In early December, 2007, the Detroit Tigers shocked the baseball world, trading six players, including two supposed "untouchable" prospects, to the Florida Marlins for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis. Tiger fans were astonished, and ecstatic. The Tigers? Our Tigers? Miguel Cabrera?

Within a matter of weeks, another announcement came, that the Tigers and Cabrera had agreed to an eight year, $153 million contract extension. This was by far the richest contract in franchise history. In fact, this deal was more than double the amount of money that Magglio Ordonez had been guaranteed three years earlier.

Since his arrival in Detroit, Cabrera has been "The Man" in the Tiger lineup. One of the best hitters in the game. A perennial MVP candidate. A slugger for the ages. Cabrera has had his ups and downs off the field, but he has always produced for the Tigers since coming from Florida. He’s always been the biggest and the brightest star. Until now.

Earlier this week, word began to spread that the Tigers had signed Prince Fielder to a nine year, $214 million contract. The Tigers have shocked the baseball world again. Fielder will be paid $23 million per year for the next two years, and $24 million per year for seven more years after that. He has incentive clauses of half a million to a million dollars for MVP awards, and plenty of other six figure bonuses for Silver Slugger awards, Hank Aaron awards, All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves. He also gets a private suite while the Tigers are on the road.

Cabrera is now the second highest paid Tiger, at $21 million per year in 2012 and 2013, and $22 million per year for 2014 and 2015, before his contract is due to expire. Justin Verlander, the reigning Cy Young winner and Most Valuable player in the league, is the third highest paid Tiger, at $20.1 million. Only one other team, the Yankees, has three players earning salaries over $20 million per year. A couple of teams have two such players. Most teams don’t have any.

The first question that Tiger fans and baseball experts were asking, after getting over the initial shock of the Fielder signing, is what impact will this have on Miguel Cabrera? Where will he play? Is he okay with this? The reaction from fans is a mixture of sheer joy at the thought of a lineup that features the best one-two punch in the game, with at least a small dose of uncertainty about Cabrera being moved off his position to make room for the new kid in town.

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Let's just be honest with ourselves, and we don't need a single stat to back us up on this: The Tigers infield defense probably won't be pretty this season. For that matter, the outfield defense may not be beautiful, either. We're not going to see a lot of web gems on ESPN, and the ones we do will almost exclusively come from Austin Jackson.

I'm fine with that.

One reason for feeling that way is that I think -- as I've expressed -- people exaggerate when talking about sports. Shocking, I know. In a world of nuance, in sports, like in politics, people have a "bring it strong" mentality. If it's not the completely mindless shouting on ESPN (or CNN, or Fox, or wherever) -- as perfected by the completely pointless Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless -- then it's otherwise intelligent people with just as breathless proclamations, only with more numbers. We've had intelligent writers and people I respect tell us that bullpens don't matter and that the Tigers made all kinds of mistakes in signing Jose Valverde and Joaquin Benoit. Bullpens don't matter? I shudder to think what the Tigers would have looked like with Ryan Perry as the closer. But I guess you don't get to shout on ESPN or land a big-time gig by looking for shades of gray.

Can I blame them? I don't know. Maybe. There was a time when I would have been the one standing behind numbers and theories with certainty -- long time readers going back to my original Tigers blog can vouch for that. They've probably noticed the over-time transition that comes with experience -- watching as what we "know" doesn't always work out nearly as well as we'd like or ends up to be just plain wrong. I like to think I've learned from my mistake over time and have gained maturity and experience along the way.

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"It's amazing. Because every lineup I've written down so far, (Miguel) Cabrera and (Prince) Fielder are in that lineup."

Tigers manager Jim Leyland has had a happy couple of days in filling out imaginary lineup cards. This is the one he recited during the Tigers' press conference held today to announce the signing of Prince Fielder:

1. Austin Jackson (RH)
2. Brennan Boesch (LH)
3. Miguel Cabrera (RH)
4. Prince Fielder (LH)
5. Delmon Young (RH)
6. Alex Avila (LH)
7. Jhonny Peralta (RH)
8. ?
9. ?

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There were two major questions that people were asking after news of Prince Fielder signing with the Tigers came out. We could make assumptions -- safe ones it turns out -- but we didn't have answers before today. The first: Does this deal get done without Victor Martinez being injured? Answer: No. The second: Was this deal hatched by Mike Ilitch? The answer appears to be that he didn't hatch it but he a played a big part in it.

During the press conference today, owner Mike Ilitch, CEO/President/GM Dave Dombrowski and agent Scott Boras all shed angles on the story. Piecing those angles together, this is the rough timeline we get. It may not be quite perfect as not everyone recited their activities in perfect running diary form. But this seems reasonably close.

January 11 -- Prince Fielder is renewing his wedding vows with his wife Chanel. Agent Scott Boras said that because of this, he and Prince were not ready to begin any discussions about contracts around this time.

January 12-13 -- Somewhere around here, Victor Martinez injured his left knee while doing lateral movement drills. His right knee slipped, and his left knee absorbed too much weight, tearing the ACL.

January 16 -- Dombrowski receives word that Martinez has had an MRI in Florida and will likely need surgery and miss the season. Fans and team alike are hit by a punch to the gut.

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Prince Fielder will be introduced by the Detroit Tigers in a press conference set for 2 p.m. today at Comerica Park.

Those of you out of state or at work might be wondering how you can see Prince Fielder introduced in the Old English D.

Fox Sports Detroit plans to stream the press conference, and it should also be televised on Fox Sports Detroit as well as the MLB Network.

You can use this thread to discuss it while it's happening.

We'll have a story about it here and links to FSD's archive of it when they post it, as well.

There are so many questions with Prince Fielder signing a nine-year, $214-million contract with the Tigers that need to be answered. Originally I was going to do this burning questions style, but I think I'll just crank out a series of shorter posts to help keep conversation lines more organized.

Start with the obvious question: Nine years? $214 million?! Are the Tigers crazy? Are they going to regret this in the end?

That is the way the question has been framed by most in the baseball commentary world, as we covered in yesterday's links roundup. Rob Neyer's headline goes so far as to ask "Will Prince Fielder's contract rank among the worst ever?" in a headline on his story at Baseball Nation.

I'll be honest, I think it's all a bit of lunacy and breathless commentary from an industry that peddles in breathless commentary.

This is the era where top players are paid upwards of $20 million a season to play baseball. In terms of dollars per year, Fielder's contract currently ranks seventh at about $23.8 million a year. There are actually 15 contracts right now that average at least $20 million a year.

Fielder fits in roughly with Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard, Adrian Gonzalez and Joe Mauer in annual compensation and the length of the deal. Sure he's maybe a million higher a year, but I hardly find that to be a reason to freak out. On a shorter deals, you can add in names like Miguel Cabrera or Mark Teixeira. And what do these players all have in common? They more or less are all first basemen/designated hitter types, and some are fellow bigger-bodied players. It sure looks to me that MLB baseball teams have pegged a certain value to players of this ilk, and it looks appears like Fielder's fits in.

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The Tigers officially announced what we all already knew: They have signed Prince Fielder through 2020. The press conference is set for 2 p.m.

Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski said in the press release:

"Prince Fielder is one of the premier offensive players in the game of baseball and we are extremely excited to add an all-star caliber player like him to our lineup.

"The addition of Prince is a testament to the organization's continued commitment to fielding a championship club."

MLB.com's Jason Beck has an update on the money end on his blog.

Details of the contract are also coming out in the report - $23 million in each of his first two seasons, followed by a $24 million annual salary for the ensuing seven years. He also has plenty of incentives: $500,000 for AL MVP with $1 million if he's a repeat winner, $200,000 for second thru fifth place, $100,000 for top 10, $100,000 if he's an All-Star starter, $50,000 for a reserve spot, and $100,000 each for a Hank Aaron award, Silver Slugger, Gold Glove, or Sporting News or Baseball America postseason All-Star honors.