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?

Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

Field of Dreams - Dyersville, Iowa

More than a year after it was put on the market, the famous Field of Dreams set location from the 1989 movie was sold to an investment group call Go The Distance LLC.  They won’t be moving into the house–rather they plan to develop the 193-acre lot into a baseball/softball training and tournament complex, including a dome for indoor training.

The famous cornfields are visited by an estimated 65,000 visitors per year–including, in 2009, by the proprietors of this site. The field itself wasn’t actually all that impressive–but the ambiance was definitely impressive, and I could easily see charities and companies wanting to hold tournaments there.

Youth leagues, though, I’m not sold on yet–and having a training facility in a town of 4,000 in rural Iowa seems like a stretch.

I hope they can make something of it–but at the same time, even more importantly, I hope they don’t ruin the feel of the actual field that made the site famous in the first place.

This is a further example of how clueless the commissioner of Major League Baseball really is–he should be embarrassed that he and his office made the decision in the first place. And he should be even more embarrassed that the hats they wore in pregame were physically taken away from the players, after it was heard that they may conspire to wear them anyway–the players had given the league an out (tell the players they can’t, players do it anyway, fine the players, donate the money to a charity supporting first responders).

And he shouldn’t be surprised–especially in today’s modern world, where players are constantly tweeting and actually interacting with fans–that the players would go public about the situation.

MLB dropped the ball on this one–multiple times now.  And if Selig was smart, he would look in the mirror, and figure out a way to fix the situation.

Why do I not think that’s going to happen?

And plenty of roaming there is to do. There’s the suite level. On my budget nobody was going to let me in the rooms but a friendly usher did let me wander around a bit. The rooms are named after Hall of Famers and are decorated with art featuring their namesakes.

There’re plenty of restaurants and concessions stands, some fairly generic with the typical ballpark fare and others Irish pubs or wine bars.

There is a great view of the palace Jerry Jones built for his Dallas Cowboys (my phone would not take a picture that did the view justice, but wow, does it stand out).

And then there’s my favorite feature, the wiffle ballpark in centerfield where kids took cuts throughout the game. It’s a favorite spot at the Ballpark, in part, because I’m one of the worst players in one of the country’s most hard-core wiffleball leagues back home in Minneapolis.

The Ballpark is not a perfect venue, though it is a very nice one. It opened back in 1994 just before a lot of the new-era parks started coming online and so its designers did not have the opportunity to incorporate some of the amenities the new era parks feature.

Some of the seats don’t face toward the infield. It felt somewhat Wrigley Field-like in some parts of the park’s lower regions in that the seats that are further back in a section have views that are somewhat encumbered by the deck of seats atop them.

And my biggest beef is with the concourses – most of the concessions are on interior walls rather than exterior walls, meaning you can’t watch the game very well from spots away from your seats.

But it is a very nice park with great views from almost every vantage point. I bought a ticket about halfway between first base and the left fielder, which provided a nice view of the brand new scoreboard the team installed during the offseason. I had a nice view of everything during the two innings I watched from there.

After that I started to wander. From the nosebleed sections in the outfield overlooking the bullpens and the wiffleball games to the close-up seats (even the ones where the overhang is a little lower than ideal) you have great views of the action.

There’s just enough between-innings action to keep the kids entertained but not so much that it drove me crazy.

And then there was my favorite aspect of the Ballpark. It is very hospitable. Everywhere you turn around there are folks holding up signs asking if they can help you in any way.

They helped me with everything from finding the stairway that would lead me to my seats to where I should exit the ballpark to find a taxi and they were friendly as could be in doing so. And at one point I sat in a section just to the first base side of home plate a few rows up. I was greeted by one of the women who volunteers to hand out promotional items during most games.

She was most pleasant and very talkative and knowledgeable about the team and the ballpark. I chatted with her for a couple innings before moving on to another part of my self-guided tour.
Overall it is an aesthetically pleasing park that falls short of some of Major League Baseball’s newest and nicest venues. Some of the quirky things that come with the Rangers’ park there isn’t much the team can do to fix at this point. But they can take steps to make visitors’ experiences as pleasant as possible.

With a new ownership group and a new television contract, this organization is not just poised to be competitive on the field for several years to come. The Rangers have their act together off the field as well.

Wow. Another New York fan with a forum.

We’re gonna win the World Series.

Why?

Because CC is skinnier.

Because Derek Jeter has a new contract the the team didn’t want to give him.

Because we have great prospects.

BECAUSE WE ALWAYS WIN THE WORLD SERIES!

Even when we don’t.

It’s like this: I don’t hate the Green Bay Packers Organization, nor do I hate the Universities of Wisconsin and Iowa. And I don’t hate the New York Yankees Professional Baseball Club.

I hate their obnoxious, self-entitled, condescending, holier-than-thou, make-me-want-to-urinate-on-their-dog fans. These idiots think they follow the Greatest Team In The History Of Competition and because of that, they are the Chosen People. God’s favorites.

I hope they get smited.

This is a message to all you front-running New York Yankee fans: YOU’RE TEAM ISN’T VERY GOOD!

Your starting rotation is at best two men deep, and for cryin’ out loud, your fourth and fifth starters might be Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon.

BARTOLO COLON?

Seriously?

What, was Sid Fernandez not available?

Your bullpen is led by a guy who may well be the best closer ever , but the guy is so old he actually pitched for the New Amsterdam Yankees (Shut up. I know they were the New York Highlanders. It’s called artistic license you morons).

Then what? Joba Chamberlain is a head case who gets mentioned in every trade rumor the Yankees are connected to, which means every trade rumor ever. They want to dump him for a reason.

You guys signed what’s his name from the Rays. Congratulations. Even your GM thought that was a dumb move.

Some say you have the greatest hitting infield of all time. Ok, but Derek Jeter  is not 27 anymore ( ). A-Rod and Teixeira are good for at least one trip, and probably two, to the DL. Each. Robinson Cano can’t turn the double play. Your outfield is MLB average. Granderson, Gardner and Swisher are ok, but they aren’t going to remind anybody of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.

Hell they won’t even remind people of Bernie Williams and Paul O’Neill. Your DH is old. Your bench is suspect.

Yes, you’ll try to make a trade or two in-season, but there’s nothing in your farm system that’s going to pry Francisco Liriano from the Twins or Felix Hernandez from the Mariners.

You play in a division that’s at least as strong as it usually is. To be sure, the Rays have taken a step back, but the Orioles and the Blue Jays both had very good off-seasons and are going to be pretty competitive. And, in my opinion, the Boston Red Sox are the favorites in the AL this year.

But none of this matters to you blathering, myopic, pinstriped lemmings. You, the deacons of the First Church of Steinbrenner, insist on filling the airwaves, the blogosphere, and ESPN with your ridiculous crap.

You sound like a bunch of idiots.

Which you are.

You’re in for a strong dose of reality this year.

Did I mention A.J. Burnett?

This is going to be fun to watch.

We’re going to try to start doing the same thing here at Brushbackpitch.com as well, starting today.

Jeff Idelson, Baseball Hall of Fame president, announced on the MLB Network that, in his 14^th year of eligibility, pitcher Bert Blyleven received the necessary 75 percent of votes to make the Hall.  Blyleven’s self-promotion sometimes went over the top but his 287 wins, despite playing for some lousy teams, and two World Series championships certainly helped his argument. Nor did his career totals of 3,701 strikeouts and 242 complete games hurt.

Joining him will be Roberto Alomar, who played second base for seven teams during a 17 year career. He stole 474 bases, earned 10 straight gold gloves and made 12 straight All-Star games. He received 90 percent of the vote and, Idelson said, the third highest vote total ever.

They join Pat Gillick, who was tapped by the Expansion Era Committee.

That leaves a number of the 33 candidates on this year’s ballot still on the outside looking in, including Barry Larkin, Jack Morris, Lee Smith, Jeff Bagwell and several members of the controversial “steroid era,” which we’ve written about several times in other contexts and certainly will cover under this heading as well.

So what do you think? Are this year’s selections the right ones? Who should have gone in and who should have stayed out?

We’re looking forward to hearing from you at brushbackpitch.com.

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.

Thus Major League Baseball will take one more step toward becoming another league that waters down its regular season in favor of a playoff format that invites too many teams to take a shot at the championship.

I initially didn’t like the expansion to four playoff teams with a wild card included but it was a necessity when each league was split into three divisions. And I grudgingly will admit that it has created some fantastic races, this year included when San Francisco, San Diego and Atlanta fought tooth and nail to the season’s final weekend over the last two playoff spots.

But this year’s race is but one reason why expansion is a bad idea. Add another series – supposedly expected to be a wild card play-in series to determine which team really gets to advance to each league’s final four – and the final weekend wouldn’t have mattered. All three teams would already have been in the playoffs.

Furthermore, in the American League, it would have added an 89-73 Boston team ravaged by injuries all season. They would have taken on a 95 win Yankees team for the right to play in the real playoffs.

Why should a team clearly inferior to New York during the season, even one that managed to somehow split 18 games with the Bronx Bombers, have yet another opportunity to then keep that rival from being among the American League’s final four?

Why, money, of course.

So even though it’ll often result in average teams making the playoffs, even though it could stretch the season in to mid-November, even though it will dilute the regular season and even though the season is long enough already, Bud Selig likes the idea for “fairness” reasons, according to the Sporting News. So the playoffs are likely to expand.

Fairness my butt. Win your division and don’t leave it to chance. If you don’t, you have no right to complain about not making the playoffs.

This playoff expansion is nothing more than another money grab for a league that is full of them during an era in which money grabs are the norm and not the exception.

Fans, be damned. Players, be damned, as the NFL embarks on its latest grab, the attempt to cram an 18 game regular season schedule down its players’ throats during the collective bargaining negotiations.

I’m sure the networks would love it. Tired of watching the Yankees play the Red Sox on ESPN 46 times per season? Get used to it if this playoff expansion takes place. Go back the last nine years. Five of those seasons, the Yankees and the Red Sox both bought, err, played their way into the playoffs, with one winning the American League East and the other claiming the Wild Card.

During four seasons, one or the other made it. In three of those four, had the five-team playoff scenario been in place, whichever of the two hadn’t already made the playoffs would have been the additional wild card team.

Go figure.

And sure, you can argue that adding another wild card team gives a different team a chance in those years when Boston and New York both already make the playoffs. It’s true, but it’s more like an argument a Boston or New York fan would make in defending a big-market-based economic structure that is still more broken than fixed than an argument for expanding the playoffs.

Woo hoo! Let’s further reward mediocrity. We’re number five! We get to go the playoffs too.

I haven’t seen a lot of study of fan reaction to the proposed playoff expansion. But just searching the net for blog reaction or informal poll results leads me to believe the fans, by and large, are not in favor of the plan.

This is just further proof that the opinions of those who buy the tickets and the merchandise and who foot the bill in many ways for the salaries players make and the profits teams generate for their owners have little say in what actually happens in sports that are ostensibly supposed to be about them.

Once again, it’s all about the money.

Yes, the upstarts, Texas and San Francisco, vanquished heavily favored foes and the league’s two hottest teams embark on a tight matchup tonight. Here are our thoughts:

Rich:
Rangers in seven

Usually you can predict the winner of the World Series by asking a simple question, “Who’s happy to be there, and who wants to win?” That isn’t the case this year because frankly, neither team was supposed to be here. With that said, this should be a phenomenal series.  The matchup is perfect. San Francisco has great pitching and adequate hitting.  The starting rotation is outstanding, and the bullpen is deep. With all due respect Mr. Halladay, Tim Lincecum has become the best big game pitcher in the National League, and if Brian Wilson isn’t the best closer, he’s certainly a fair representation.

The Giants lineup doesn’t feature one great hitter, but there isn’t an easy out 1-8 in that lineup either. They also have in Pablo Sandoval a rare luxury for any NL team heading to an AL park: a designated hitter. Texas is the exact opposite, great hitting and adequate pitching. Cliff Lee is the best player in the Series, but the rotation drops off some after that. With Josh Hamilton, Vlad Guerrero, Ian Kinsler , Michael Young, etc., etc., the Rangers will show the Giants the strongest lineup they’ve seen all year. Neither team plays brick wall defense, but both feature some great players in the field.

So call it a toss-up.

I’m a Giants fan for two decades, so I really want to pick them to win. However, I think the Rangers have so much momentum heading into this series, along with Lee, I have to go with the Rangers in 7. I guess.

Andy:
Rangers in six

The pitching matchups will be fantastic. Offense will be scarce. But I think the Rangers have the potential to put up a few more runs than the Giants do.

Plus, the momentum garnered by taking out the heavily favored Yankees will keep them hot. Games will be low scoring and close. But the Rangers will prevail.

Tony:
Giants in six

Well, pretty clear whoever I pick will lose. I pick the Giants.

Pitching and homefield advantage. Should be a good series.

All three of the Brushbackpitch writers correctly predicted two of four Divisional series. Rich missed on the American League but nailed both National League series right on the nose. Andy hit Texas winning in five and Philadelphia sweeping the Reds but missed on Philadelphia’s win over Atlanta and the Yankees whitewashing of the Twins.

Tony hit the Texas and Philadelphia series but didn’t hit them squarely on the correct number of games. So … who cares? Yeah, you’re probably right.

Anyway, here are our picks for the League Championships:

Rich:
New York over Texas, six games
Philadelphia over San Francisco, five games

Tony:
New York over Texas, six games
Philadelphia over San Francisco, five games

Andy:
Texas over New York, six games
Philadelphia over San Francisco, six games