Tigers with buyer's remorse. Rangers and Tigers have reportedly agreed to a Ian Kinsler/Prince Fielder swap.
Sorry -- I copied these posts out to a new thread. Maybe there's not enough interest in baseball, but I hate seeing such a big trade get buried in a general thread. I was surprised by this, given how good the Tigers were this year, but $214 million over 9 years is a lot of bank. The Rangers can move Jurickson Profar in to second base. Will be interesting to see how this turns out.
Arlington still has a couple more middle infielders in Luis Sardinas and Rougned Odor (an all-time great name) waiting in the wings, too. Both of them aren't too far off, as they finished last year in AA.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Here is the math on the finances: Prince owed $168M. <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Tigers&src=hash">#Tigers</a> pay $30M of that, plus Kinsler’s $62M - total of $92M. Savings of $76M.</p>— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/statuses/403352113427652610">November 21, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I assume Rangers feel Profar's upside is better than what they would get out of a 31yr old Kinsler from this point on.
So Rangers are on the hook for 7 years and around $138M. I liked it a lot more without $30M going to the Rangers.
Prince became the scapegoat for the Tigers postseason failures this year and coupled with the amount of money he was making sealed his fate in Detroit. While Kinsler is not equal return for Fielder, the money they save can put them in play for a lead off outfield FA like Choo or Ellsbury, or it could allow them to resign Scherzer following the 2014 season.
My GUESS is the Tigers will focus on locking up Scherzer...and use flexibility down the line to make sure Cabrera doesn't get away (though, admittedly I don't know his contract status)
This seems like a great deal for both teams. Detroit clears some money to spend on their pitching staff. Cabrera can move to 1st. I believe they have a good 3B prospect coming up. And they fill a huge hole at 2B. Rangers get Fielder at below market value thanks to the $30MM Detroit kicks in. They get younger and healthier. They fill a huge left-handed power void and a hole at 1B. They have a hotshot prospect to put in at 2B that was blocked by both Kinsler and Andrus' ridiculously stupid contract.
