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.