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The Prince Fielder signing this week probably came as a surprise to most, if not all of the Tiger fan base out there.

The act of one Brandon Inge after such deals like this, was probably a surprise to no one.

Perhaps, it’s time to cut him loose. Not to Toledo, but out of the organization.

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With Prince Fielder signing, it has been clearly the biggest news of the Tigers off-season, and one of the top stories around baseball. We have obviously been heavy on coverage of Prince and what this means to the Tigers for the upcoming season. So, over the past few days, a variety of writers on MCB have been looking at a variety of angles regarding the big signing. I thought it might be time to consolidate some of these into one post at this point for readers easy perusal.

Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean by any stretch we are done discussing the big fella, I am sure we have more coming, but it’s time to take a step back and look at the week that was almost all Prince Fielder…….

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Earlier this off-season, we here at Motor City Bengals bombarded you all with trade possibilities, and potential free agent targets. Though we did mention Prince Fielder briefly, the Tigers surprised us all by making that a reality. A large part of the focus of our trade possibilities was youngish 2nd baseman who may be blocked, or for some other reason may be available. The Oakland A’s Adrian Cardenas was one of the guys that I did an article on, and just a few days ago, he was designated for assignment by the A’s.

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I thought about how I would lead into this, the ranking of teams’ farm systems, but don’t have a good way to do it, other than say it is something that I like to tackle every year. Obviously, in the grand scheme of things my rankings aren’t going to make waves with Keith Law, John Sickels, or the staff at Baseball America. However, these rankings by any outlet are rather arbitrary in nature, and I like any of them, will try to give everybody some reasoning behind them. Scouting and prospects are a big part of the game. We can see that by how teams are clinging onto them in a lot of cases this year, instead of dealing them away for proven players. A lower ranked system doesn’t necessarily correlate to a bad team, and a highly ranked system doesn’t mean it’s a good major league team. It just gives us all a look at organizations who might get healthy in a few years, and which ones are going to have to find other means.

Anyway, this is supposed to be fun, so if you want to discuss, let’s do so…

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Lost in the shuffle of Tuesday’s news about Prince Fielder (hey, did you hear, 9 years, $214 Mill and he is now a DETROIT TIGER) is that the Cuban Missile*, Yoenis Cespedes is now officially a citizen of the Dominican Republic and is thus a Free Agent according to Major League Baseball.  The list of suitors for Cespedes is rumored to be the Chicago Cubs, the Miami Marlins, the Washington Nationals. the Chicago White Sox (wait, I thought they were rebuilding) and the…Detroit Tigers?!?!

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Well, probably not the real Brad Pitt.  He could care less about the Tigers, I’m certain, however his version of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane in the Academy Award nominated film Moneyball would love this team…outside of the salary cap that zooms well past $100 Million.

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On first base for your Detroit Tigers; the Michelin Man, Prince Fielder! At second base; the man with the iron glove, Ryan Raburn! At shortstop; the sure-handed statue, Jhonny Peralta! And at third base; the first baseman, Miguel Cabrera!

Granted, Jim Leyland has some opportunity to get creative with the infield as the roster is currently constructed. Ramon Santiago will get starts up the middle and, like Don Kelly, will enter plenty of games in late innings as a defensive replacement. Kelly, along with Brandon Inge, will see some time at third base. Cabrera and Fielder will be rotated to designated hitter on some days. But the players I’ve announced for you above are almost sure to take the field for Detroit, as written, for a good number of games.

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Recently, my colleague here at MCB, Chris Hannum, wrote about the lack of payroll flexibility now facing the Detroit Tigers in the wake of the Prince Fielder signing. This morning at SBN’s Baseball Nation, Rob Neyer broke down exactly why he thought the Fielder signing was a bad move. The point of Neyer’s piece was the potentially disastrous defensive unit the Tigers will feature, but Neyer made no secret on how he’d fix both problems:

My guess? The Tigers wind up trading (Victor) Martinez, and eating a big chunk of his contract. Which we’ll simply add to the many millions by which the franchise is over-paying to feature Prince Fielder for nine years.

This is where I have an issue with Neyer. Who says Fielder is over-paid? And by many millions?

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