Miguel Cabrera helping young Tigers players at spring training has fans over the moon

Miguel Cabrera might have retired at the end of 2023, but he's stayed close to the Tigers organization ever since. He and his family still live in Michigan, and even before the end of the regular season, the front office announced that he would be joining as a special assistant to Scott Harris. "Special assistant" is one of those nebulous job titles that's impossible to pin down, but it was nice that Cabrera planned to stay close to the club even in retirement.

This year, he's with the Tigers at Joker Marchant as a coach for a short stint, from Wednesday through Monday. He's watching batting practice and sitting in on game-planning meetings, but, more specifically, he's helping Colt Keith and Justyn-Henry Malloy make their transitions first base, having done so himself after five seasons with the Marlins as a third baseman/outfielder before moving to DH for the vast majority of his time in 2018 and full-time in 2021.

He said of Keith and Malloy, "It's going to take some time. It's not going to be right away. The good thing is, they're athletic and can really move. It's going to take some time, but they're going to be OK."

Miguel Cabrera reported to Tigers spring training to help Colt Keith, Justyn-Henry Malloy make transitions to 1B

Cabrera was never exactly known for his glove — the bat was always going to be his calling card — but he logged over 10,000 innings at first base, has a career .994 fielding percentage, and put up a 90th percentile 6 OAA in 2016, the last year he spent over 1,000 innings there. There's also just something poetic and fitting about the young guns learning from the one of the franchise's greatest players.

Although Cabrera isn't eligible for the Hall of Fame ballot until 2029, everyone knows he's a first-ballot shoo-in. If the two MVP awards and Triple Crown weren't enough to make that clear, he hit his 500th career home run in 2021, joining just 27 other players who have managed to reach that milestone.

It'd be nice to see Cabrera take even more of an active role with the Tigers' coaching staff, but he declined an offer to coach the Tigers' Spring Breakout team, which will instead be led by Alan Trammell. Nonetheless, hopefully, Keith and Malloy will be able to get a few words of wisdom while the Tigers have Cabrera down in Lakeland.