Miguel is on Fire

Mustafa’s quote in Zoolander should have been “ Hansel Miggy, so hot right now.” Miguel Cabrera is locked in. Actually, that’s an understatement. He is absolutely on fire. It’s no surprise that since as the Tigers go, Miguel Goes. Since August 1, the Tigers are 35-16. In that same time period, Miguel is hitting .406/.493/.631/1.124. Let me repeat that, in the last two months, Cabrera has been on base nearly 50 percent of the time. In this timeframe, he leads the MLB in BA, OBP, BB, intentional walks, is third in SLG%, and is tied for second in extra base hits. Is this the best offensive season of his career?

Quietly, “The Big Fella” has stolen the batting title away from Adrian Gonzalez and Michael Young, raising his average from .311 to .343 over the past two months. Strictly in terms of counting stats (29 HR 104 RBI), it’s not his best performance. But, Miggy has set career highs in walks, OBP, wOBA, runs created, OPS+, RISP, and a career low in strikeouts. It’s gotten to the point where pitchers aren’t even coming near him: 39.8% of pitches in the zone is the lowest percentage of strikes he’s seen in his career thus far. By nearly every account, Miguel is having a career year, even though it looked like he was having a down year just 9 weeks ago.

Unfortunately, Cabrera isn’t going to win the MVP this year because of his lack of counting stats, even though he’s in the top 2 in the AL in all 3 slash line categories. The fact he only has 104 RBI really isn’t his fault at all. Pitchers just don’t pitch to him with RISP. It’s easy to understand why, he’s hitting .396/.526/.688/1.213 in that situation, along with 44 walks, 22 of which have been intentional, in just 196 PA.

Hopefully Cabby keeps up this torrid pace into the playoffs. In the last month, he’s hitting a ridiculous .433/.534/.722/1.256. Any semblance of that, it’ll make the Tigers an extremely tough team to beat.