Is Miggy Going to Play Baseball Again
John Bazemore/Associated Press
LAKELAND, Fla. — In that location we were, Miggy and me, in the tunnel off the dugout, when the Detroit Tigers big man paused to explain himself.
"I'g not trying to exist a dick," Miguel Cabrera says.
He was talking about what happened a couple of hours earlier on this leap solar day, though there was no demand for an explanation. I had approached him before batting practice to say hello, and he waved me off and said he couldn't talk right then. Now, with batting practice finished, he had something to become off his chest.
"I'1000 not trying to be a dick," he continues. "But I accept to get my dorsum worked on."
Cabrera hasn't always been the most communicative fellow, but I've almost always constitute him cooperative and, often, playful.
Only these are different times. Cabrera turns 35 April eighteen. He is coming off the worst season of his career. His half dozen'4", 240-pound torso has been battered, and his team has been ransacked.
Gone are the years when the Tigers were annual World Series contenders. Now Cabrera is an island unto himself in a rebuilding organisation that lost 98 games final year, surrounded mostly by a dugout full of hopefuls and maybes. In 2017, the Tigers traded ace Justin Verlander, slugger J.D. Martinez and second baseman Ian Kinsler. This yr they may deal shortstop Jose Iglesias, starter Michael Fulmer and whomever else might net immature prospects as general managing director Al Avila pans for gold.
Owed $192 million through 2024, co-ordinate to Baseball-Reference.com, Cabrera himself will non be afforded a shot to win somewhere else. No chance everyone takes that contract off Detroit'due south easily.
"I say to God, 'Thank you for giving me the risk to exist here,' and that's it, you know?" Cabrera tells B/R. "I never take anything for granted. I'g thankful to be here. There's no issue about what's going on."
From a distance, an assembly line of stars exiting Motown bank check their rearview mirrors in the way former teammates practise when they understand the competitive fire of 1 of their ain is fenced in.
"He'southward trapped in it," former Tigers star Torii Hunter, now a special assistant in baseball operations for the Minnesota Twins, tells B/R. "But ane affair about Miguel, he's going to get out and have care of business concern. I don't know if guys will walk up to this guy. He'southward a superstar. Merely all of those young position players should get upwards and ask him a lot of questions.
"At this point, this is where y'all give it back. All the winning, all the playoff feel, the Triple Crown, the dwelling house run titles, everything he's put into this game and learned, he'south got to give information technology back to these young guys. That's how y'all assist rebuild."
Aye, Cabrera says. He is on board.
"I'm here to play," he says. "I'm non here to give my opinion of what's going to happen. I'g here to practise my job, to help win games and to assistance the process."
After helping lead the Tigers to the playoffs every yr from 2011 to 2014, Miguel Cabrera faces a season in Detroit more focused on the future than on the season alee. Lynne Sladky/Associated Press/Associated Press/Associated Press
Cabrera sees the earthmovers all around him and feels the tremors. He has known Avila since he was 15. Avila signed him with the then-Florida Marlins organization in July 1999. They have a common trust, which is no small part of the reason Cabrera isn't about to make waves.
"He understands what his part hither tin can be, and he'due south a professional person," Avila says. "You know, you lot sign a contract, you come to play. You lot come to win and you're a pro."
Avila says Cabrera reported in great shape, having worked harder than always this wintertime. He had to. Male parent Time shows no mercy. And Cabrera must exist especially diligent about his back, which he injured during last year'south World Baseball game Classic and which wound up sabotaging his 2017 flavour. So when he waves off an interview en route to getting his back worked on, information technology'due south understandable.
"It'due south tough, man," says Justin Upton, who spent most of the last two seasons in Detroit merely is at present playing alongside Mike Trout and Albert Pujols with the Angels. "Miggy is a competitor. He wants to win. And when a team is going through a rebuilding procedure, it can exist tough on a player, energy wise."
Even the smallest things can exist a challenge. No, Cabrera says, he does not even know the names nevertheless of some of his new teammates. Then again, he says with a sly smile, that's nada new.
"I've been here for 10 years and about of my teammates, I don't even know their names," he says.
C'mon. Even in the one-time days, Miggy?
"No," he protests. "Even in the old days. You can ask any histrion if I know every proper noun and he'll say no."
So what, so, did you call them?
"I say, 'Hey, bro. What's up, bro?'"
Hunter, in Florida, and Kinsler, in Arizona, both roar with laughter when they hear this.
"His favorite word was 'bro,'" Hunter says. "Bro, bro. And so he'd become to some other guy. Bro, bro.
"That'south and so true. That's 100 percent true. And he has this funny way of saying it. He sticks his paw out and says, Bro…bro…broohhh."
Kinsler says, "He knew my name, but and so, my locker was right adjacent to his, so he'd meliorate.
"Simply…now that you say that, peradventure he didn't."
Though Cabrera may not know his teammates' names, he understands that he is expected to aid guide a new-look clubhouse through what promises to exist a difficult season ahead. Mike McGinnis/Getty Images
Cabrera has had his share of off-field problems during his career. He is recovering from alcoholism. He is the accused in a kid support arrange. His real life has never been as easy as he makes it look between the foul lines, especially when winning AL MVP awards (2012 and 2013), AL batting titles (2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015) and racking up MLB's offset Triple Crown since 1967 (2012).
On the field, he's performed with a singular conclusion that has additional his luster. He played through a sports hernia for the last six weeks of the 'xiii flavour earlier the Tigers' last, all-time chance at a World Serial championship fizzled against Boston in the ALCS.
"He just mowed through it," Hunter says. "He should have been sidelined, but he knew we needed him in the playoffs. I've had it before. I played through information technology for 5 weeks, and I couldn't go no more than. This guy played through it. I'm tough. That guy's tough."
Cabrera refused to let trainers to examine him during that time considering he knew they might society him to the sidelines. Finally, he relented on one status: You can look at me, Cabrera told them, but you have to promise that whatever you detect, you allow me to stay on the field.
"Absolutely true," Hunter says. "And some of the balls striking in the gap became singles that should have been doubles, but he was however getting clutch hits and nosotros were even so scoring runs."
Every bit Michigan has grown to love him, so, also, has he grown to love Michigan back.
"I experience a part of Michigan, a office of Detroit," Cabrera says. "I've been here for 10 years. I can call information technology my dwelling, too."
He thinks about this as he watches a reconstruction that rivals anything on the Detroit-area freeways.
"I'm hither to do what they ask me to do, and they ask me to play baseball and do everything on the field, and it's worth doing," he says. "I take nothing to say about rebuilding because information technology'southward none of my business concern.
"I simply have to be ready to play, you know?"
Cabrera worked extensively on his core over the winter because of past injuries and considering he's reached the age where it is difficult to become the body to do what y'all ask of it. Playing grab-upwardly for the rest of the flavour following last spring'due south back injury, he finished at .249/.329/.399 with 16 homers and 60 RBI in 130 games. In his mid-30s, Cabrera'south Triple Crown-tiptop surely is ancient history. But equally the greatest correct-handed hitter of our generation and ane of the best e'er, Cabrera is adamant to bend Father Time to his will, rather than vice versa.
"You lot want to see that kind of talent on contending teams," says Martinez, Cabrera's old teammate, who now is with a strong Red Sox club. "That's when you get to appreciate it."
Torii Hunter played in Detroit in 2013-fourteen, during which time Cabrera became the outset player to win the Triple Crown since 1967. Matt Slocum/Associated Press/Associated Press/Associated Press
No, this transition is not going to be easy on Cabrera'south trunk, and it sure as hell isn't going to exist easy on his psyche. Keeping himself in 1 slice while giving of his fourth dimension and energy to the time to come faces of the Tigers effectually him will be laborious and, at times, exhausting.
Then once again…
"Why non rebuild a team around Miguel Cabrera if he's going to give it all back?" Hunter asks. "What's in his mind is nothing but wisdom. If I was going to rebuild a team, it would be around a Miguel Cabrera, a Mike Trout, a Bryce Harper, and then [others] can acquire what is this guy doing to be the all-time. What does it take?
"I was in Detroit for two years and had a chance to picket him piece of work behind the scenes. I'm thinking a guy similar that doesn't accept to work as hard. But he worked just as hard as anybody in that clubhouse. He came downward to the cage, and it was similar his office. He striking, he did what he had to practise, and when it was time, information technology translated on the field."
At present Cabrera's influence can exist merely as wide-reaching, every bit long as he remains on lath with the plan.
"For the two years I was there, we laughed so much that my abs are still pain," Hunter says. "With Prince Fielder, Miggy, myself, Victor Martinez, Austin Jackson…nosotros had a great time over in that location. As far as grapheme and a guy who wants to laugh, cheque. I want him on my team no matter what."
Terminal year, though, was no laughing affair as Avila steered the arrangement and its fans into the unenviable job of rebuilding. He dug back into his past when he was with the Marlins, recalling how out of the ashes of the 1997 World Series squad came the '03 world champions led by two players he signed: Cabrera and ace Josh Beckett.
"So I know it can work," Avila says. "It's simply a process. Hey, we tried, right? And now you tin can't push button the envelope whatever more. You hit a brick wall, the payroll got to a point where information technology was non sustainable anymore and you're non going to go three years over the luxury revenue enhancement. [The Yankees and Dodgers aren't] doing it, and we certainly weren't going to do information technology. And then, time to beginning over."
Miggy understands the process, Avila says. "He's a professional person, and he's been great."
The owner of 462 career habitation runs, Cabrera also has the highest career batting average of any active player in Major League Baseball (.317). John Raoux/Associated Printing/Associated Printing
Equally we chat in the tunnel'due south darkness, Cabrera says he hopes he'southward even so here when the light over again appears. He appreciates everything he'south been through in Detroit. And he appreciates the Tigers' rich history. Hall of Famer Al Kaline and former slugger Willie Horton still frequent the ballpark, and Alan Trammell and Jack Morris will be inducted into baseball game's Hall of Fame in July.
"You're talking about big names," Cabrera says. "You've got to have respect for these guys equally a thespian because of all the skillful for the city. They've already done it. … You're dreaming to make it that far," he says of the Kalines and Trammells. "… At present, we're still hither, and we want to do something special for the city."
So he discusses how it is not fair to talk about him or anyone else in the aforementioned breath equally those who already accept helped shower Detroit with World Series trophies and golden memories. No, at that place is no need for Miggy to explain himself, to emphasize that he's non trying to be a jerk. There is a monumental task ahead of him and, now more than ever, his work is cut out for him.
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.
Source: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2764251-2-time-mvp-miguel-cabrera-is-stuck-in-baseball-purgatory
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