Detroit Tigers: 5 more Miguel Cabrera milestones

Detroit Tigers fans, and the baseball world at large, are still aglow after Miguel Cabrera hit his historic 500th home run last Sunday in Toronto.

For national writers it was a chance to offer retrospectives, or peer into the future and project the next members of the 500 Club. For Detroit Tigers fans? It was a little bittersweet.

They spent the previous week packing Comerica Park and breathlessly hanging on every Miguel Cabrera swing, only for the moment to happen 230 miles (390 kilometers) away. But, at least it was a big hit in what turned out to be another series win for a team that has been surprisingly solid for the last four months.

And one of the most pleasant surprises in this run of quality baseball has been Miguel Cabrera himself. Before the season we wrote about the Tigers facing the prospect of cutting Miguel Cabrera one day, and that possibility looked more like an inevitability after he hit just .183 with five extra-base hits through May.

But, since June 1st Miguel Cabrera has been a perfectly cromulent big-league hitter, batting .283/.339/.442 in a span of 62 games. That’s definitely not prime Miggy, but it has been good enough for a 112 wRC+ and a positive WAR. You can win games with a player like that. In fact, his batting line is practically identical to Akil Baddoo’s (.284/.335/.443) in the same span.

There’s no guarantee Miguel Cabrera continues to perform at this level, but thankfully this doesn’t look like a Chris Davis situation. Cabrera is still under contract for two more seasons, but now it seems likely he’ll find a way to stay useful until the deal is finished.

And if that’s the case, he’s going to set a few more milestones along the way. We’ll be honest, none of them are quite as cool as hitting 500 homers, but they’ll still be fun to track. Let’s start with the big, obvious one:

Miguel Cabrera Milestone: 3000 Hits

This one is no surprise. The Detroit Tigers put up two trackers, after all, and Cabrera is inching closer to 3,000 hits each day. The Tigers have 36 games remaining, and Cabrera needs 45 more hits. If he played every game left on the schedule he would have to bat .313 down the stretch to reach 3,000. It’s more likely he’ll play about 30 games to end the season, which would mean he has to hit .375 over a 30-game span to reach the magic number.

Miguel Cabrera actually has 51 different 30-game spans in his Detroit Tigers career where he has batted .375 or better. Unfortunately, the last such stretch came in 2016. If we assume Cabrera continues to hit about .280 over his final 30 games, he’ll finish the season roughly 10-15 hits shy of 3,000. So Tigers fans will just have to wait until next April to see Miguel Cabrera become the 33rd member of the 3,000-hit club.

But then it’s a question of just how high up the list he can climb. He’s on pace for about 120 hits this year, and while it’s nice to think he can duplicate this performance for two more seasons, it’s probably safer to assume his effectiveness and playing time will continue to wane. But even if he produces at 80% of this level next year, and 60% of this level in 2023, he’ll rack up another 170 hits. That would get him into the top-20 all time, passing greats like Tony Gwynn, Robin Yount, and possibly George Brett. Not too shabby.

Miguel Cabrera Milestone: Most Home Runs for the Detroit Tigers

The Detroit Tigers have a pretty lengthy history when it comes to productive hitters. Some fella named Ty Cobb managed 3,900 hits for Detroit, and all 3,007 of Al Kaline’s knocks came for the Tigers. Charlier Gehringer, Harry Heilmann, Sam Crawford, Lou Whitaker, and Alan Trammell all recorded at least 2,365 hits with the Detroit Tigers. Miguel Cabrera currently stands at 2,113 while wearing the Old English D, so he’s probably not going to catch any of them. But power production is a different story.

Just ten players have hit 200 home runs in a Detroit Tigers uniform, and only four have topped 300. Miguel Cabrera currently stands third on this list with 362 bombs for the Tigers. Norm Cash is next with 373, and the great Al Kaline is first at 399. At his current pace, Cabrera should finish the 2021 season with 17 home runs for the year, and 366 as a Tiger. He could pass Cash by next June, but hitting 37 more home runs to tie Kaline will be a real challenge. It’s not out of the question, though, and if Cabrera does manage to catch Kaline, he will then be in the top-20 all time, one spot ahead of Mickey Mantle.

Miguel Cabrera Milestone: 1150 Extra-Base Hits

Miguel Cabrera is not what you would call a speed demon. Among the 28 members of the 500 Home Run Club, Cabrera’s 17 career triples are more than just Albert Pujols (16),  Frank Thomas (12), and Mark McGwire (6). He hasn’t hit a triple since 2016, and it seems unlikely he’ll hit another three-bagger in his career.

But, as previously discussed, Miguel Cabrera is pretty darn good at hitting home runs and doubles. Right now he has 1,108 career extra-base hits, which is good for 21st all-time. He needs nine more — certainly possible this year — to tie Jimmy Foxx and Ted Williams for 19th. And from there it’s just a steady climb through iconic hitters. We realize 1,150 isn’t exactly a round number, but 42 more extra-base hits in his career seems doable, and at that point he will have passed Ty Cobb for 15th all-time.

Speaking of Cobb, with 23 more extra-base hits Miguel Cabrera will join Cobb, Al Kaline, Charlie Gehringer, and Harry Heilmann as the only players with 800 career extra-base hits in a Tigers uniform.

Miguel Cabrera Milestone: 1800 and 1900 RBIs

Miguel Cabrera famously won the Triple Crown in 2012, leading the American League in home runs, batting average, and runs batted in. He’s now just the 4th player ever to win a Triple Crown and hit 500 career home runs. Homers continue to be widely celebrated, and batting average still gets some respect, but stat-loving fans don’t seem to care about RBIs nearly as much as they once did. That’s probably a good thing.

For decades the key ingredients for winning an MVP award seemed to be hitting for a high batting average, racking up a lot of RBIs, or playing for a division winner (see George Bell in 1987, Juan Gonzalez in 1996, Justin Morneau in 2006, etc.) In recent years fans and writers have come to view RBIs as more of a product of circumstance than a demonstration of pure skill. But perhaps the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.

It is true that any decent hitter might luck into a 100-RBI season or two, but when career RBI totals start getting above 1,500 we can throw luck out the window. And with Miguel Cabrera there’s clearly skill involved. His career batting average with runners in scoring position is .329, the 9th highest ever (min. 500 PA). Meanwhile, Miguel Cabrera is “just” a .295 hitter with the bases empty. That 34-point gap is among the biggest in MLB history. Henry Aaron was 29 points better with men on, while Babe Ruth was just 10 points better, and Ted Williams was actually 9 points worse.

Thus, it’s worth celebrating Miguel Cabrera’s 1,785 career RBIs. He’ll soon become the 22nd member of the 1800-RBI club, and though it will be tough to tack on another 100 to become the 13th member of the 1900-RBI club, he only needs to get to 1,861 to pass Mel Ott for the 13th most RBIs in MLB history. That’s a pretty spectacular accomplishment.