Since his debut back in 2003 Miguel Cabrera has been on of if not the best right handed hitter in baseball. Over his 16 seasons Cabrera has racked up 2676 hits, 465 home runs, 1635 RBI’s and is a career .316 hitter. Cabrera also won back to back MVP awards in 2012 and 2013; that 2012 season was the last time a player has won the Triple Crown.
Now in three of the last four seasons Cabrera has had to deal with a number of injuries. 2017 may have been the worst season of Cabrera’s career. He played in 130 games, but hit just .249 with 16 home runs and 60 RBI’s. His batting average and RBI’s where the worst of his career and the only other season he hit less than 16 home runs was when he hit 12 as a rookie.
Cabrera’s team the Detroit Tigers have played a little better than expected this season as they are trying to rebuild. Detroit is 31-37 and in 3rd place in the A.L. Central 5 1/2 gams out of 1st place.
While the Tigers have been a bit of a surprise you have to wonder if there record would be even better had Cabrera been able to play in more than just the 38 games he’s appeared in this season.
Cabrera was on the disabled list earlier this season as he dealt with some tricep and bicep issues. While it was hoped that Cabrera’s injuries where behind him for the season; it didn’t turn out that way.
Cabrera walked in his first at bat last night against the Minnesota Twins. During his second at bat in the Bottom of the 3rd inning Cabrera swung and missed at a pitch nd immediately dropped his bat. Cabrera had to be removed from the game and it’s being reported that he’s likely to miss the rest of the 2018 season because he ruptured the tendon in his left biceps.
Cabrera is signed through 2023 and has vesting options in his contract that could take him through the 2025 season. In 2019, 2020 and 2021 Cabrera is scheduled to make $30 million dollars. His salary jumps to $32 million dollars as season for the 2022 and 2023 season. Cabrera’s vesting options are both or $30 million dollars a season. For the 2024 option to kick in Cabrera has to finish in the Top 10 of MVP voting for the 2023 season. The 2025 option kicks in if again he is voted in the Top 10 of MVP voting for the 2024 season.
With Cabrera done for what looks like the season; what will the Tigers do at 1st base? When Cabrera was on the disabled list earlier this season John Hicks and Niko Goodrum handle the position. Since the Tigers are rebuilding you have to think that they’ll go that route again, but since Hicks is also the teams back up catcher maybe they’ll look to add a veteran. Is it possible that the Tigers bring in Hanley Ramirez or the recently released Adrian Gonzalez to hep out at 1st base? Either player could sign for the veteran minimum and their former team would foot the bill for the remainder of their salary.
The Tigers don’t really have a top prospect at 1st base, but they do have Edwin Espinal playing the position in Triple-A. Espinal is hitting .287 over 48 games for Toledo in the International League. Espinal isn’t the prototype power hitting 1st baseman as he has just 41 home runs over 8 minor league seasons.
Will have to wait and see what the Tigers decide to do to try and fill the while that Cabrera’s injury has left them with.
Zach Britton returned from injury last night to make his 2018 debut with the Baltimore Orioles. Britton pitched one inning and there was some rust. Britton faced five batters last night walking 3 and striking out 1 while throwing 26 pitches. Even though he had some issues; Britton didn’t give up any runs.
It’s being reported that the Orioles will ease Britton back into his closer role.
In the 2nd round of the 2016 draft the New York Jets selected Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenburg hoping he’d develop into a future starting quarterback for them.
As it turned out in two seasons with the Jets Hackenburg never saw an regular season action, but it looked as though there would e a chance for him to compete for the starting job this coming season. Last years starter Josh McCown was a free agent and it was just Hackenburg and Bryce Petty as the quarterbacks on the Jets roster. Well that changed quickly. Not only did the Jets re-sign McCown they also signed free agent quarterback Teddy Bridgewater. Then the Jets added another quarterback when they used their 1st round pick in this past draft to take Sam Darnold. New York traded up to #3 to take a quarterback which turned out to be Darnold.
You knew that the Jets wouldn’t be carrying five quarterbacks; so some of them had to go. Petty ended up being waived and was picked up by the Miami Dolphins and Hackenburg was traded to the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders sent a conditional 7th round draft pick to the Jets for Hackenburg, but the Jets will never see that draft pick as the Raiders cut Hackenburg after being with them just three weeks.
Now the question is; will Hackenburg catch on with another NFL team? With two new start up leagues the AAF and the XFL coming into play very soon there’s a chance that Hackenburg could go into one of those leagues and actually get a chance to play.
Jon Gruden the Raiders new head coach said that the team decided to cut Hackenburg because they needed the roster spots to sign defensive lineman Frostee Rucker and Ahtyba Rubin.
Hackenburg is the third quarterback who was drafted in the within the first two rounds of the NFL draft not to have played in a regular season game in his first two seasons. Interestingly the last quarterback to do that was Jim Kelly. Of course Kelly didn’t play in and NFL game because he was quarterbacking the Houston Gamblers in the USFL.
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