Miguel Cabrera is coming off of two consecutive AL MVPs and is still two years away from hitting free agency, but the Detroit Tigers decided they didn’t want to take any chances and have reportedly signed him to a contract extension that will earn him just under $300 million over the next ten season.
Before you go and get all excited about Cabrera becoming the first $300 million man in MLB, settle down. For starters, the value that it currently being put out there is said to be $292 million overall, but that has not yet been declared the official number. More importantly, it is only $248 million in actual new money as the ten-year extension includes the two years and $44 million Cabrera had left on his original eight-year, $152 million deal signed back in 2008. Either way, he’s going to be making a whole lot of money.
As great as Miggy has been over the last several seasons, this deal is going to be questioned. Cabrera will be turning 31 just after Opening Day, so his physical prime is coming to an end, if it hasn’t already. That matters for a guy like Cabrera who was hampered by muscle strains in the final months of the 2013. He’s never been on the disabled list in his career, but at some point, age is going to come into a play. It also doesn’t help that Cabrera’s physique is one that does not project to age well. In other words, Miggy is likely to perform well enough to justify his salary over the first few years of this deal, but the Tigers are assuming a lot of risk over the latter half of the contract. For better or worse, that is par for the course for these massive deals (see Pujols, Albert).
The real issue though might actually be the timing. With Cabrera locked down for two more years, Detroit could have let Miggy play out the 2014 season before approaching him about an extension. That would have allowed them to make sure that the health issues he went through last season don’t develop into something chronic. They would have been taking a small risk in letting him get a year closer to the open market, but if they were always willing to throw an extension at him that would pay him $31 million per year, that risk would get mitigated rather quickly.
Whatever qualms there are about the deal, it is done and Cabrera is now the highest paid player in baseball in terms of overall money, besting the $275 million deal of Alex Rodriguez, and average annual value, just edging out the $30.7 million AAV that Clayton Kershaw just got. That has to feel pretty good for Miggy… provided Mike Trout doesn’t beat him with an extension of his own. Of course, if the AL MVP voting is any indicator, Trout will come in second, despite being more deserving.
