Fielder could be seeking to join exclusive $200 million club

Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, having just completed a nice team-friendly $30.1-million contract for ace pitcher Yovani Gallardo, is said to remain hopeful to lock up the team's biggest star, first baseman Prince Fielder. But according to the accounts of most in the know, this one is going to be much harder to get done than the Gallardo deal.

No particulars of the negotiations between the team and Fielder's camp have yet become public, but one person familiar with the talks suggested the eight-year contracts of Mark Teixeira and Joe Mauer for $180 million and $184 million, respectively, are viewed by Fielder's people as mere starting points. And another person familiar with the talks suggested Fielder is seeking about $200 million over eight years, which would represent the biggest contract ever in the non-Alex Rodriguez category and only $23 million less than Attanasio paid for the Brewers in 2004.

Attanasio, who has previously locked up cleanup hitter Ryan Braun and raised the small-market Brewers payroll by threefold in his short time there to the current high-$80 millions, has expressed some measure of hope to confidantes regarding the Fielder talks. But one former Brewers player characterized the chances for Milwaukee to keep Fielder as "very slim.'' And one Brewers official conceded that while they believe Fielder is enjoying his time there, they don't sense that he has such an overwhelming desire to stay that it would necessarily translate to a below-market contract.

Attanasio and Fielder's agent, Scott Boras, appear to have taken a vow of silence regarding the most important player negotiations in the Brewers' history. In separate phone conversations, Attanasio and Boras both declined to comment on the alleged $200-million asking price or anything else pertaining to the talks, beyond agreeing that they are indeed engaged in negotiations. That the talks have been ongoing for weeks and have not been cut off could be seen as a positive sign by Attanasio. But in a phone conversation Sunday night, Boras' comments provide an indication of the rarefied air where he believes Fielder resides.

"When you evaluate players at the major league level, those who have done certain things by age 25 are extraordinary, and two of those things are 40 home runs and 125 RBIs. You certainly can count the number of players who have done that,'' Boras said by phone. "Extraordinary performance at a young age gives you totally different career indices.''

The contracts of Mauer and Teixeira surely will come up in talks, but it's believed that Boras will likely try to draw comparisons between Fielder and all-time great power hitters Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols, as well. Along with those two, Fielder is the only active player to have a .275 batting average, .375 on-base percentage and .550 slugging percentage with 2,500 plate appearances by the year they turned 25. Historically, the onlly players on the list are Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Mel Ott, Ted Williams, Eddie Matthews, Joe DiMaggio, Frank Robinson and Dick Allen, with Allen the only non-Hall-of-Famer in the group.

While Fielder's batting average doesn't quite measure up to that of either Rodriguez or certainly Pujols, the "extraordinary performance'' theory is an attempt to bring A-Rod and Pujols into the equation. Though Pujols is making just $16 million this year and next, people around the game put him in the category of a $30-million player considering Rodriguez's $30.5 million salary ($27.5 million plus $3 million for attainable home run plateaus) and presume he'll be making about that much in his next contract. While Fielder wouldn't expect to have the salary of Rodriguez or Pujols, that's the company he'd like to keep.

Statistically and otherwise, Fielder, still just 25, is undeniably a special slugger. He had 46 home runs, 141 RBIs and a. 299 batting average in 2009 to finish in the top five in MVP voting a second time, despite the Brewers' also-ran finish.

But while Fielder had 115 more career home runs than Mauer following the year they turned 25 (160 homers to 45), a pretty good case could be made that Mauer is the better all-around player since he's a catcher who's a three-time batting champion and a league MVP. Mauer was also a year closer to free agency when he signed for $184 million over eight years -- though, it could be countered, too, that while Mauer signed a very nice contract he would have easily surpassed $200 million had he been willing to leave his hometown Twin Cities as a free agent.

First base isn't considered a "premium'' position, either, and Fielder's free agent class could be unprecedented in terms of talent at one position (Pujols, Ryan Howard and Adrian Gonzalez are also all due to be free agents after the 2011 season). But one thing that could help Fielder is the fairly widely-held belief within baseball circles that the bigger market Cardinals and Phillies will lock up their own slugging first-base stars before they get to free agency. While Gonzalez isn't seen as likely to be locked up by his hometown Padres, an acquiring team could well do it. Though this is obviously all hypothetical, it's possible that Fielder could be left as the lone free agent among that fearsome foursome.