In 2012 Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown with 44 homeruns, 139 RBI's and a batting average of .330 he was the first Triple Crown winner since Carl Yastzemski did it in 1967. This season Cabrera is leading the AL with a average of .352 and 69 RBI's and he is fourth in homeruns with 18, five behind Baltimore's Chris Davis. If Cabrera can manage to win a second Triple Crown, would that rank him as one of the best hitters of all time? I believe it will.
In the history of Major League baseball there have been 17 Triple Crowns won and only two players have ever won two, Rodgers Hornsby in 1922 and 1925 and Ted Williams in 1942 and 1947. If Cabrera can keep hitting, driving in runs and hope Davis falls of his homerun pace, he could win his second crown in a row. Would that feat cement his status as one of the top hitters of all time? How could it not? In my opinion that list would be; Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Rogers Hornsby, Tris Speaker, Stan Musial, Pete Rose, Lou Gehrig and Willie Mays. At only 30 years old Cabrera still has as many as eight years left in baseball and if he can maintain his current pace he will have stats that will put him among the all-time greats.
Cabrera's stats to this point in his career break down like this: 1895 hits, 339 homeruns and 1192 RBI's in 1579 games, it averages out to be 1.2 hits per game, .025 homeruns per game and .75 RBI's per game. If he plays those eight season he should get 1555 hits, 285 homeruns and 985 RBI's. That would give him 3448 hits, 3rd all-time, 624 homeruns, 7th all-time, 2177 RBI's, 3rd all-time and should give him an average of .322, 35th all-time. Three top tens and a top 40 in the four biggest offensive categories in baseball, those are what I would consider all-time great stats. Only eight players are top ten in at least two of those four categories and only three of those players are top ten in three. Ty Cobb is 2nd in hits, 7th in RBI's and 1st in average. Hank Aaron is 3rd in hits, 2nd in homeruns and 1st in RBI's. Babe Ruth is 3rd in homeruns, 2nd in RBI's and 8th in average. the other five players are: Barry Bonds who is 1st in homeruns and 3rd in RBI's, Tris Speaker is 5th in hits and 4th in average, Stan Musial is 4th in hits and 5th in RBI's, Willie Mays is 4th in homeruns and tenth in RBI's and Alex Rodriguez is currently 5th in homeruns and 6th in RBI's. That is pretty rare company and I think will assure Cabrera is considered one of baseball's greatest hitters.
Players and coaches in the league now are already talking about how good Cabrera is. When he is intentionally walked so a pitcher can face Prince Fielder, who is 7th in RBI's this year, what does that say about how managers feel about letting Cabrera hit in RBI situations? When managers are putting a guy on to face another player who has a 50 homerun season to his credit that shows how good the rest of baseball thinks Cabrera is. Since 2008 only Ichiro, with 1119 has had more hits then Cabrera with 960. No one has hit as many homeruns as Cabrera's 183 or as many RBI's as Cabrera's 600.
I don't know any other ways to say that Cabrera is the game's best hitter right now and I believe when it is all said and done, one of the best ever.
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