Tigers acquire Fielder: Good move?

I'm a huge Detroit Tigers fan.  I hadn't heard much about any huge deals involving the Tigers so I was completely surprised when I heard that Prince Fielder had signed a 9 year $214 million contract.

I was listening to the radio this morning and one person on there was saying that this was a bad deal for Detroit.    His reasons were Fielder's weight, the amount and length of the contract, and that the Tigers already have an all-star calibre first baseman.

I completely disagree.  Prince Fielder has been a proven run producer and leader and he's been virtually injury free throughout his career.  He's one of the top 5 hitters in baseball.  Last year he had more RBIs and less strikeouts than Curtis Granderson, Adrian Gonzolez, Ryan Howard, Mark Teixeira, Jose Bautista, and Joel Votto.

When you have a chance to get a guy that good at 27 years old, you take it.  Especially when you know he'll be playing for you for the next 9 year, the prime of his career.

Peyton Hillis a Detroit Lion?

Ever since Barry Sanders retired, Detroit fans have been waiting in anticipation for the next feature running back.  Personally, my hopes were the highest when they drafted Kevin Smith out of UCF, a guy with a gazillion rushing yards in college.  As it turned out, he wasn't the outstanding back I had hoped for.  The list goes on...

Now we've got Mikel Leshoure, unproven in the NFL coming off an achilles injury, Jahvid Best coming off of two more concussions, and Kevin Smith back after being let go by the team.  Just like when Kevin Smith was drafted, my hopes were high and then dashed on the rocks with the draft and then injury of Leshoure.

So what should Detroit do now?

The optimist in me looks at the potential of Leshoure, Best, and Smith healthy and my mouth waters.  If Leshoure could be anything like LaGarrette Blount, and Best a poor man's Darren Sproles, Kevin Smith could back up both those guys and we'd have one of the better running back groups in football.

But hoping for the best doesn't do much for you.  The old adage "hope for the best and plan for the worst" is probably Detroit's best course of action.  that mean's bringing somebody else in that is starter quality.  Which finally gets me to the my point.

If the price is right, the Lions should go after Peyton Hillis.

Here are my reasons

• He's young
• He's proven he can be a 1,000 yard plus back
• He's the kind of runner that doesn't need great run blocking due to his straight-ahead and straight-through style of running
• He's coming off a bad season stat-wise so the price might be affordable

http://fantasysports.usatoday.com/content/player.asp?sport=NFL&id=4965

Detroit Lions Cliff Avril and other Free Agents

Detroit's defense has a couple key players without contracts.  Cliff Avril and Stephen Tulloch should be kept and given new contracts as they were 2 of the better defensive players we have.

http://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ssf/2012/01/detroit_lions_defensive_end_cl.html