The "Adaptability" of Miguel Cabrera

  I was reading a piece on Miguel Cabrera's offseason goals a few days ago, and it got my brain thinking about his lengthy, distinguished career in Major League Baseball and how he himself has changed both as a player and as a person over the past decade. When he arrived in Detroit in 2008, he was accompanied by Dontrelle Willis in a package deal from the Florida (now Miami) Marlins, and the trade was widely praised around the Majors by GMs, the media, and knowledgeable fans. Cabrera had already spent time in Florida's outfield and third base by the time that he was traded to Detroit, but the writing was on the wall: Miguel Cabrera just wasn't good enough with the glove to be a full-time MLB third baseman, and would need to transition to first base or even designated hitter in order to truly excel for the Tigers. He would need to adapt.

  Fast forward to today. The 2019 Tigers were once again the worst team in the Majors, with a hobbled Cabrera painfully limping out hard hit balls for singles that other players could easily stretch into doubles during the entire year. His knees had begun to pain him each day, and even though he was determined to overcome the pain to lead the Tigers day in, day out, the pain he was playing through was causing his once rock-solid swing path to have holes in it, ones that opposing pitchers were learning to exploit in order to retire Cabrera, who during 2012-2013 was considered to be one of the toughest batters to get out in all of the MLB. When asked after the last game on September 29th, a 5-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox, about what he needed to do to prepare for the 2020 season, Miggy joked "No more arepas". However, anyone who has been around Cabrera during the past decade knows that he's always one to crack a joke, even while dealing with serious issues. And sadly, Cabrera knew then and knows now that once again, he needs to adapt.

  As a fellow big dude who once played baseball (I was scouted by the Atlanta Braves as a pitcher during my late teens growing up in Dacula, Georgia pitching against the likes of Jeff Francoeur, he of the nickname 'Frenchy' and the long, eventful career playing for the Braves and Mets and Royals), I know how having extra weight on the frame works to your disadvantage. Your knees bear way more weight then they can stand for extended periods of time, and eventually the cartilage dissolves, bones begin to grind against each other and the pain overrides normal thought processes that the player needs in order to be effective at their position. Miguel Cabrera has shown since 2014, after sustaining a stress fracture in his right foot that caused him to alter his stance and approach for the last half of the season, that the injuries he suffers definitely cause changes in his offensive and defensive output. And when a player plays as much as Cabrera has, totaling an even 2400 regular season games throughout his career, the grind of a full season causes small injuries and mental fatigue, all of which can cause even a Triple Crown winner to look mortal. Miguel Cabrera has to be willing to adapt to his new reality.

  Cabrera is 36 years old, and he knows that when he can't plant his right leg and balance his swing, he's not as good of a hitter as he is when he's fully healthy, like back in 2012 when he turned in one of the best full-season batting lines of the modern age, hitting .330/.393/.606 for an OPS of .999, along with 44 home runs and 139 runs batted in. Cabrera knows that he's going to have to change his swing style to something that doesn't put as much stress on his lower body. He proved that he can still track the ball and use his pure strength and hand/eye coordination to put the ball in play, but his barrel percentage was the lowest of his career (not counting 2018's extremely small sample size), at only 6.4% of hit balls fully "barreled" and hit hard. His exit velocity on batted balls was at 90.3 MPH in 2019, another low. He'll need to enter this offseason fully prepared to listen to his trainers, change his eating habits, sleep habits and exercise habits. Once again, Cabrera will have to adapt.