.

So, Brewer Nation…what are your thoughts?

Written by Brewer Nation Posted in Dailies