Miguel Cabrera Needs His Own Thread

Clemenza made all the points I was going to make ... some people would argue that his career wasn't long enough, like with Puckett, and memories are short. Edgar Martinez is having a hard time getting into the HOF because people are misled by his relatively short career and relatively unimpressive counting stats instead of remembering how dominant he was in his prime (well, that and the DH thing). And if Halladay never pitches effectively again it'll be the same story with him too.

Cabrera also has the resume-padding (what I like to call the "non-analytical") stuff that some of you dismiss covered: an MVP (probably a second) and a few Top 10 finishes, two batting titles (probably a third), the Triple Crown, even a World Series winner some people have probably forgotten he was part of.

I'm sure Schilling and Mussina will both go in, as they should. I'd take Halladay over either, although Schilling had the best two- or four-year peak. Anyway, I think Halladay will be okay now that I think about it. The obvious stumbling block is the 201 wins. But a) Pedro had slipped my mind, and his induction will make that less of a problem, b) a low win total coupled with a high winning percentage is less damaging, and c) wins are becoming less and less important every year in general, and five or six years from now, I imagine their importance to a HOF resume will be minimal if there's enough clear counter-evidence.

I wouldn't use Pedro as an example there, because he had the best peak of all time.

Cabrera has all the awards and intangibles, definitely. But suppose he fell off a cliff like Pujols and has six or seven years of OK to good production marred by injuries (or if you want to use an existing example, suppose his career follows Ken Griffey Jr.'s in his thirties). By the time he comes up for election, it'll be a good 12-15 years after his prime, and people usually forget how good a player was after not seeing him at the top of his game for so many years. If he really does turn out like Griffey and piles up enough counting stats to make his election a no-brainer, then great, but if he ends up with 450 HR, 1500 RBI or so then who knows.

Anyway, this is why I like to have these discussions while guys are still in their prime.

I was trying to think of possible career paths for Cabrera, and couldn't think of any relevant third basemen. But since he's just impersonating a third basemen anyway, there are a couple over at first who looked like good HOF bets through their age 30/31 seasons, but look like non-starters now.

If he has a fairly quick, productive exit, Delgado. Delgado had one of his two best seasons at 31, so consider his decline to start at 32. Cabrera today + Delgado age 32-37 = 2,710 hits, 530 HR, .307/.388/.556.

A longer, less productive exit, McGriff. Cabrera today + McGriff age 31-40 = 3,316 hits, 592 HR, .305/.385/.532.

Either one, he's in. (Usual caveat already noted above.) I think he'd really have to go into free-fall to play himself out of the HOF at this point. It'd have to be either something like Mattingly, where he's retired by the time he's 35, or he'd have to turn into, I don't know, Sid Bream overnight. But I understand your what-have-you-done-for-me-lately argument--that does matter (cf. Andruw Jones).

i think the discussion's more useful with players who aren't all-time greats like cabrera - there's just no way, short of him being busted for PEDs or something, that he's not elected to the HOF.

agree with Kev here.

One guy who's at a critical juncture right now is Sabathia. He was never going to have a strong sabermetric argument--better than Morris, obviously, but that still wasn't his path--so he had to get to 300 wins or reasonably close. If he doesn't reverse course quickly, I'd say his chance is gone. Verlander, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and say this year's a blip.

i mean it'd be one thing if he were a sabermetric secret like idunno blyleven or tulowitzki these days, but the same body that has witnessed miggy have the first triple crown season in 35 years and is about to give him 2 straight MVPs is the one that will be considering his HOF candidacy. they aren't just going to forget!

yeah i was just thinking about CC yesterday, his advanced numbers are actually very good aren't they, particularly his FIP numbers, but he definitely needs a couple more all-star seasons at least to be safe

maybe we need a HOF chances musing thread

thought we did somewhere...

This is the most general one, I think:

hall of fame, next vote...

Are Any of These Guys HOF Bound?

Rank 20 active players on potential HOF induction

wait, that first one is just the recent tulo/reyes/hanram one

Andruw Jones and Beltran should both be HOFers, but then again the Hall is a total joke to me until Bonds and Clemens get in.

The writers won't forget Miggy obv but he could be underrated by the same group of writers in 10-15 years time. They underrated him until about two years ago, so it could happen again. Or consider Vlad Guerrero -- phenom in Montreal who could do anything (they write the same kinds of things about Puig today), won an MVP with the Angels, had plenty of great years, but declined quickly. His HOF was borderline as it is, but I kind of feel he's already been forgotten somewhat.

He was never going to have a strong sabermetric argument

what does this even mean? he has a 60+ fWAR and he's only 33.

Is it possible for you to ask these questions less aggressively?

What it means is that most of his years fall into the 3.0-5.0 range on Baseball Reference, with three very good years in the 6.2-7.5 range. He's never led the league, with his best finishes being two seconds and a fourth. And, through a fluke of history, his 2010 season (and Price's) became the symbolic counter-arguments against Felix in the old vs. new debate. If decline has indeed set in, I wouldn't call that a strong sabermetric argument, and I don't see him going into the HOF with fewer than 275 wins.

Sabbathia is not going to get in on peak so it really all depends on how he declines. If it's gently with the Yankees we're probably talking 250-260 wins at age 36. I think that's probably enough.

^^^ not a sabermetric argument.

I just see Sabathia as a classic throwback, the guy who was going to make his way into the Hall by winning 15-20 games a year, year-in and year-out, with peripheral stats that were never going to be as strong as the very best pitchers in the game (Felix, Kershaw, etc.), or even as good as passing-through WAR leaders (Josh Johnson, Ubaldo Jiminez, etc.) I don't mean that his peripheral stats aren't pretty solid--his H/9 is consistently in the 7.5-8.5 range, and he's under 3.00 in K/BB--which is why I differentiated him from Morris. But even at the most basic level, ERA, he's at 3.59, which I think would be at the high end of post-war inductees, especially if it goes up even more.

I like CC! He's one of my favourite players in the game, and I hope he turns it around.

once the New Generation takes over, you know they don't have much use for ERA, right?

"Just under 3.00," that should read...Don Sutton; I guess I see CC's HOF path as Don Sutton's, more or less.

Once the New Generation takes over, ERA, Who's Who in Baseball, and I will get in a car and drive out to the coast for good.

lol, do they still publish WWiB? I think I only bought it in '72 and 73.

I was surprised to see it on a newsstand a year or two ago:

http://www.amazon.com/2013-Whos-Baseball-Pete-Palmer/dp/0910692335

Same here--maybe one copy downstairs. (I used to buy Zander Hollander and/or Street & Smith instead.) Pete Palmer's the editor now, though, so I assume there's been some movement towards including less traditional stats.

Seeing a Seinfeld episode here:

Morbius: It must be a bummer for you guys, what with the fall of Joe Morgan and everything.
Clemenza: Yeah, well, we still have Heyman, and Mitch Albom too.
Morbius: Yeah, but come on...
Clemenza: I know, it's not the same.
Morbius: Well, you had a good run--what was it, 75, 100 years? Wreaking havoc, getting Jim Rice into the Hall of Fame, getting that MVP for Justin Morneau...
Clemenza (sighs): Yeah, we had a good run.

This came up on High Heat Stats today:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6YzVvtxoaY

Love Palmer (I think that's who it is) watching the replay: "What is this?"

Awesome. I remember hearing about it -- maybe from here! -- but hadn't seen it.

hitting .494 on first pitches

Something I know Morbius will be tracking with great excitement over the next few years: the first-ever Decade Triple Crown.

http://www.highheatstats.com/2013/08/decade-triple-crown-category-leaders/

Obviously way too early. But you look at the ages and proximity of the people behind him on those leaderboards, you'd have to say he's got a good start. Could easily see Trout taking BA, and there's undoubtedly someone just off the leaderboards who's in good position somewhere else.

Williams pretty obviously robbed by the war though.

I made the same point in the comments. (Someone tracked Williams for '39-42/46-51, and he took HR and RBI but lost BA to Musial.)

Obviously the calendar's an artificial construct, and you have to catch it just right. Someone else pointed out that Pujols took all three for 2003-2012. Cabrera's prime years just happened to have coincided with a new decade.

Wait how did Williams win BA for 40-49? Musial BA seems much higher during that period and he has the requisite 2000 ABs.

Nevermind looking at the WRONG line .356 not .336.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BSmpS9XCEAAWozH.png

Miguel promised before the game that he would "hit one for Miley," and now he has.

haha

http://tracking.si.com/2013/08/29/tigers-miguel-cabrera-leaves-game-injury/?sct=hp_t2_a4

That's not going to be good for anybody.

except mike trout

Detroit Tigers star Miguel Cabrera left Thursday afternoon's game against the Oakland Athletics due to discomfort in his abdomen, the team announced.

Cabrera, who leads the majors in batting average and RBIs, suffered the injury while attempting to leg out a double in the fifth inning.

The Tigers updated Cabrera's status on their official Twitter account, announcing that the All-Star third baseman is considered day to day.

So Cabrera is in the lineup. I actually think they should shut him down for a couple of weeks. General consensus seems to be he has MVP locked up. The triple crown, some people like me care, many people don't, and his chance of catching Davis in HR seems slim anyway. More than ever, Detroit has the starting pitching to win everything. They're risking losing (or seriously diminishing) their key hitter, and at this point, to what end I'm not sure.

lasted one at-bat, looks like he aggravated his abdominal injury.

damn, give him some rest, clemenza otm

With both ESPN's SweetSpot (two sit-Cabrera posts today) and ILB bearing down on him/them, Leyland and/or Cabrera finally doing the right thing.

‏@matthewbmowery
#Tigers have scored 58 runs in the 10 games Cabrera has not started.

bench him for good

Castellanos up

Wrong thread.

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/3146835/sweet_medium.png

Singing "Sweet Caroline" today...Beyond the numbers, I think I've become a big Cabrera fan for the same reason I was a fan of Gwynn and Kirby: he really does seem like a big teddy bear. (While aware that two of the three had issues away from the game.)