Let’s look at his contract desire. He wants $25 million or more, and rumor has it that he wanted a 10-year deal, but it appears now that a six-year contract is all he is likely to get – due to his size and his mediocrity at 1st base.

Production wise Prince Fielder is worth $25 million per, but at 300-plus pounds, logic says his days at 1st base are numbered. And Fielder’s not a top 10 draw in baseball no matter how many homers he hits so, 10 years is out of the question unless you’re buying what Boras is selling, and if you are… may I suggest some Cottonelle or Charmin?

The usual suspects like the Yankees and Red Sox could afford him, but just don’t need him. That leaves Texas and the dregs. The Cubs, Seattle, Toronto, the Orioles, Miami and the Nationals all could use him. However the Rangers just signed Japanese sensation Yu Darvish for 6 years and $60 million and they have Mitch Moreland who was once considered one of the top 1st base prospects in all of baseball. Also, power isn’t something the Rangers need and Moreland projects as a better defensive first baseman. And why sacrifice at bats from one of the most underrated hitters in the game in Michael Young? Fielder would cost more than just money for the Rangers. I say it’s a bad move for the Rangers.

Toronto might make sense. The Blue Jays love power, and while they have Adam Lind who hit 26 homers last season at first…

Prince would bring in fans with his 38 homers, but the big thing is his on-base percentage, which was .415 to Lind’s .295. And Fielder is a bonafide RBI machine. The Blue Jays however don’t really need more offense. They need better starting pitching, and they need a real leadoff hitter. When you add that Fielder will be $25 million for six to 10 years, I again say bad move.

Baltimore needs Prince Fielder for his offense and for his crowd appeal. But Baltimore is so far away from being a contender that they would have to offer him more than $25 million or more than six seasons to attract him, and would he want to sign just for the money?  VERY BAD MOVE!

Miami has spent like they were the Yankees this offseason. But with a new stadium, a solid pitching staff and wasting money on Jose Reyes, the Marlins don’t have the money for Fielder. Gaby Sanchez is a mediocre player at best and Fielder would have made a lot of sense in Miami for publicity. It would have been a perfect place to live with great weather and he would have paid no state income tax on $150 million to $250 million dollars! To me it looks like Boras sold Fielder on 10 years, and Pujols kind of clout, and has left him holding a bag of magic beans. Can a 300 pound Fielder climb the beanstalk Jack?

The Cubs were my team of choice going into the offseason. I believe he would have fit with them because he’s all offense and little defense, plus the questionable attitude (talking about leaving Milwaukee well before the season was close to over) makes him a Soriano, Sosa, and Zambrano kind of ME FIRST ball player. They acquired Anthony Rizzo and also have Bryan LaHair, who has been a minor league monster, so no adding Fielder seems out of the question.

Furthermore Chicago seems to be too discombobulated even with Theo Epstein there to pull off this move.  I say it’s a solid move for the Cubs, but they won’t do it.

This leaves us with the two big time teams bidding for his services. One of those two teams doesn’t need him, except for the draw, and the other needs him so desperately that if another team offers Prince five years they almost have to offer him six or seven. The Nationals, who have drawn huge buzz as the speculated team for Mr. Fielder, makes sense to me only from a fandom sense.

The Nationals have Stephen Strasburg who will bring in fans. They have a very under-appreciated offense with Ryan Zimmerman at 3rd base, Bryce Harper coming up soon, an excellent young catcher in Wilson Ramos (yes the kidnapping victim), Mike Morse who had a breakout season with 31 homers, and, coming off of injury, Adam LaRoche, who is also capable of hitting 20 plus homers with gold glove caliber defense.

Morse is 6’5 270 pounds and can play right field with LaRoche back.  For under a million dollars last season Morse was in the top 10 in six major offensive categories in the National League last year.

If I’m the Nationals I hold off on signing Fielder unless he comes down in price and years. How can Boras backtrack now and tell a guy who hit .299 with 38 homers in the prime of his career to lower his demands for both price or contract length?  So my vote on the Nationals is: don’t do it, even though if you do the gates will be turning even on days when Strasburg isn’t pitching.

The best fit for him in the American League is in Seattle. Justin Smoak has been a joke. His offensive numbers are meager and his defense is mediocre. His drawing power is great if your last name is Smoak. Fielder becomes the face of the Mariners immediately. He becomes the focal point of their lineup. Ichiro is now 38 years old and coming off of his worst season as a professional. And King Felix is not getting any younger. I see Seattle as the best spot for him now. The Mariners just added Jesus Montero from the Yankees who is going to be an offensive force, and if you put him in the three hole in front of Prince and behind Ichiro and Mike Carp, add a healthy Franklin Gutierrez for 2012 and you get a major league lineup that can at least score enough runs to let Hernandez win more than half of his games.

I want to add Milwaukee into this very quickly. Yes, they need him. While the money is disquieting for a small-market team, with the reigning MVP set to miss 50 games for banned substances. Without Fielder, the Brewers will be resigned to smaller crowds and no hope for the playoffs.

It’s a long-shot, but at this point Fielder almost has to consider it an option. He would be lying to himself if he thought he would be going to the playoffs anytime soon in Seattle. Texas could strike oil and afford him or the Yankees could come out of nowhere – it wouldn’t be the first time that has happened. But I wouldn’t bet money on it.

National Sports Advisors hasn’t released their odds for the World Series yet (due Feb. 5th), but the Rangers were 5th, Milwaukee was 15th and the Cubs were 18th last year. The rest of the teams mentioned filled out the bottom 3rd of the league nicely.

Prince would have to take a discount to stay at Milwaukee, or possibly to go to the Rangers who don’t actually need him. His other option is to be a hired gun for the most money to the rest of the worst – and of those options, only the Nationals and Blue Jays have even a remote shot at .500. Prince will have to have huge All-Star and MVP placement incentives in his contract because MVPs rarely come from the bottom of the league, which is where he’s most likely going to end up. If I were Prince, I’d re-sign with the Brewers, get paid a ton of money, and be a hero. But could his ego – and perhaps more importantly, could Boras’ ego – take it?

I also think the Rangers are going to be serious players for years to come. They are now well financed and a television deal with Fox Sports Southwest makes them a real, big-money player near the likes of the Yankees and the Red Sox.

But I’m stymied by the latest news from Arlington, Texas. Various reports have the Texas Rangers close to dedicating big money – about $96 million for six years, according to at least one report – toward signing third baseman Adrian Beltre.

Now, Beltre’s not a bad player, not by any stretch. By most accounts his defense at third base has always been very good, though there are also suggestions that he’s slipping a bit, and even if he isn’t yet, he’d be 37 at the end of a six-year deal.

The bigger question I have is his offense. This is a guy who has had two monster seasons out of 13 in the big leagues with the bat. He hit .334 with 48 homers, 121 RBI and a 1.017 OPS in 2004 at the age of 25. And he hit .321 with 28 homers, 102 RBI and a .919 OPS in 2010 with the Red Sox.

Take out those two seasons and he has 202 dingers in 11 seasons. Take out those two seasons and he’s had one 99 RBI season and never anything else above 89. Take out those two seasons and Beltre is a .264 hitter who has never produced another OPS above .835 and who has produced a lot more seasons in the low to mid .700s in that category.

What’s the most obvious common thread between the two monster seasons produced by Beltre? They were two contract years. After his 2004 season with Los Angeles Dodgers, he was signed to a big money contract by Seattle and promptly put up decent-but-largely-ordinary seasons. He signed a one-year deal with Boston last year after an injury-filled 2009 with Seattle and put up his second huge season with Boston.

And here we sit.

The Rangers have gotten buy in from team player Michael Young, who reportedly has agreed to become a designated hitter/utility infielder to make room for Beltre at third base. So it would appear as though there is a strong likelihood a deal is in some level of negotiation.

And I think this might be a mistake. I understand the Rangers want to capitalize on the momentum they garnered during the fantastic postseason run. And losing out to Philadelphia on Cliff Lee had to be a difficult pill to swallow.

Beltre is considered one of, if not the, last impact non-pitcher on the market. But giving six years and a nearly nine-figure contract to a good-but-not-great player who saved his best career moments for the seasons in which his long-term deals are about to end doesn’t seem like a prudent way to improve what is and will be a very competitive team, with or without Beltre.

There will be opportunities both in-season and next off-season to add pieces to the puzzle if they are deemed necessary. Signing Beltre long-term is more likely to prove the axiom that sometimes the best deals are the ones you don’t make.

He gave up two runs, three hits, and one walk while striking out two. He told New York Newsday that he feels great.

“I’m still a little bit off with the pitches and getting the feel of the game, but as far as health, I feel great,” he said.

Martinez hopes to parlay the WBC into a contract with someone - anyone – that would make him feel “respected.” That means he’s not willing to take a $1 million deal to pitch for a year to show Major League Baseball that he is capable of staying healthy for a full season.

The problem there is that Martinez hasn’t pitched more than 30 games in a season, nor reached 200 innings since 2005.

He’s 17-15 in 48 starts – usually the equivalent of a season-and-a-half – during the last three seasons. His ERAs the last three years have been 4.48, 2.57 (in 28 innings) and 5.61 and his WHIPs have been 1.11, 1.43, and 1.57.

Now, there are a lot of legitimate questions about whether or not Martinez can stay healthy. And he’s also reportedly had issues with a bit of an overly sensitive and somewhat prickly personality over the years.

If he can, there’s no doubt he could still come in and be a factor on the back end of a starting rotation, as well as possibly a veteran presence and mentor for a collection of young guys who are just starting out.

Unlike Tom Glavine, who signed last month for a $1 million base salary with incentives that could bring the deal to $4.5 million (including $1 million the first day he appears on the Major League roster), Martinez has expressed that for $1 million, he’d rather go fishing than pitch ballgames.

That’s too bad. There’s a dearth of real Major League pitching out there these days. He could be a contributor if he could swallow his pride. Sometimes, however, with professional athletes that remains a little too much to ask.

As a keenly interested observer of the Minnesota Twins, I have spent the offseason asking myself one simple question: “How does Bill Smith still have a job?”

It’s not been any big secret that the Twins went into the offseason with major needs at third base and in the bullpen. The Twins made a half-hearted attempt at signing Casey Blake, but recoiled in horror when he asked for a third year. Blake re-signed with the Dodgers.

They spoke with the Cubs about Mark DeRosa, but wouldn’t pay the Cubs’ exorbitant asking price of Kevin Slowey and Denard Span – or at least that’s what we were led to believe. Cleveland wound up sending the Cubs three mediocre minor league pitchers for DeRosa.

They looked at Ty Wigginton, but were told that Wigginton wanted more than the 3 years and $17 million that the Dodgers gave Blake. Shortly after Smith ran screaming from those negotiations, Wigginton signed with Baltimore for $6 million over two years.

It was looking like a pattern. Either Smith was naïve about the true market of free agency this year, or he didn’t want to spend any money and was lying to the press about it. Either way, to a fan who simply wanted his team to have a good third baseman, it was irritating and aggravating.

But, today, the Twins announced that they had agreed to terms on a one year deal with Joe Crede.  Mr. Smith, I take back every nasty word I’ve said about you in the last three months. The Joe Crede signing is a great move. It’s the kind of low-risk, high-reward chance you have to take in order to contend when your franchise can’t afford a triple-digit payroll.

If it pays off, the Twins will have their best infield since 1991, and their deepest lineup since 1987. (Author’s note: The invocation of those two years does not constitute a prediction of a Twins World Championship in 2009. Yet.)

John Hart said it best on the MLB Network Saturday night “Now, I think for the first time in a while, the Twins have what is considered to be an American League Club. They’ve got power on each corner.” Crede is a better player than Blake, DeRosa, or Wigginton. And, there’s something tasty about plucking an All-Star off of your biggest rival’s roster, even if he never figured into their plans.

If he’s healthy, the guy’s a stud who will measurably help this ballclub. If not, they’re out $2.5 million, and the Twins can go with the Brian Buscher/Brendon Harris platoon that should have always been their Plan B. I’ve ripped Smith plenty during this offseason, but this was a very good move.

Now, on top of the Crede signing, comes word out of Arizona that the Twins are simple details away from adding Juan Cruz to the roster as the 8th inning set-up man they desperately need. Two big moves in three days?

Repent, folks. The apocalypse is at hand.

Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez, he of 62 saves for Anaheim last season, inked a 3-year, $37 million contract that will become official pending a physical, according to the New York Daily News.

Not satisfied, the Mets then acquired former Seattle Mariners closer J.J. Putz in a 212 player trade involving 26 teams in 9 countries.

Okay, it wasn’t quite that big, but something approaching a dozen players did change hands in the deal, including Aaron Heilman, who wanted to be a starter.

While it’s early, if I were in Las Vegas right now – or if I get there before Spring Training starts, this deal would in my opinion make the Mets the odds-on favorite to win the National League. The Phillies and the Mets have dueled for the NL East the last couple years and Philadelphia has won, almost solely based on the Mets bullpen patheticness.

While Rodriguez’ WHIP numbers have increased ever so slightly the last two seasons he’ll just turn 27 a month before Spring Training. And he keeps racking up the saves.

Putz had an off year in 2008, falling in line with most Seattle Mariners, posting a respectable ERA of 3.88 but a terrible WHIP of 1.60. Still, the two seasons prior, he’d sported WHIPs under 1.00 and ERAs respectively of 2.30 and 1.38 during a 2007 season in which he garnered some MVP votes.

Given that the Yankees finally bagged CC Sabathia Wednesday, the Mets were going to need a couple blockbuster moves to keep themselves in the front of the New York sports sections. They’ve definitely accomplished that. A Subway Series this year? That would be a dream come true for the networks.

Speaking on Dan Patrick’s morning radio show, Heyman told the world that CC still hopes one of the West coast teams will pop up with a competitive offer. He also thinks the Milwaukee Brewers might up their $100 million contract proposal as well.

But with the San Francisco Giants already opening their wallets to the tune of $18 million for a declining Edgar Renteria and also bogged down by the $126 million Barry Zito deal, Heyman thinks they are a long shot. And the California-Anaheim-Los Angeles Angels are first keeping Mark Teixeira in their sites.

CC’s reticence toward actually signing a deal, Heyman says, might have the Yankees on eggshells a bit, frustrated because they can’t lash out but don’t want to yet sweeten their own $140 million deal. But in the end, he says, the Bronx Bombers will likely get their man.

As an outside observer, it’s kind of fun to see them having to run in place for awhile though, isn’t it?

“We’ve made him an offer. It’s not going to be there forever,” said Hal, after he was voted the team’s new controlling owner on Thursday, Nov. 20.

This statement, given last year’s lines re-drawn in the sand over the A-Rod negotiations, were the typical laughable bravado to come from the Bronx. Now, however, as if that wasn’t enough, it has come out that the Yankees might increase their already obnoxiously high offer to $150 million – but only if other teams expected to get in on the process make offers to Sabathia.

NBCSports.com, publishing a Sporting News column citing a New York Newsday report that sourced the information to a “person familiar with the situation” said if the Los Angeles Angels get in on the bidding they’ll make the increase in their offer.

That’s good solid negotiating – let the increase get public BEFORE ANY WEST COAST COMPETITORS EVEN ACTUALLY OFFICIALLY MAKE AN OFFER!!!!!

The rumor mill says that Sabathia would prefer to pitch closer to home on the West coast and in the National League so he can hit. He reportedly is waiting on the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Milwaukee Brewers have made a shockingly large offer in an attempt to keep the guy who nearly single-handedly carried them to the playoffs for the first time since 1982.

So maybe the Yankees will have some competition for Sabathia’s services. But guess what. It’s not likely any of those offers are going to match the $140 million the Bronx Bombers already have on the table. If CC doesn’t sign in NY it’s likely got more to do with him finding the situation less than desirable, not the lack of another $10 million or so.

So, there’s always the possibility that the Major League Baseball Players Association steps in and tries to force Sabathia to sign the precedent-setting contract. I personally hope he thumbs his nose at those folks. I live in the Midwest but prefer the East coast to the West coast – but if Sabathia wants to go closer to home and is willing to take less money to do so more power to him.

But in the end, if I’m the Angels, at this point I’d get in the race just to make the Yankees pony up as much money as humanly possible. Someone on the Yankees staff blinked. This latest report makes it clear both that Hal’s deadline was a joke and that they’re willing to dig even deeper to acquire his services.

And how great is it that no matter how many bidders get in on the process the Yankees biggest competition for the largest salary package comes from themselves.

Nice job, sons of Steinbrenner. How does the old saying go? Hal, Hank – you’re no George Steinbrenner.

And looking at it, this move makes complete sense for the Yankees–with Carl Pavano coming off the books, they have a real lack of starting pitchers with a track record of injury proneness mixed with mediocrity.

Burnett, who is already 31-years old, has had only three seasons of 200+ innings pitched in his career (although he did reach a career high of 221-1/3 in 2008), one season of more than 12 wins (18 in 2008, and two seasons of 12), and two seasons with 30+ starts (a career high 34 in 2008).

Looking at those 2008 numbers (18 wins, 34 starts, 221 innings) you might think the Yankees are getting a pitcher at his peak.  However, it should also be noted that his 2008 ERA was 4.07 (worst since 2003, when he had a 4.70 ERA in four starts), and his WHIP was 1.34 (also the highest it’s been since 2003, when it was 1.57).  Both are higher than his career averages of 3.75 and 1.28, respectively.

Combined, this tells me that the Yankees are going to pay an average of $16-million per season, for a pitcher who is far more likely to break down and be on the downside of his career than he is to be reaching the pinnacle.

Then again, in a league where Gil Meche gets $11-million per season, and Carlos Silva gets $12-million, the Yankees may have to be given credit for showing restraint.  But it still shows more the horrible state of contract situations in baseball more than anything else (more on that, and the true scourge of the game later on).

Less than two weeks later, the New York Yankees are preparing to brush off the warning, and offer free agent pitcher CC Sabathia a deal that will make him the most expensive pitcher in MLB history. The same Sabathia that weighs as much as many defensive linemen, has a history that leans on the inconsistent side, and was merely average last season with the Indians, before moving to the National League, where he pitched well in his first half season facing many hitters who hadn’t seen him before, but was possibly overused.

Note that the offer has not yet been made–but team co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner, in his never ending quest to prove himself to daddy, saw fit to announce his team’s plans to the media.  In a further act of arrogance, he went so far as to say he expected to also make offers to AJ Burnett and Derek Lowe.

It’s a good thing the Yankees have such a proven track record with big money free agent deals.