Mark Whicker: Cabrera not going out on top, but his resume is worth celebrating
This will be Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera’s final weekend as a major league player.
September 30, 2023
By Mark Whicker
Canadian Baseball Network
Sure, it’s sad to see Miguel Cabrera limp off the stage, to hit nine home runs in his final two years, to hit .254 in both those years when he is a lifetime .306 man.
Zack Greinke has won one game and lost 15 for a Kansas City team that has lost more than 100 games. He has won 224 games in his career.. That, too, is sad.
Adam Wainwright, at 42, will be leaving us, and the Cardinals, on the heels of a 5-11 season. At least the fifth win was the 200th of his career. But he takes a 7.40 ERA with him.
It’s difficult for fans of all these cornerstone players, because the eyes of those fans are now locked in a battle with their memories. They see a uniform that doesn’t quite fit, and they see a slow bat and a flat fastball, and they see teams that really could be doing so much better if they dedicated all the money to young, viable talent instead of ambulatory statues.
This isn’t a new thing. Willie Mays and Hank Aaron didn’t go out on top either. Ted Williams hit .316 with a 1.096 OPS when he was 41 years old, and that 1960 season was his last. Albert Pujols had forgotten most of his greatest hits when he finally retired in 2022, but then he shocked the world by hitting .323 with 18 home runs in the second half of that valedictory season, and the Cardinals needed every one.
You rarely get to outlive your usefulness in the other sports. They have salary caps, for one thing. And there’s less individualism in the other games. If you’re an obsolescent offensive tackle, your quarterback will be in physical danger. If you’re a left winger who can’t keep up with the centers, that will be noticed. But the Tigers, playing for development and not for wins, can let Cabrera bask in a tribute season, spot him against certain pitchers, hide him when necessary.. He has 356 plate appearances.
For those appearances, the Tigers are paying $32 million. Cabrera is serving out a $248 million, eight-year deal that, at the time, was the biggest in baseball history. You get all that money and per diem, too? Of course he’s going to play it out.
There will be more of this. Trea Turner, who relies on his legs for much of his value will be making $27 million when he’s 40 years old. Even Mike Trout, subsumed by injuries during the past four seasons, will make $37 million in each of his next seven years. He will be 32 in 2024 and his OPS retreated to .858, easily a career low.
So if the sight of Cabrera, in his dotage, made you glum this season, rest assured that he didn’t feel the same way.
The truth is that Cabera, in this final weekend of play against Cleveland, will get the sendoff he deserves.
He arrived in 2003 at age 20, an unusually sophisticated hitter who had a .268 average, drove in 62 runs in 87 games, and helped the Marlins to their second world championship. For each of the next 11 seasons, which included a 2008 trade to Detroit, Cabrera drove in at least 100 runs. In 11 of the next 13 seasons, he hit over .300, and won four batting titles, three of them consecutively. He also won two RBI titles, was No. 1 in American League on-base percentage four times, won two slugging titles and two OPS titles, and, at this writing has 3,170 hits and 511 home runs.
There are only six other 500-3,000 players in the history of baseball: Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Albert Pujols, Eddie Murray, Alex Rodriguez and Rafael Palmiero, and there are only six other four-time A.L. batting champs: Williams, Ty Cobb, Wade Boggs, Harry Heilmann, Nap Lajoie and Rod Carew. And only Mays and Aaron have combined 500 home runs and 3,000 hits with a career batting average over .300.
Cabrera was the MVP in 2012 and 2013, and he won the Triple Crown in 2012, the first player to lead both leagues in home runs, batting average and RBIs in 45 years. But the discerning MVP voter was most impressed by what Cabrera did when Detroit signed Prince Fielder as a first baseman. Cabrera moved back to third base, a position that he had outgrown, but he managed to survive there, and in August and September he drove in 54 runs in 57 games to get the Tigers into the playoffs and, eventually, into the World Series.
Beyond all that, Cabrera had his best baseball years after his worst personal years, after incidents that could have cost him far more than his Hall of Fame plaque.
The Tigers were fighting for the A.L. Central pennant in 2009 when Cabera picked the wrong time to go on a drinking spree. He was playing, basically, on no sleep when Detroit kicked away a three-game lead with five games left, and then lost a bitter, 12-inning 163rd game to Minnesota that kept the Tigers home.
On the final Friday night of that season, Cabrera partied until closing time at the Townsend Hotel in Detroit and, when he came home, got into a conflict with his wife Rosenagel, who called the police and said she’d been attacked. Police arrived and gave him a breathalyzer, and he recorded an 0.26 blood-alcohol contact, which was unsafe at any speed. Cabrera was booked and taken into custody but released a few hours later, and told everyone that the scratches on his face came from the family dog.
After the season, Cabrera enrolled in an alcohol-rehab program and said it had changed his life. There was a relapse and a spring training incident in 2011, but nothing since, and Cabrera reclaimed his local popularity. And he provided an example of how addiction, as formidable as it can be, is not undefeated. Along the way he became the leading Venezuelan RBI man in MLB history.
The Tigers splurged in hopes of getting owner Mike Illitch a world championship. They didn’t, and the austerity program landed hard. But in Cabrera’s final weekend they can nail down second place in the division. Two wins would give the Tigers 79 for the year, which would be their most since 2016. Spencer Torkelson has had a second half worthy of a first-overall pick, and Tarik Skubal has an 0.890 WHIP as a starting pitcher. Teams often improve before their record does, For reference, check the 2023 A.L. East champ Baltimore Orioles and where they were two years ago.
It’s hard to measure how much Miguel Cabera’s counsel has helped the young Tigers endure the bumps, but sometimes what you say can be as important as what you can no longer do. What will be remembered in Cabrera’s model career, business model notwithstanding.