Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera Intends to Retire After 2023 Season
After watching long-time teammates Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina ride off into the sunset last season, the baseball community is losing another baseball great as Miguel Cabrera plans to retire after the 2023 season.
The Detroit Tigers’ legend announced his decision in Miami on Monday ahead of this week’s charity gala, hosted by the Miguel Cabrera Foundation, which began in 2007. Next season will mark his 16th and final season with the organization.
Cabrera signed with Florida as an amateur free agent in 1999, making his major-league debut during the 2003 season. The 12-time All-Star played 719 career games in the Sunshine State, hitting .313/.388/.542 with 138 home runs, 523 RBIs and a 139 wRC+.
The Marlins traded Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers as part of a blockbuster deal following the 2007 season for a package that included Dallas Trahern, Burke Badenhop, Frankie De La Cruz, Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and Mike Rabelo. It’s safe to say Detroit won that trade.
Entering the final season of his eight-year, $248-million contract, the 39-year-old is part of the handful of players who’ve played professionally for nearly two decades. And while he takes great pride in that, he also understands that his best days are far behind him.
“I think it’s going to be my last year. It feels a little weird to say that,” Cabrera said to MLB.com’s Christina De Nicola on Monday. “I thought, I’m not going to say ‘never,’ but I think it’s time to say goodbye to baseball.”
But before Cabrera retires, the future Hall-of-Famer has a few more goals he’d like to accomplish next season, like reaching the top 20 on MLB’s all-time hits leaderboard. And he’s only 55 hits away from achieving that feat.
The 6-foot-4 slugger also hopes to improve his availability as back and knee injuries have plagued him since 2018, limiting him to fewer than 500 plate appearances in three of his last five campaigns.
“One of my goals is to play a full season with no injuries, try to help the Tigers to win more games,” Cabrera said. “Because I feel if we can stay healthy, we can improve more in the field. If you don’t stay healthy, there’s no chance we can win. We had a lot of injuries this year, and it hurt us a lot. We’ll see if we can stay healthy all year.”
The native of Venezuela also desires to play for his home country in next spring’s World Baseball Classic, saying, “I would love to play. If they give me a chance, I’ll play.”
When Cabrera does call it quits, though, he plans to remain around the game in some capacity, hopefully in Detroit. There’s no need to rush his decision, but after spending the majority of his career in the “Motor City,” there’s no other place he’d want to begin his post-playing career.
“I’ve had a lot of conversations with my family,” Cabrera said. “I don’t know, we’ll see if I can stay in the Tigers’ organization, help young guys. I have time to decide, but my goal is to stay in baseball, try to help, because I love baseball. Why would I go away?”
The two-time American League MVP winner is one of just three players in MLB history with at least 3,000 hits, 500 home runs and 600 doubles. He has also been worth 68.6 fWAR for his career, good for fifth in the majors since 2000.
Cabrera ranks second in WPA (41.3), third in home runs (369), fourth in slugging percentage (.517), fifth in RBIs (1,324) and extra-base hits (800), tied for fifth in wRC+ (141), eighth in hits (2,246) and 10th in fWAR (49.0) among all hitters in Tigers’ franchise history.
Detroit will finish the 2023 regular season at home versus the Cleveland Guardians on Oct. 1, potentially marking Cabrera’s final game.
-Thomas Hall
Twitter: @ThomasHall85
Photo: Keith Allison. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.