Prince Fielder Stats & Scouting Report

AB	5821
AVG	.283
OBP	.382
SLG	.506
HR	319

Full name Prince Semien Fielder
Born 05/09/1984 in Ontario, CA
Profile Ht.: 5'11" / Wt.: 275 / Bats: L / Throws: R
School Eau Gallie
Debut 06/13/2005
Drafted in the 1st round (7th overall) by the Milwaukee Brewers in 2002 (signed for $2,400,000).

View Draft Report

The son of former American League home run champ Cecil Fielder is drawing strong interest from a couple of teams with ties to his dad: the Brewers, whose senior adviser Bill Lajoie was the general manager in Detroit when Fielder starred there, and the Tigers. Fielder produces mixed reports, and some teams think his body is as scary as his power, which ranks behind only fellow Florida high schooler Brian Dopirak's as the best in the draft. Fielder, who signed with Arizona State, is considered better than Dopirak because he hits lefthanded, has a better approach at the plate and is more agile. Cecil paid a personal trainer to help Prince cut his 6-foot frame from 300 to 250 pounds, but not all scouts are convinced the weight will stay off when he's in the bus trip and fast food lifestyle of the minor leagues. Prince is shorter and heavier than Cecil was at the same age, and Cecil had one of baseball's all-time bad bodies. He might fit best with an AL team, which could stash Fielder at DH if he puts the weight back on.

Top Rankings

Organization Prospect Rankings

Fielder first came to the attention of BA readers in 1998, our first Baseball For The Ages issue. He wasn't the top 14-year-old--that honor went to Braves righthander Kyle Davies--but he was featured as the prominent son of a big leaguer. His father Cecil was wrapping up a 319-homer major league career. By then, Prince's power already was the talk of his father's clubhouses, thanks to batting-practice displays he had put on at Tiger Stadium. Fielder has since become a major leaguer, like his father, with a June 2005 promotion so he could DH for the Brewers in interleague play. Between being a pudgy, shy 14-yearold and a confident, 21-year-old big leaguer, Fielder has dealt with his share of adversity. Scouts doubted his bulky, overweight body out of high school, but the Brewers didn't and drafted him seventh overall. He arrived in Double-A as a 19-year-old, only after he had been served with papers stemming from an investigation into his father's gambling debts, problems that led to the family's breakup and Prince's estrangement from his father. He left the Arizona Fall League this offseason when his wife Chanel, whom he wed in June, had medical issues while pregnant with their second child. Through all his travails, Fielder has hit and hit for power. He has as much raw power as any hitter in the minors due to tremendous bat speed and brute strength. He has power to any part of any park and is at his best when he's using the whole field, letting his strength work for him. He homered in his first two games at Triple-A Nashville before a month-long slump, and it's the adjustments he made to get going again that have the Brewers so excited. Fielder knows the strike zone well and started picking up on the steady diet of breaking balls he was seeing. Once he started trusting his hands to hit breaking balls left in the strike zone, he punished them. He was productive in a pinch-hitting role in the big leagues due to his ability to focus during those at-bats, and he carried that improved concentration with him when he returned to the minors, hitting .349 with 13 homers in his final 39 games. Fielder can get pull-conscious, opening his shoulder and giving away the outer half of the plate. Defense is perhaps Fielder's biggest obstacle. He's more comfortable in the batter's box than at first base, and he made 12 errors in 101 games in 2005. He has good hands for the position and more quickness than he's given credit for, but must show more pride in his defense to be rated as average. Lyle Overbay was one of the Brewers' best hitters the last two seasons, but he was arbitration-eligible and his power was dwarfed by Fielder's. So at the Winter Meetings, general manager Doug Melvin sent Overbay and minor league righthander Ty Taubenheim to the Blue Jays for young big leaguers David Bush and Gabe Gross, plus lefty prospect Zach Jackson. Now that Fielder has a clear path to playing time, he's an instant favorite to be National League rookie of the year.
Fielder earned low Class A Midwest League MVP honors in 2003. But if there wasn't already enough pressure on the seventh overall pick in 2002 and the son of a former big league home run king, things got more difficult when reports of his father Cecil's seven-figure gambling debts surfaced in October. Fielder has outstanding power to all fields and enhances it by recognizing pitches early. He shows the patience to take a walk and rarely chases bad pitches out of his zone. He employs a compact stroke with tremendous bat speed, making him a constant threat. He has worked hard to control his weight, which was a concern in high school, and must remain diligent in that area. Fielder never will be more than adequate at first base, though he's no longer a liability. He may have limited range, but he has soft hands and good reactions. There is little doubt that he'll rake in the majors. The question is when. With Lyle Overbay busting out last year, there's no immediate need to rush Fielder to the big leagues, even if he'll play in Triple-A as a 21-year-old.
The son of former big league slugger Cecil Fielder is a completely different hitter than his dad. He bats lefthanded, hits for average, covers the plate well and goes the other way with pitches. His signature tool, however, is the same as his father's: power. One of the Midwest League's youngest players, he won the league MVP award at age 19. All of the aforementioned offensive skills make Fielder a prodigy at the plate. Few hitters with his youth or power are as accomplished and as knowledgeable. He takes walks when pitchers decide to work around him. His pitch recognition and quick bat make him a tough out at the plate. Fielder admittedly worked little on his fielding in high school, and it shows. He made strides last year under Beloit manager Don Money, who made him work long hours on his moves around the bag. Through discipline and use of a personal trainer, he has his weight under control but must continue to be diligent. Fielder's bat should get him to the big leagues in relatively short order, though the Brewers don't want to rush him. He should be ready for Double-A in 2004, when he'll again be young for his league.
Though they already have a potential logjam of first basemen starting with Richie Sexson, the Brewers surprised a lot of people by selecting another with the seventh overall pick last June. Fielder, however, isn't just another first baseman. The son of former American League home run king Cecil Fielder, Prince has power so rare that scouting director Jack Zduriencik said it was impossible to pass up. Not only was Fielder once of the best power bats available in the 2002 draft, but he also has a sweet lefthanded swing, an advanced hitting approach and solid plate discipline. The Brewers weren't afraid to promote him to low Class A two months after he left high school. They knew he wouldn't be overwhelmed because he grew up around big league parks. The question that has dogged Fielder thus far is his weight. After ballooning to more than 300 pounds in high school, he worked with a personal trainer and slimmed down to about 265. He has some agility but doesn't project to be more than an average first baseman. The Brewers toyed with the idea of trying Fielder in left field during instructional league, but a groin injury kept him off the field. He should be fine for spring training and will open the year back in Beloit.

Minor League Top Prospects

The Brewers have pushed Fielder very fast, skipping him a level last year and having him open 2005 in Triple-A at age 20. It looked like they may have asked too much of him when he was hitting just .226 with three homers through mid-May, but he made adjustments and batted .327 with 25 homers in his final 64 PCL games. He has as much power potential as any player in the minors, and that's what gives him the edge over fellow PCL first basemen Jackson and Kotchman. Fielder can catch up to any fastball with his compact stroke, and his pitch recognition and plate discipline will allow him to hit for average as well. Though he's more athletic than his 6-foot, 260-pound frame would suggest, he'll never be more than an adequate defender.
It's amazing to think that a 20-year-old can already have a reputation that precedes him, but Fielder does. Anyone who's asked about him talks about his bloodlines, his power and his body. That didn't change this year, as Fielder struggled at times in making the jump from low Class A to Double-A. Some managers would like to see him repeat the league, and predict dominant numbers if he returns. Fielder's power is startling and should be well above-average. Scouts say he'll be at least an average overall hitter, and some think he'll be better than that because of his approach, pitch recognition and discipline. He doesn't swing at a lot of bad pitches. His defense is another story, as his soft hands and good reactions are counteracted by his lack of speed and range. He also needs better focus. Fielder's 6-foot, 260-pound frame always will be an issue, but his father Cecil was an impact player with an even worse physique.
It isn't often that managers tab a 5-foot-11, 245-pounder as a league's most exciting player, but then again Fielder is an uncommon 19-year-old slugger with gifts beyond his considerable power. He also hits for average and controls the strike zone, which is how he led the MWL in RBIs and placed second in on-base percentage (.409) and slugging (.526) behind players four years older. Managers and scouts consider him a better prospect than former Beloit star Brad Nelson, who led the minors in RBIs in 2002, because Fielder's power potential grades out at the top of the 20-80 scouting scale. He could emulate his father Cecil and win a big league home run crown, and he's a more advanced hitter than his dad was. Fielder won't be more than adequate at first base because of his limited range and lateral movement, but he needs to work harder during pregame infield. "I haven't seen that kind of power since I've been here," said Don Money, Beloit's manager since 1998. "Last year he came here as a raw kid out of high school. This year he came back with a plan. He can hit the ball out of any ballpark to any field. The ball comes off his bat like a big leaguer."
Fielder's biggest strength was, well, his strength. Easily the top power prospect in the league, Cecil Fielder's son hit an opposite-field homer in his first professional game. The ball traveled over a scoreboard that sits behind Ogden's left-field wall, 335 feet from home plate. After all the power displays, teams stayed away from him and Fielder, the Brewers' first-round pick this year, got a chance to demonstrate his advanced knowledge of the strike zone. He walked 37 times in 41 games and posted a .531 on-base percentage. "You're banking on his bat," Kotchman said. "He has power to all fields, but he'll have the same questions he's always had." Those questions are Fielder's size--though he's well under the 300 pounds he once carried in high school--and how it will affect his speed and defense. That's really the biggest difference in Loney and Fielder, who won't have the option of becoming a DH.