It has not been an easy couple of years for Miguel Cabrera. While he played in 130 games in 2017, constantly playing through injuries for years before that — Cabrera averaged 157 games per season from 2004 through 2014 — had caught up to him, and his performance suffered. Cabrera batted just .249/.329/.399 for an OPS+ of 91, the lowest of his career.
Miguel Cabrera’s season will end with surgery
Wednesday’s Say Hey, Baseball sees another Cabrera season impacted by injury.
Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
He seemed healthier and was definitely more productive in 2018, batting .299/.395/.448 for a 128 OPS+ — not stellar for Cabrera, but certainly a massive step up from last summer’s disaster. That’s all over now, however, as Cabrera ruptured a biceps tendon, and will undergo surgery that ends his 2018.
This is demoralizing in the present, where Cabrera had rebounded to a point where he was still highly productive even if he wasn’t the Cabrera of old, and the Tigers were in second place. They lost Cabrera and the game on Tuesday, were bumped back to third, and will now have to try to climb back up the AL Central ladder without him.
The expectation was the Tigers would be a tanking mess in 2018, but they’ve managed to outperform those spring projections. It’ll be much more difficult to do without their top hitter.
Long-term issues have also come up: Cabrera was healthy, or healthy enough to take the field, for the entirety of his 20s and his early 30s. He’s 35 now, he’ll be 36 by the time he steps on a field again, and his production isn’t likely to climb back to where it used to be. Cabrera, like Albert Pujols before him, is on the way down, both in terms of health and production. Whether Cabrera will sink to Pujols’ levels remains to be seen, but the Tigers have another five seasons to look forward to where they find out if that kind of fall is coming.
The good news is that 2018 is a sign that Cabrera can still hit: the question is what he’ll hit like post-biceps injury when he’s a year older next summer.
- Entering play on Tuesday, six different teams had winning percentages under .400, and that’s despite clubs like the Tigers exceeding expectations. Grant Brisbee believes we might be in a golden age of crappy baseball.
- MLB wants to control everything, and so far, writes Whitney McIntosh, they’re succeeding.
- This is the worst soccer team we could come up with using U.S. pro athletes.
- Carson Smith hurt himself throwing his glove, and now he’s undergoing season-ending surgery.
- You should probably just watch the Cubs forget what they’re doing here, it’ll be faster than explaining it.
- Terry Collins mic’d up, arguing with an umpire? Sure, let’s do this.
- The New York Times has a feature up on English-speaking announcers pronouncing Latinx names.
- Women play baseball, too! This is a thing more people need to be aware of, which this feature hopes to make happen.
- Dan Duquette says there is “significant” interest in trading for Manny Machado, which should surprise no one.
- And on that note: do the Os go for a quick fix, or the long-term rebuild?
- Twinkies Town wants to know what’s wrong with Brian Dozier.
- Over the Monster would like you to know the Andrew Benintendi everyone was waiting for has finally arrived.
- Mike Foltynewicz had to leave Tuesday’s start early with triceps tightness.
See More:
