Miguel Cabrera spoke with MLB.com’s Jason Beck about what has been perhaps his most difficult season as a member of the Tigers. Despite great personal success — Cabrera is hitting .335/.438/.540 even after 20 straight hitless at-bats — Cabrera hasn’t experienced a losing season since his first as a Tiger in 2008. The two-time AL MVP told Beck that had everyone been healthy from Opening Day, he feels the talent was there to make a postseason run, but injuries led to the tough decisions to have to trade David Price, Yoenis Cespedes and Joakim Soria. Those same injuries (to himself, Victor Martinez, Justin Verlander, Anibal Sanchez and others) led Cabrera to defend manager Brad Ausmus. “…[I]t’s not his fault,” said Cabrera. “…Why do people say you’ve got to fire him? … I always say, man, if we’re healthy, we can push harder. But this year, we got a lot of key players out for one month, two months. With that, there’s no way you’re going to win, because we need everybody here. It’s not about one player.”
More from the AL Central to kick off Friday morning…
- On a similar note, White Sox outfielder Melky Cabrera praised skipper Robin Ventura when speaking to MLB.com’s Scott Merkin. “I found what I expected here,” said Cabrera, who has enjoyed his first season in spite of the team’s losing record. “I think that Robin is a great manager. I like to play for him. We have the core players that we can compete in the future.” Cabrera and Ventura both spoke about the slow starts for a number of White Sox players (Cabrera included) and the difficulty in overcoming the early hole dug by those struggles. Cabrera, Adam Eaton, Alexei Ramirez and Adam LaRoche all struggled a great deal early on. Eaton came to life in early May, whereas Cabrera turned it on in June and Ramirez has been hitting quite well since July 1. LaRoche, on the other hand, has seen his struggles continue all season.
- Did the Indians wait too long to promote Francisco Lindor this season? Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer examines the question from both sides, noting that there was a case to be made for Lindor to break camp with the club and one that says it made both business and baseball sense for the team to keep him in Triple-A until mid-June. The Indians gained an extra year of club control and likely prevented Lindor from reaching Super Two designation by keeping him at Triple-A until June 14, though as Hoynes notes, the four-game gap they’re facing in the Wild Card standings may well have been smaller with a full season of the potential Rookie of the Year winner. (From my vantage point — Lindor didn’t hit much at Triple-A in 2014 and started the 2015 season quite slowly in Triple-A as well. Had he come firing out of the gates, there would’ve been a definite case to bring him up late April, but he didn’t begin hitting until late May anyhow.)
- Even Twins GM Terry Ryan admitted to being surprised by just how impressive Miguel Sano has been at the plate since his promotion, he said in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (audio link). Ryan noted that Sano looked “rusty” early in the season in his first action back from Tommy John surgery that sidelined him for all of 2014. “He really struggled in the first month of April down there, and his at-bats were not good,” said Ryan. “…When he came up here in July, he was putting tremendous, quality, professional at-bats together. He wasn’t chasing, and when he got a strike, he did something with it. And he’s given us that power presence in the middle of the lineup that we desperately needed.”
- Host Todd Hollandsworth also asked Ryan about the progression of Aaron Hicks, noting that the Twins deserve some praise for sticking with the former first-round pick through his early struggles in his career. Said Ryan of Hicks: “He reminds me a lot of Torii Hunter back in the day, when Torii struggled through the system in the minor leagues and came up and went back a couple times, then finally solidified himself as a great player.” Hicks’ breakout hasn’t garnered the attention of Sano’s performance, but the 25-year-old is hitting .262/.323/.412 with 11 homers, 12 steals and strong outfield defense after a batting a woeful .201/.293/.314 from 2013-14.
Miguel Cabrera makes a great point. I honestly don’t think brad did a bad job as a manager… He was just dealt a horrible hand.
Brad has no clue with the bullpen. It took trading Soria for him to finally start using Wilson and Hardy, his only reliable relievers, in meaningful situations. In spite of them doing well, he’s put them back to mop up. When they beat Toronto in 12 innings the other night, he used both of them in the fifth inning. Then he used Al Al (era of 5), Rondon (7), Felix (9), and Krol (8) to finish. Yes they did win, in spite of Rondon blowing the save, but if you expect 3 innings of no hit ball from Krol, who has and should be the LOOGY, then you are not using your pen correctly. That is why he needs to go.
I had always thought hicks was rushed up and was going to bust, but wow has he proved me wrong
1. The Tigers have to turn over their manager, because there is too much pressure from the owner and the fans. It may be just for show but they need to get EXPERIENCE in there now.
2. Miggy, Kinsler and JD are all in the top 15 in WAR for AL players. Considering there are only 15 teams in the AL, even having 2 players in the top 15 is impressive. They have THREE. No way they should be in last place. (NOTE: Both Price and Cespedes have a higher WAR than any of those three. They had both those guys for more than half the year).
3. Cueto to a one year bounce back deal is what I would be targeting. What would it cost them to do that? ($28MM/1 year?). Cueto is a year younger than Price. Why not sign him short term and keep him motivated to get the Price deal a year later?
Cueto’s struggled of late, but it’s five bad starts. 26 poor innings aren’t going to take him from a six-year deal to a one-year deal — I can’t envision any scenario in which he takes a one-year contract barring some kind of serious surgery that would sideline him into 2016.
Steve, hypothetically, I get what you are saying.
However, lets say you are a GM and you just lost out on Price at 7/$210MM. Are you really going to sign Cueto and 6/$180MM? Is your owner going to allow that? Or are you going to talk yourself into a Lester deal for Zimmerman with lower risk?
What do you think he is going to get assuming the offseason started right now?
6/$180? I don’t think anyone is speculating Cueto is getting $30MM AAV.
25 millioish a year I would imagine. But he’s definitely getting more than a one year deal. He’ll probably see 7 years 160-175.
Who will do that, when Zimmerman is available for cheaper?
The team that doesn’t get Zimmerman?
The Tigers are in turmoil…physically and mentally….the firing of Dombrowski started the ball rolling (big mistake by Illitch), Ausmus is gone at the end of the season and Al Avila is going to bring in his guys. This team is headed in the wrong direction and has little room on the payroll to sign a big money FA for several years.
When you subtract all the FA losses and add back in the est. Arb. and salary increases, Detroit has $45mill to spend in 2016 to have the same payroll as 2015. Another $18.8mll falls off after 2017. Lots of room to add players.
I honestly didn’t understand the signing of Victor Martinez. Sure, he was coming off a career year….but he was 36 years old! Plus, the Tigers are on the hook for about $54 million more after a 9-59 .255 season as a DH. It’s the type of deal the Yanks would do…..but the Yanks can better afford it.
I missed where you predicted his injury. He was runner up for MVP. No one expected him to repeat that year, but no one thought this would happen either.
I really like how the Twins kept with Hicks. If he takes a couple more steps on the offensive side of the game and can get on base and get some steals he could definitely be a pretty good major leaguer and fill a void we haven’t had since Span.
They can praise Ventura all they want, he is a horrible manager and the numbers from the past 3 seasons of constant underachieving and lack of accountability prove this. He needs to go pronto and get a guy in here that the players will like AND respect, because After seeing the way players play for him I doubt the players respect him.