Prince Chill. Your Time Will Come.
So Prince Fielder you are unhappy at being renewed for $600,000 this year. On the surface it looks like you will be underpaid by today’s standards. Certainly someone who hits 50 home runs and drives in 118 runs should get big money.With the way players get compensated under today’s system, younger stars like you are sometimes shortchanged. But that’s the way your union wants it. They set the rules, now you must live by them.
I know teams sometimes deviate from them and the big contract Troy Tulowitzki signed after only one full year must really get under your craw. But remember by signing that contract, Tulo gave up bargaining rights for short-term security.
Under your union’s rules, the Brewers have every right to renew your contract and have a strict policy of doing so, especially if players like you do not want to make a long-term commitment.
Prince, you are not alone on the “I Feel Shafted” team. Both Jon Papelbon and Cole Hamels recently expressed similar attitudes. As you know both, like you, are All-Stars.
If you can refrain from your displeasure for a year and have another stellar season, you will break the Brewers back next year when you are eligible for arbitration. Then it’s three more years before your agent Scott Boras stiff arms some team into giving you the biggest contract ever for a first baseman, even if it is “only” $100,000 more than what Ryan Howard makes. The Brewers fans better enjoy the next three years because after that you will probably take your “Royal Bash” elsewhere. (Yankees fans are already drooling at the prospect of him in pinstripes).
It will be a shame because you are already the leader in the clubhouse, a motivator with a personality that players congregate to. You are also the cog in the mighty mechanism the Brewers are building. You are immensely popular in Milwaukee among the fans. But they will begin to turn on you if you appear to them to be greedy.
Your demands in arbitration next year will likely cost the Brewers the services of Ben Sheets whose contract is up for renewal. But if you are not willing to commit beyond 2012 at a fair compensation, then the club might as well keep Sheets who likes it here and take their chances with you.
Prince, the Brewers are on the cusp of becoming something special. After years of insufferable play the team is now truly a contender. You are a big part of that. So chill, your time will come. Hopefully it will be with the Brewers.
Kenns Korner 
