http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/buster-olney/post?id=9345
Cabrera, Martinez pivotal to Tigers' success.
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Cabrera, Martinez pivotal to Tigers' success
By Buster Olney | February 7, 2015 10:30:50 AM PST
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AP Photo/Paul Sancya
It is unclear how the demands of a season will impact Miguel Cabrera's rehabilitation.
One of the greatest hitters of all time is coming back from serious ankle surgery and his team really doesn?t know how his recovery will go. And, at the same time, the best pure hitter of 2014 is also injured, and with only a couple of weeks before the start of spring training, his team has absolutely no idea what he?ll contribute in the summer ahead.
The fact that the Detroit Tigers employ both of these hitters as the bedrock of their lineup does not bode well for Detroit: Miguel Cabrera has continued his rehabilitation from surgery all winter and it seems like everything is going according to plan, but the relentless grind of baseball has not yet been seriously applied to his healing body. The guy who is supposed to hit behind Cabrera, Victor Martinez, hasn?t even been fixed yet, with his knee surgery scheduled for next week, and the Tigers won?t address the range of possibilities until after the procedure is completed.
It might be that Martinez will be OK and back in order relatively quickly. It?s also possible his absence is extended.
But a Tigers lineup without Cabrera and Martinez on any given day is like the Boston Red Sox of a decade ago playing without Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, or the New York Yankees of a half-century ago without Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.
Even while playing hurt last season, Cabrera still managed to lead the AL with 52 doubles, hit 25 homers and drive in 109 runs with 191 hits. When you watched Cabrera limp around the field in August, you wondered whether he would make it to the end of the season -- and then he hit .379 in September, with an OPS of 1.118. Martinez?s 2014 season was one of the greatest in history for a DH, and occurred at a time when offensive production is in decline. When swinging at pitches in the strike zone, he had a contact rate of 95 percent, the sixth-highest in the majors last season, and he hit with power -- 65 extra-base hits, including 32 homers, along with 70 walks and 42 strikeouts.
It was because of this incredible season, which followed other excellent seasons, that the Tigers invested $68 million in Martinez despite the fact that he recently turned 36 years old. Cabrera turns 32 in April, and the Tigers are committed to paying him $22 million for 2015 -- and then $240 million for the eight seasons that follow.
Not only do the Tigers need Martinez and Cabrera to hit in the middle of their lineup, they must have production from the duo because of the $330 million invested in them. The Tigers are banking on them to hit, and there isn?t a lot of wiggle room in that. Detroit?s farm system is regarded as thin by other teams, and if the Tigers need temporary help, the asking prices for position players will be sky-high.
If the Tigers play without Martinez and/or Cabrera at the outset of the season, it?s worth remembering that Detroit will face an early-season schedule stacked with in-division games, in what should be a very competitive AL Central -- 28 of their first 35 games will be against their four division rivals. The Tigers have nine games scheduled against the Minnesota Twins by May 14, as well as home-and-away series against the Kansas City Royals, Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians.
You cannot overstate what the absence of Martinez and Cabrera could mean to the 2015 season; you cannot overstate how pivotal it could be if both are back in action quickly.
