Welcome to Saturday Scorecard. We know you're pressed for time today, so we'll try to keep things short so you can prepare to watch the Brewers at Fenway and Big Brown at the Preakness.

When left fielder Ryan Braun signed a $45 million contract extension this week, many Brewers fans daydreamed about a similar deal for first baseman Prince Fielder.

Keep dreaming, folks.

They are both budding superstars, they are both 24 years old (Braun is six months older) but in terms of baseball's financial game Braun and Fielder are as different as T-bone steak and tofu.

There are two ways for baseball players to make gigantic sums of money: arbitration and free agency. Fielder is eligible for arbitration after this season and will be eligible for free agency after the 2011 season.

Though he had a chance to qualify for "Super Two" loophole, Braun likely would have had to wait until after the 2010 season for his first foray into arbitration and until after 2013 for free agency.

What does all this mean?

Teams give multi-year contracts to young players in order to "buy out" years of arbitration and free agency. The Brewers would have to sign Fielder to a five-year deal to achieve the same effect they did with Braun's eight-year contract.

Fielder's agent, Scott Boras, is a hard-line negotiator who likes to expose his clients to the market at the earliest opportunity. Therefore, it's highly unlikely that Fielder would sign a five-year deal.

The Brewers could offer him three years to "buy out" the arbitration years, but there is no real benefit in that. Arbitration is kind of a "pay as you go" plan. By signing Fielder to a three-year deal, the Brewers could save some money in the long haul but they'd also expose themselves to risk if Fielder gets hurt or underperforms.

Once Fielder hits the open market, it would seem that the Brewers' chances of retaining him would be greatly diminished. Even with attendance of 3 million and increased broadcast revenues, the Brewers likely won't have as much cash to offer as teams in bigger markets.

It's a fascinating situation. It's even more intriguing when you consider that the Brewers' top draft pick last year, Matt LaPorta, is a slugging first baseman-turned-outfielder who is considered a potential replacement for Fielder.

LaPorta's agent is, you guessed it, Scott Boras.

Financial planning

For the Brewers, one of the big benefits of signing Braun to a long-term deal was cost certainty. General manager Doug Melvin, who faces potential arbitration cases with Corey Hart, J.J. Hardy, Fielder and Rickie Weeks and others next season, knows how much Braun will make and can shape the rest of his payroll accordingly.

"That's a big part of this," Melvin said. "When you have so many players going to be entering into arbitration you don't know what your cost is going to be.

"For example, Ryan Howard with the Phillies, they were either going to pay him $10 million or $7 million but they didn't know that until the end of February. If you have three million dollars' difference on a player and a million dollars' difference on another player and a million dollars' difference on another player and you're trying to plan your roster not knowing what you're going to pay players, it does strap a little bit when you go to those winter meetings and you want to make a trade and acquire a player or acquire a free agent.

"Knowing that our middle of the order hitter is tied up, we know what those numbers are. We can sit there and stare at them and know exactly what that number is going to be for Ryan for the next eight years."

Braun said he hopes other players follow his lead. "I hope this starts a trend," he said. "It would be great if we could all play together for a while."

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