The Tigers have placed first baseman Miguel Cabrera on the 15-day disabled list with a Grade 3 calf strain, and he will miss six weeks, according to Jason Beck of MLB.com (Twitter links). They’ve selected the contract of infielder Jefry Marte from Triple-A Toledo to take his place on the active roster.
Obviously, the injury represents a significant blow to the Tigers, who are trying to hold on against the Royals and Twins in the AL Central. Cabrera currently leads the American League in batting average (.350), on-base percentage (.456) and OPS (1.034).
The 32-year-old Cabrera has been one of baseball’s most durable players throughout his career, appearing in 148 or more games in every season since 2004. Remarkably, this will be his first career stint on the disabled list.
“When Miggy says he can’t play, you know it’s serious,” says Tigers manager Brad Ausmus, via MLive.com’s James Schmehl. “Miggy plays through anything.”
It’s unclear how the Tigers will replace Cabrera in their lineup. Marte, formerly a prospect in the Mets organization, hit a solid .271/.337/.497 for Toledo while playing third base and shortstop, although he’s also played first base on occasion in the past. Alex Avila and Andrew Romine are also currently on the Tigers’ active roster and have played first base this season. Avila, who recently returned from the disabled list himself, will start at first base today, Schmehl tweets.
Frustrating. Winning a game 8-0… 5 outs from a no hitter. But losing Miggy and then having bullpen implosion #786 and then barely winning 8-6 with the tying runs on base.
Tigers fans have had very little joy recently. Even this win has no many negatives attached to it.
Hoping Avila/Romine can be OK at 1st base. No need to look outside right now.
Avila and Romine at 1B replacing Miggy and you see no need to look outside? The best solution would have been if one of the 4 OF’s could play 1B. I’d be ok if this meant that both Gose and Davis played every day while Miggy healed. Avila hits .220 and his main contribution is his game calling skills behind the plate. Romine, although hitting better at the moment, is a career .240 singles hitter. Neither is the answer for 6 weeks. Marc Krause has been DFA’d by Tampa Bay, and has always been a power threat at AAA. Some regular AB’s might be the thing to get that production in the Majors. The Tigers just don’t have a suitable replacement in their system. They must look outside, quickly.
Avila is #3 in OBP on the team. I could care less if he gets a single or a walk. If he can get on base 35% of the time with a .220 batting average, who cares!
I wonder if JD could play 1st. Maybe!
Given a choice of pitching to Victor, or Avila, you walk Victor EVERY TIME! Or JD, or Cespedes! Avila provides no protection as the worst thing he will do is WALK. I prefer him in the 8th spot, after Castellanos. Miggy’s job was to drive in runs and that is where Avila comes up short. They need a player replace at least some of those RBI’s. For those who think RBI’s is a product of where you bat, rather than a skill, just bat Avila/Romine third for a while and see how they do.
Ok Detroit. Let’s help each other again like we did with Gose for Travis. We have a three first baseman. Smoak, Encarnacion and Colabello. All are available if the price is right. We need a starter. I’m thinking something along the lines of Colabello for Simon. What are your suggestions?
I think Tigers stand pat and just play the cards they were dealt. Mid-August, hopefully Miggy is 100%. Until then, hope they can be within 2 games of a wildcard spot.
Tigers need Simon, their starting pitching is weak right now.
As a Tigers fan, I’d rather start one of our minor leaguers over Simon. He’s starting to regress again.
Hope that Gose and Iglesias don’t regress to the mean. Hope that Martinez’s knees hold up or Cabrera doesn’t have another significant lower body injury for the third straight year. Hope leads to a 31 year championship drought.
We’ll run organizations do not hope, they smartly plan. These organizations build solid 40 man rosters because they know players will go down to injury or simply not perform. These teams always have options and never react out of desperation.
Tough break
The Tigers season looked to be slipping away before this huge injury. Depending on their offseason, this could be the beginning of the end for the Tigers as we know them.
The 2015 Tigers are completely different than the 2013 Tigers that went to the ALCS. All 8 position players are different than just two years ago (assuming that Avila is now a backup and of course Miggy went from 3rd to 1st).
Iglesias, McCann, JD, Cespedes, Gose, Davis, Castellanos, and Kinsler are ALL new.
They have already rebuilt their team while remaining competitive. Weird how people cannot see that.
Absolutely accurate. They have gotten younger, more athletic, and faster. But its soooo much simpler to compare them to the Phillies.
I think the Phillies analogy has to more to do with a bloated payroll where awful, long term contracts are given to aging often injured players. Unfortunately for Tiger fans, the analogy stops there. Philadelphia fans has a championship to hang their hats on.
FACT: This is the first time in Miggy’s career that he has been on the DL. He has been in the league about 13 years.
I understand that they’ve been rebuilt, but that doesn’t mean better. The Tigers won 93 games in 2013, 90 last season and are on pace to win 83 this year. That is a significant drop from their recent best of 95 wins in 2011 and a World Series appearance in 2012.
The problem is their core is aging and expensive. Next season they are going to owe Victor Martinez(37 years old), Kinsler(34), Cabrera(33), Verlander(33) and Sanchez(32) a combined $105m. On top of that their top two starting pitchers and top BP arm are all free agents after this season. They will also see their top young players, Iglesias and J.D. Martinez, get significant raises in arbitration. Lastly, they are widely considered to have the worst farm system in baseball.
Weird how Tiger fans don’t think this is potentially a huge problem for a team on pace to win 83 games and given up more runs than they’ve scored this year.
Considering Kinsler as part of the “core” is interesting. Why not include JD Martinez and Iglesias? They have been here 2 years also. Yes, Victor is 37. Miguel is 32. Wouldn’t exactly consider Miggy old. People have been saying the farm system is bad for years, yet they always have the pieces other teams want when they acquire a Sanchez or a Price or even a Cabrera. That’s how long “people” have considered the Tigers farm system as poor. As to the Tigers “Pace”, teams seldom play consistently throughout the season. Any streak, be it winning or losing, changes that perspective. I’m sure you would include Toronto’s winning streak in their “pace”. If the Tigers were to win 10 in a row, your argument is mute. Of course, you ignore the history of what this team has done over the course of Dombrowski’s tenure. He always seems to get the pieces they need. And of course Tiger “Fans”, which I’m guessing you are not among, always see the positive side, just like every other teams fans do.
Smoak, Ike Davis, and Ryan Howard (Phillies pay 90% of remaining contract) can all be had for cheap… Tigers are barely holding on when Miggy was with them… They will not stay close without him and using Romine/Avila in his place… 6 weeks (or longer) is way too long to lose a player like him when his team is already struggling.
While I hate the idea of Avila/Romine or even Marte as the replacement for Miggy, I will take it over Smoak, Ike Davis or Ryan Howard. I know what those 3 would produce. I’ll take my chances with the unknown Marte, first. Adam Lind would sound nice.
How about this; trade with Oakland, dunno how they’d pull this off but DD has done it before
Trade and get Kazmir, Chavez, Ike Davis, and Clippard
Detroit gives?: dixon machado, Derek hill, etc
Or they just sell off Cespedes, Price, Rajai and Simon
Maybe cespedes and price to Mets for Matz and more?
Or even those two I mentioned to someone else who thinks they can win it all like Houston
Make up your mind! Should they be buyers or sellers?
Lind would be the best option I agree… will also cost the most in return though.
Garret Jones and Mike Morse (if he’s coming off the DL soon) are options as well.
Maybe even Napoli…?
Rental players, even Lind, seldom cost full price. Baltimore’s trade of E-Rod to Boston for A. Miller was rare, due solely to Detroit also offering a lot. Especially now that the acquiring team cannot offer a qualifying offer, beating the value of a compensation pick is the only requirement. Yes, he will cost more than the other names mentioned, but that won’t be as much as you think. I don’t mind the Garret Jones suggestion.
Huge loss for the Tigers. Just when they got everybody back, they lost the most invalueable player on their team, maybe any team.