What if Miguel Cabrera never signed a contract extension with the Detroit Tigers?

Miguel Cabrera is currently in the final year of an eight-year, $248 million contract extension. He signed that extension with the Detroit Tigers just prior to the 2014 season. There's a couple of vesting options for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, but obviously Miggy has said this will be his last year.

But what if Miggy never signed that deal? What if he eventually left the Detroit Tigers? Let's take a trip down that rabbit hole.

First thing's first. If Cabrera never signs that deal, he would have become a free agent after the 2015 season. That was his 32-year-old season in which he won the AL batting title with a .338 average. He also had a .974 OPS.

The home run power dropped off a bit with only 18 homers, but he still slugged .534. This was also the first year where he was bitten by the injury bug. He had 511 plate appearances that year, which at the time was the fewest he had since his rookie year with the Marlins in 2003.

If he had left, he would have joined a free agent class that was less than stellar. The headliners that offseason were Jason Heyward, Justin Upton, Chris Davis, and Yoenis Cespedes. Miggy would have easily been the best hitter on the market that offseason, despite his age and what would go on to happen to him as he got older. Some team would have thrown money at him simply based on name recognition.

As for the Tigers, two things likely could have happened. Either they use the $28 million Miggy would have been owed in 2016 and use it elsewhere, or they could have started the rebuild a couple years early. They could have still signed Justin Upton that offseason, or they could have started selling off pieces.

One could argue Miggy's contract was the single reason they kept going like they did. They had the best hitter on the planet still in his prime, and they had a lot of money invested in him. The only thing to really do was to keep spending and try to win.

But if they never signed him to an extension, they could have just started the rebuild following the disappointment that was the 2015 season. Then again, it would have been hard to see Mike Ilitch giving the green light to that. He wanted to win, mostly because he knew he didn't have much time left on this earth.

This is something that's actually quite fascinating to think about. What would have happened if Miguel Cabrera never signed a contract extension with the Detroit Tigers? We will likely never know, but it's fun to wonder.