Victor Martinez wins Silver Slugger Award; Miguel Cabrera misses out

For the first time in 10 years, and for just the second time in his career, Victor Martinez has won the Silver Slugger Award. It is also V-Mart’s first Silver Slugger Award as a DH after winning his first in 2004 as a catcher with the Cleveland Indians.

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Also, for the first time since 2011, Miguel Cabrera failed to win a Silver Slugger at his position, falling to the Chicago White Sox rookie phenom Jose Abreu.

The Silver Slugger Award is the offensive version of the Gold Glove awards where a player at each position on the diamond is rewarded for a stellar season.

In V-Mart’s case, he beat out several other worthy candidates including Nelson Cruz and David Ortiz. Yet it would have been extremely hard not to recognize Martinez’s season becoming a rare DH to enter into MVP consideration.

While the MVP is almost certainly going to go to Mike Trout, Victor presented a strong case for both awards. He was second in the American League with a .335 batting average, hit a career high 32 homers and tallied a MLB-best .974 OPS.

One still astonishing factor was laid out in Jason Beck’s blog:

His .565 slugging percentage topped even Cruz, thanks to 33 doubles along with his 32 home runs. What impressed many, however, was his 70-to-42 walk-to-strikeout ratio. He entered the summer with more home runs than strikeouts, and hit four home runs on 0-2 pitches. He had 17 hits on full counts, compared to just four strikeouts.

While the Silver Slugger is not as prominent as an MVP award, it still will be an effective bargaining chip for the free agent Martinez.

Meanwhile that dull murmur throughout Detroit is the Tigers’ fanbase yelling to Dave Dombrowski to get a deal done to keep Victor Martinez in a Tigers’ uniform.