Texas Rangers Prince Fielder off to a Rough Start

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

We are now 16 games into a 162 game season, or roughly 10% of the way through the season. If this was the NFL, we would have played one game. Now don’t get me wrong, I am just looking at Prince Fielder‘s numbers so far this season compared to his past seasons, I am not saying that he is going to be like this all season long, we still have 90% of the season to go, so we shouldn’t be giving up on him yet. But the fact still remains that Texas Rangers first baseman Prince Fielder is not having a good start.

In his career, he has averaged a line of .284/.387/.524/.911 with 35 home-runs and 106 RBI (baseball reference). So far this season he is at .164/.271/.262/.534 with 1 home-run and 4 RBI. That puts him well above his average, but you cannot project that out over a whole season in my opinion, because That is not how baseball goes. Prince Fielder will get hot at some point of the season, and his numbers will rise, I just don’t believe anymore that he is going to have a 35 home-run 100 RBI season, because I think we are seeing how his struggling time is going to look through out the season. I am afraid we may be seeing the beginning of the downside of his career. I think he will have stretches of his former self, but I don’t think we will see his former self again. Not the guy that hit 46 home-runs and 141 RBI in 2009, anyway. Since that season, Prince Fielder has had seasons of 32, 38, 30 and 25 home-runs. This season he is on pace for 16 homers.

I want to be optimistic about Prince Fielder, but I am having trouble doing so. How do you feel about the Texas Rangers new first baseman? Am I over reacting? Is sixteen games not enough to call it the beginnings of a bust? I guess the only good thing we can take out of the Fielder signing so far is that at least he is no J.P. Arencibia. For me personally, 10 hits in 70 at bats is just not good enough for what we expected from Prince Fielder.