I know I’m late to the game when it comes to this topic, but it took me some time to put my thoughts together, because I most definitely over reacted when it first happened. Detroit Tigers first baseman and designated hitter Miguel Cabrera recently stirred the pot and sent the media into a tizzy with some comments he made in regards to his lack of power production in the lineup.
As we all know Miggy decided to put the lineup on blast rather than owning his lack of power. When asked about it Cabrera said the following:
“You know Prince Fielder? You know who’s hitting behind me right now? That’s a big difference…”
“How am I going to hit 40 home runs? In the past, I got Prince Fielder, Victor Martinez, Jhonny Peralta. I got a big bat behind me. You see the way guys pitch me? That explains everything.”
It seemingly appears that Miguel is throwing teammate Niko Goodrum under the bus with his comments, placing the blame on Niko’s “lack of power”, despite having hit 16 home runs along with 29 doubles and 3 triples last season (64 [58%] of his 109 hits in 2018), as the reason why he has only mustered 1 home run and 6 doubles so far this season. I honestly don’t believe this to be the case.
Cabrera is currently averaging around 3.9 at-bats per game thru his 31 games played so far in 2019. If we believe he will stay healthy for the majority of the season, I would guess that he will play in 155 total games this year which should bring him to around 605 total at-bats by seasons end. If his pace remains the same as it has thus far, Miggy is pacing to hit a grand total of 30 doubles and 5 home runs on the season. This would be his lowest home run total in a FULL, non-injury, season since 2014.
The strange part of Miguel’s lack of power is that he has seen a slight upward tick in hard hit percentage (Hard%) every year since 2015, despite being injured in 2015 and 2018 seasons. His Hard% is not correlating into his power numbers in 2019.
From what I’ve watched this season, I don’t believe that the players around Miggy are the reason for his declined power numbers. He is currently 36 years old, father time is catching up to him. It doesn’t seem to be that pitchers are pitching him differently, rather, he is seeing a career high 66.9% first pitch strikes and swinging and missing at his second highest rate in the last ten seasons at 10.8% perfect according to FanGraphs. To me it seems as though the league is trending as a whole when it comes to pitching; it’s not that pitchers are trying to pitch around Miggy, rather, they are using less fastballs and pitching the corners/edges as a trend across the league….thus, Cabrera should be changing up his approach at the plate.
When I had first heard these comments, I was ready to lash out at Cabrera. Since I’ve cooled down and look back at things, I don’t think that there was any attempt to downplay the ability of teammate; rather, Miggy was just searching for an excuse when the media broached the subject. Unfortunately, Miguel Cabrera is past his prime, his body is starting to give way to the game…he’s toast.
Side Note: Tigers lack of home runs as a Team….
The Tigers are hitting home runs at an alarmingly slow rate thus far in 2019. As a team they have only hit 24 long balls, tied for dead last in the MLB while the Seattle Mariners are leading the way with 70 (-46 differential).
Despite the lack of homers, the Tigers are Top 10 (6th) in doubles with 67 and have managed to hit 4 triples as well, which is good for 13th in the league.
This team has the ability to get runners on base at times, but they are missing that explosive bat that can bring the runners around to score. It may be time to experiment with moving Miggy out of the No. 3 hole and sliding him down to No. 5, and possibly moving Casty into the No. 3 and once Stewart is back and healthy at the No. 4 and possibly sliding Niko up a couple slots as well.
The Tigers need to come up with a way to score runs, if they are going to play this no long ball they’re going to need to up the team batting average, start moving some runners on the base paths and playing the small ball game.