Detroit Tigers: Miguel Cabrera is One of MLB’s Most Underrated Hitters

Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers might be one of the most underrated hitters in baseball, according to Statcast’s hit probability tool.

Is it possible that Miguel Cabrera is actually underrated? The slugging first baseman of the Detroit Tigers might be the best hitter of the current generation yet new Statcast data suggests he’s actually a better hitter than the numbers give him credit for.

Mike Petriello of MLB.com wrote about Cabrera’s 2016 season today using Statcast data to compare his actual results to the league-neutral expectation given his batted ball exit velocity and launch angle. The conclusion? Cabrera’s .956 OPS actually could have been 142 points higher had his batted balls fallen in for hits at expected rates.

The culprit seems to be Comerica Park’s expansive center field. Here’s Petriello on how often deep fly balls turned into outs for Cabrera.

"Major League Baseball as a whole hit .942 on batted balls that went 400 feet or farther in 2016, and as you’d expect, most of those weren’t just hits, they were home runs. Only five hitters were unfortunate enough to hit a 400-foot out four or more times; Cabrera did it seven, six at home."

Cabrera hit 38 home runs in 2016, but could have easily surpassed the 40 mark for the third time in his career if a couple more of those long balls came in a different ballpark.

Over the last 10 years Cabrera leads all of baseball with a .976 OPS (Mike Trout is second at .963 in about half the playing time). He played his home games at Comerica Park in nine of those seasons. It’s amazing to think of what his batting line might be if he played in a park that was friendlier to his batted ball profile (lots of hard hit fly balls).

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The idea that a sure-fire Hall of Fame hitter could actually be underrated is mind boggling, but the data says that just might be the case with Cabrera.