Yesterday I did something I didn’t feel good about. It was an agonizing decision that I mulled over for several days. Truth be told, I could have done it sooner, and honestly I am convinced that it is going to come back and bite me. I dropped Miguel Cabrera from my fantasy team.
Seriously…unfathomable…I know. For some context here, it is a six team league. That is a small league and though there are 24 players per roster, it only adds up to 144 total players. Currently Yahoo has Miguel ranked 575th. And even within smaller sample sizes of the last 30, 14, and seven days, the highest he has been ranked is 301st.
You are wondering why on Earth this seemingly minor event (and frankly calling it an event in the first place may even be an exaggeration) is worth it for you to continue reading this article. I get it. Think about it though.
Miguel Cabrera is an 11 time All Star. He is a seven time Silver Slugger, once in the Outfield, and three times each at Third and First. He is also a two-time American League MVP with nine Top 10 finishes. In his 15th year at age 34, Cabrera already has 453 Home Runs, the eighth fastest player in history to get to 400 and lifetime .319 batting average.
In his career he has played for the Florida Marlins where he won the World Series as a rookie but spent much of his time on an out of contention team and the Detroit Tigers. With the Tigers, his teams have been a bit more competitive, making another World Series in 2012 but losing to the Giants. He is the type of player that if he spent the bulk of his career in a big media market, he would be a legend.
Even so, Cabrera is one of the most recognizable names in the game from the moment he stepped between the lines. He is on track to eclipse 500 and possibly 600 career homers and will also flirt with 3000 hits. At minimum I would say that he is one of the Top 30 position players of all time. That is why it pained me to drop him.
He is still recovering from a groin injury that landed him on the Disabled List in April. That is probably part of it. Though 58 games this year he is hitting .268 with seven home runs and 32 RBIs. And a deeper dive into his advanced metrics doesn’t seem to reveal much in the way of excuses. His Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) is .320. So he is not getting unlucky. His average Exit Velocity is down from 93.6 last year, good for fourth in the league to 92.5 so far this year, but that still has him 10th best in the majors. The down-tick in Exit Velocity could be an indicator of an injury, but he is still mashing the ball.
Taking all of this into account, I did what I thought was best though he is still owned in 98% of Yahoo leagues. I am fairly confident that within a few weeks, we will see an uptick in production and I hope that someone will not beat me to the punch in signing him back up. But…for the moment activating Jean Segura from the fantasy Disabled List will have to do. I’ll try to sleep tonight.