Obviously a general manager saying misleading things about a big-name free agent shouldn’t be shocking at this point, but with Prince Fielder signing a massive nine-year, $214 million deal with the Tigers today Dave Dombrowski’s comments from just four days ago are pretty interesting.
Dombrowski was asked Friday about the Tigers’ chances of signing Fielder and replied:
Of course we’d consider Prince Fielder, but realistically it’s probably not a good fit. We anticipate Victor Martinez coming back in 2013 and playing at the level he was at last season. I would just say the fit is really not there at this point.
And that seemed to make sense, because the Tigers have Miguel Cabrera at first base and owe Victor Martinez $13 million in 2013 and $12 million in 2014. Yet in less than a week Dombrowski went from saying “realistically it’s probably not a good fit” to giving him $214 million to play for the Tigers through 2020.