Detroit Tigers don’t have many options for a powerless Miguel Cabrera

Since Miguel Cabrera turned 32 in 2015, he’s hit a season-high of 38 home runs in 2016 but hasn’t reached even 20 home runs in a single season since. In fact, including this season he’s only hit 42 home runs combined over three and a half years when you exclude that 2016 season. Since Albert turned 32, he’s driven in 100-plus runs four times. Miguel has done it once.

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This season the Detroit Tigers moved Cabrera exclusively to serve as the teams’ primary designated hitter; a move that happened a couple of years too late.  He’s now 36-years old, and his production appears to be on a slippery downward spiral.  He’s not a small athletic player that could continue to produce late in his career.  He’s a 6’4 260-pound slugger that’s body continues to breakdown.

Look at Albert this season; he’s hitting .247 with a .ops of .757 while slugging .445.  Not amazing by any means but respectable for a 39-year old.  He’s launched 14 home runs and driven in 56 RBI’s.  To compare Cabrera is hitting .283 with and .ops of .718 and slugging a mere .373.  He’s only hit 5 home runs and driven in 37 runs on the season.

Yes, Albert plays in a lineup that includes Mike Trout.  The Tigers lineup flat out sucks, but Nicholas Castellanos does hit in front of Cabrera and at times behind leaving him with some protection.  If Justin Verlander has a point about the baseball being ‘juiced’ it certainly isn’t helping the former triple crown winner.

The Detroit Tigers don’t have many options for Cabrera, his lack of production combined with an outrageous salary and when you add in his age it merely makes him untradeable. The Detroit Tigers would need to eat a large sum of his salary in a trade.  He’s limited to only the American League so he can DH. The return of prospects the team would receive for a broken down DH wouldn’t be impressive what so ever.  The Tigers might as well keep him and maybe when the team completes the rebuild; the 40-year-old has some sort of career resurrection becoming a decent threat in the lower half of the lineup.

I didn’t expect him to turn back the clock and hit 40 home runs, but it would sure be nice if he could knock in a 100 runs while hitting 25 home runs.  It appears we will see this shell of what once was over the next six years; well at least four more seasons after this year until the Tigers can buy-out the final two years of the deal.