What are Miguel Cabrera's top 5 seasons by WAR? No. 1 might surprise you

1 of 5

Miguel Cabrera has put up several great seasons, even dating back to his days with the Marlins. For someone with over 500 home runs and 3,000 hits, one would expect to him to accumlate a lot of WAR, and he's done just that.

WAR is a stat that stands for Wins Above Replacement. It's commonly used to determine a player's overall value. The higher the number, the more valuable a player is.

Miggy has racked up 67.6 fWAR throughout his career. This is despite a few negative WAR seasons the past few years due to injuries and playing a lot of DH.

When you have that much WAR throughout your career, you are bound to have some crazy seasons, and Miggy obviously has a few of those under his belt.

Today, we're going to go over Miguel Cabrera's top seasons by WAR. His best season might not be what you'd expect.

For this list, we'll be using Fangraphs WAR, or fWAR, since Fangraphs is generally considerd to be more accurate with their WAR calculations than Baseball Reference.

What is Miggy's top season? Let's begin the countdown and find out.

Miguel Cabrera's top 5 seasons by WAR

5. 2010: 6.1 fWAR

We recently looked back at Miggy's 2010 season, and you could argue he should have won the AL MVP that year over Josh Hamilton. He was that good.

He slashed .328/.420/.622 with 38 home runs and a career-high .294 ISO. His 171 wRC+ was the third-highest of his career, even higher than his Triple Crown season in 2012.

This all led up to a 6.1 WAR, which was a very good season for anyone, but especially for a primary first baseman. First baseman get pretty much all their value from their offense because first base is just not a very valuable position defensively.

Putting up a 6-WAR season at first base in awfully impressive. We're seeing Matt Olson of the Atlanta Braves do that right now, and it's a sight to behold.

4. 2006: 6.3 fWAR

This is the only year on the list where Miggy was with the Marlins. 2006 was a great year for the then-23-year-old. He hit 26 homers, which was low for him, but he hit .339 with a 153 wRC+.

It was crazy for a 23-year-old to be putting up the kind of numbers he was putting up. It's hard to believe the Marlins only made the playoffs with him once back in 2003. At least they won it all that year.

This was also the year he hit his 100th career home run — again, at age 23. He had accomplished so much in such a short amount of time. He was already on his way to becoming one of the best to ever do it.

3. 2011: 6.6 fWAR

The year before the crown, as they say. Miggy's 2011 season is another one that's somewhat underrated. He walked (15.7%) more than he struck out (12.9%).

He won the AL batting title with a .344 average and led the league in on-base percentage. His 177 wRC+ was the second-highest of his career. It was also the second year in a row where he had an OPS over 1.000.

A 6.6 fWAR is what it all amounted to at the end of the year. This was a great season, no doubt, but there are two that are better.

2. 2012: 7.3 fWAR

Most people would expect this to be No. 1 since this is the year he won the Triple Crown, but there was one year that was even better than this if we go by WAR.

We just did a whole look back at this season, so we won't spend too much time on it. Miggy was just in a league of his own during this time.

What makes this season so impressive is how he was able to turn it on in the second half. That's where a lot of his damage was done. It was just so crazy.

So what year did he have a WAR higher than 7.3? The answer may or may not surprise you.

1. 2013: 8.6 fWAR

You have to have some crazy numbers to be have an 8-WAR season or better. Well, in 2013, Miggy did just that.

He won the Triple Crown in a different form — the slashline form, to be exact. He led the American League with a slashline of .348/.442/.636 and an OPS of 1.078. His 193 wRC+ was the highest of his career.

In addition to being the second straight year in which he hit 44 bombs, he walked (13.8%) almost as much as he struck out (14.4%). He was just the best hitter on the planet at the time.

He also played third base in 2013, which helped contribute to the higher WAR. He started playing at the hot corner in 2012 after the Tigers signed Prince Fielder. But overall, his offensive numbers in 2013 were just otherworldly.

It may be surprising to some, but yes, Miguel Cabrera was technically better in 2012 than he was in 2013. Pretty much every number backs that up, not just WAR.

Next. Detroit Tigers: Grading Scott Harris' first year on the job. Detroit Tigers: Grading Scott Harris' first year on the job. dark

Home / Miguel Cabrera