Is Prince Fielder Trying Too Hard?

The Texas Rangers traded away a player that was a fan favorite and a very consistent player in Ian Kinsler for a guy that was brought here for one reason and one reason only: to hit the long ball. After the Texas Rangers let players like Mike Napoli, Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz head off to other teams, they decided that they needed to bring power back to Texas and they thought they did so in the form of one Prince Fielder. After one month of playing baseball, it is safe to say that, so far, Prince has not held up his end of the trade. I am not saying he is a complete bust, after all we are one month into a seven-year contract, but he is not the power hitter that the Texas Rangers needed him to be in April.

Prince Fielder is batting .206/.331/.314 with 2 home runs and 9 RBI in 102 at bats. If you multiply that by six, those are not good numbers. Prince Fielder only got 21 hits in the month of April. That is not very Prince Fielder like. So what is the deal? Why is he hitting so poorly? Is it the shift that they put on for him? I don’t think so. I think his problem is 90% mental. Prince Fielder is trying too hard in my opinion. He wants so badly to be the hitter that the Texas Rangers hired him to be that he is just pressing something fierce at the plate, and therefore not hitting like Prince Fielder.

You will see a lot of times that when a month ends, a player becomes a different player. Lets hope that now that April has turned into May, that we will begin to see the Prince Fielder that the Texas Rangers thought they were getting when they traded away Ian Kinsler in hopes that they could hit the long ball with consistency again. Now that it is a new month, I really hope and think as well that all Texas Rangers fans are going to see a new Prince Fielder, or I guess I should say, the old Prince Fielder again.

All stats from TexasRangers.com