On Miguel Cabrera’s Monster 10-year Contract Extension

There aren’t many players who are worth a 10-year, $292 million dollar contract extension; but Miguel Cabrera is that player.

People will say what they will – that Cabrera won’t be able to live out this deal at the top of his game, or they’ll point towards the Pujols contract and it’s impending doom ending. But Cabrera is his own case study. In the past two years he’s basically won two Triple Crowns. He’s dominated the game of baseball for almost the last decade like some of the legends our grandfathers tell stories about.

Wake up and smell the coffee, Miguel Cabrera is a timeless, generational talent. A rare pearl that is found once every few decades in the deep seas. Due to the Hall of Fame numbers he’s putting up year over year (he’s averaged 6.7 bWAR over the past five seasons), this deal is going to end up paying for itself because I believe that Cabrera is one of those rare gate attractions that people will pay to see. Like the Siberian Tiger at the local zoo, he’s the one thing you just have to see when you visit Motown. I know I want to get up north this summer just to see the guy take some hacks live.

And after he retires, he’ll be remembered as a Detroit Tiger. Don’t tell me that it would have been good for baseball for Cabrera to end up on the Mets, or the Phillies, or any other team in his final years. If the Tigers don’t ink this type of deal, someone else would have when the time came. It’s best for the game if he remains in Detroit and continues to chase records wearing that pseudo-Black.

The deal could reach 12 years and $352 million total. The biggest winners in all of this are the fans of the Detroit Tigers franchise. Baseball’s king remains in Camelot for another decade plus. The Tigers just need to find the resources to surround him with the missing link and get a World Series ring on his finger.

This is the type of contract that only the class organizations have earned the right to ink a player to. The Detroit Tigers fit that description right now – they’re one of the few. You can’t argue with what they’ve done to this point in building the machine. That’s a competitive and respected team year after year. This move is no different: except it’s a winning move in more ways than just the wins it will yield on the field.