Sunday, September 06, 2015

Where Does Cabrera's Season Rank In Tigers History?

When Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera missed 35 games with a calf injury between July 3 and August 14, he lost any chance to accumulate his usual gaudy counting statistics.  As of today, he has just 17 home runs, 68 RBI and 206 total bases and will not end up in the league leaders in Batting Runs or Runs Created or any other cumulative batting measure.  However, he is hitting as well as he ever has and is currently leading the American League in batting average (.357), on-base percentage (.456) and OPS (1.035).

Cabrera's season also ranks very high in Tigers history.  According to the Baseball-Reference Play Index, the big first baseman has the third highest Tigers Batting Average since the 1930s behind Magglio Ordonex (.363 in 2007) and Norm Cash (.361 in 1961).  Additionally, his .456 OBP is the highest since Hall-of-Fame second baseman Charlie Gehringer reached base at a .458 clip in 1937.   

Adjusting Cabrera's OPS for ballpark and league average, we can say that he has an OPS+ of 185. Loosely interpreted that says that he has hit about 85% better than a league average hitter this year. Table 1 below shows that his season ranks 10th all time among Tigers.    

Table 1: Tigers Top OPS+ Seasons
Player
Year
PA
OPS
OPS+
Ty Cobb
1917
672
1.014
209
Ty Cobb
1910
590
1.008
206
Norm Cash
1961
673
1.148
201
Ty Cobb
1912
609
1.040
200
Ty Cobb
1913
501
1.002
196
Ty Cobb
1911
654
1.088
196
Harry Heilmann
1923
627
1.113
194
Ty Cobb
1909
651
.947
193
Miguel Cabrera
2013
652
1.078
190
Miguel Cabrera
2015
423
1.035
186
Ty Cobb
1915
701
.973
185
Harry Heilmann
1927
596
1.091
180
Miguel Cabrera
2011
688
1.033
179
Ty Cobb
1916
637
.944
179
Miguel Cabrera
2010
648
1.042
178
Al Kaline
1967
550
.952
176
Data source: Baseball-Reference.com

As expected eight of the seasons in the table belong to the legendary Ty Cobb, but  the name Miguel Cabrera now appears more than any other Tiger with four of the top 15 seasons.  So, while Cabrera might not be getting as much recognition as he got in pat years, the beat goes on for one of the two greatest hitters in team history.

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