There’s usually never a clear-cut best player in baseball because it entails so many different skills.
Winning the Triple Crown last season — an accomplishment that hadn’t been done since 1967 — lifted Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera to celestial territory.
Despite sabermetric freaks who've tried to say Angels rookie Mike Trout had the better year, it was obvious Cabrera’s bat had more impact as the Angels failed to make the playoffs and Detroit went to the World Series.
While Trout tries to shake a sophomore jinx, Miggy is leaving competition in the dust again. His three-homer night on Sunday in an 11-8 slugfest loss to the Rangers reinforced his dominance and status as the hottest bat in the game.
Cabrera put on one of those superior exhibitions that remind casual fans of his greatness and how hard it is to maintain the consistent wizardry that he flexes with a club of maple wood.
Cabrera hit a three-run homer in the third and a solo shot in the fifth off Derek Holland, then went deep again in the eighth against Tanner Scheppers. Cabrera is baseball’s leader in average (.387) and RBIs with 47, and he’s a tad off the homer lead, putting him in a position to become the first back-to-back Triple Crown King in MLB history.
“I've never seen a guy that puts the bat head on the ball as regular as he does, and on all pitches," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "He's just a tremendous hitter. I'm very happy that he's headed to the airport.
Cabrera is separating himself from the rest of the league in the manner Barry Bonds did during his 12-season reign of dominance from 1993-04. There are a ton of nasty batters in MLB, but only a handful are so feared that when they step in the box, pitchers would rather not face them.
It’s not often that a pitcher walks a player to pitch to an imposing basher like Prince Fielder, but that happens when you play the Tigers. It’s a pick your poison type of thing, but in baseball terms Cabrera is the ultimate Praying Mantis. He’s death for pitchers and he’s showing no signs of slowing down.
