There's a 1 percent chance that the Nationals sign Prince Fielder?

(Prince Fielder is a pretty good bowler, too. Screencap via this TWCSports video.)

And so, we couldn't help but re-purpose the opening sentence of Bill Ladson's "Nationals unlikely to sign Prince at current price" report from Wednesday afternoon...

There is a "99 percent" chance that the Nationals will not sign free-agent first baseman Prince Fielder, according to a baseball source.
(via Bill Ladson, MLB.com, 1/11/2012)

...and make our own headline, which reads just as ridiculously as that time in 2008 when we ran with a tip from an anonymous source who told us Dmitri Young was pregnant.

Anyway, despite the pessimistic outlook from a baseball source in that MLB.com article (hint: name rhymes with "Rike Mizzo"; and probably a sign that Ted Lerner is quite unhappy with Boras at the moment), and the fact that the price in dollars has never really been the issue for the Nats (it has been and always will be length of contract, but we've gone over that enough here), and that even Boras knows there's not a chance in h-e-double hockey sticks of Prince getting a 10 year deal (maybe 8 at best if Darvish and the Rangers end up with no deal?), and the possibility of new mystery teams in the mix (of course)...we're "guessing" (air quotes) the Nats still have the best offer on the table, and we're "guessing" that if and when the market for Prince Fielder completely collapses à la Ryan Madson (maybe not that bad, but nice work, Scott!), the Nats will be last team standing. That is, if Lerner keeps his offer on the table. Ahem. Either way, unlike last winter, Ted Lerner seems to be set up nicely to tell Scott Boras to assume the position. Your guess is as good as ours.

The Washington Post's Adam Kilgore reported that the Lerners met with Boras at the owner's meetings in Arizona Wednesday night. Wonder if Boras apologized to Lerner for shopping his generous offer around? Wonder if Ted Lerner said anything about his last, best offer still being on the table?

Meanwhile, a person who knows stuff and is usually right mentioned to us that Mike Rizzo is all hot and bothered about Yoennis Cespedes again (or maybe he would just like Scott Boras to think he is?) Again, your guess is as good as ours.

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Comments

[Michael L.G.]

The 1 year Madson deal is a Boras major fail. Nothing would be better than to see Fielder go to the Nats for 5 years. Anything more should make us a little nervous & start feeling queezy like the Werth deal.

[Adam]

We don't need to stinking PF!
http://espn.go.com/mlb/hotstove11/story/_/id/7451869/dmitri-young-making-comeback