Fielder and the Tigers agreed Tuesday to a nine-year, $214 million contract, a person familiar with the deal said. The AL Central champions boldly stepped up in the Fielder sweepstakes after the recent knee injury to star Victor Martinez. A week ago, the Tigers announced the productive designated hitter could miss the entire season after tearing his left ACL during offseason conditioning.
CBS first reported the agreement with Fielder.
The person told The Associated Press the deal was subject to a physical. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the contract was not yet complete.
Several teams had shown interest this winter in Fielder, the free agent first baseman who had spent his entire career with the Milwaukee Brewers. He visited Texas, and the Washington Nationals also got involved in the discussions.
The Tigers won their division by 15 games before losing in the AL championship series to Texas. With Fielder now in the fold, general manager Dave Dombrowski and owner Mike Ilitch have a team that figures to enter the 2012 season as a favorite to repeat in the division — with an eye on winning the franchise’s first World Series title since 1984.
“Everyone knew Mr. Ilitch and Mr. Dombrowski were going to make a move when Victor went down,” outfielder Brennan Boesch said in a phone interview with the AP. “But I don’t think anybody thought it would be this big.”
Fielder’s decision stunned many fans around baseball, including those in the nation’s capital, who had hoped signing the young slugger would signal the Washington Nationals’ rise from the depths of the National League. As Adam Kilgore reported:
The Tigers swooped in and claimed Fielder with a contract, according to widespread reports, worth $214 million over nine years, pending a physical. When the winter began, Detroit had no room for Fielder, with Miguel Cabrera at first base and Victor Martinez at designated hitter. But then Martinez tore his anterior cruciate ligament, and the Tigers offered a massive sum for baseball’s premier remaining free agent.
Nationals ownership met with Fielder once and continued discussing him with Scott Boras, the representative for Fielder and a gaggle of prominent Nationals. Could they have lured Fielder with a sizable offer before Martinez’s injury made the Tigers a factor? The Nationals likely would not have met Boras’s price, anyway. They were wary of offering more than six or seven years, according to one person familiar with the Nationals’ thinking, and Boras believed from the start he could get Fielder a contract of $200 million.
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