Miguel Cabrera is Good at Hitting

Last night, Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers hit three home runs. They were the three longest home runs of the night. After winning the Triple Crown last year, Cabrera leads the American League in runs batted in with 47 (after 42 games!) and in batting average at .387, and is only one behind the four-way tie for the league lead in home runs with 11. It is, at this point, tough to doubt that Miguel Cabrera is the best hitter in baseball. He turned it on in 2010. Well, okay, he's been pretty good for his entire career, and even better during his stay in Detroit, but since 2010, well...

Cabrera's batting average is .339, the best in baseball among those with at least 1000 at-bats. The next best is Joey Votto, at .324.

Cabrera's on-base percentage is .423, the second-best in baseball, behind only Votto's .438.

Cabrera's slugging percentage is .609, the best in baseball. Next best is Jose Bautista's .587.

That gives Cabrera an OPS of 1.033, noticeably ahead of Votto's .999 for the best in the game.

Cabrera has his 123 home runs over the past four seasons, trailing only Bautista's 133.

Cabrera has 145 doubles, just one behind Robinson Cano's 146 and second in baseball.

Cabrera has 649 hits, the best in baseball. Cano is second with 636.

Cabrera has driven in 417 runs, the best in baseball. Adrian Gonzalez is second at 355.

Cabrera has scored 365 runs, the most in the game, ahead of Ryan Braun's 341.

All this adds up to 195 Runs Above Average from Batting for Cabrera, according to Baseball-Reference. The next best over this period is Votto, with 165 RAAbat. I'm pretty sure that the categories I just listed are all the statistics that you want a great middle-of-the-order bat to excel at. For what it's worth, he has the sixth most walks in the game over these years with 284, behind Ben Zobrist (287), Carlos Pena (299), Jose Bautista (316), Joey Votto (332), and Prince Fielder (336). So, I suppose one could wish that he led the league in walks as well as hits. But it's awfully tough to complain when you're leading baseball in batting average by fifteen points. It's also probably not a coincidence that his walks dropped off from 108 in 2011 to just 66 last year, when he gained the threat of Prince Fielder behind him in the order; if Prince had signed elsewhere, he might've been closer to the lead there. But, seriously, first or second in average, on-base, slugging, home runs, doubles, hits, runs driven in, and runs scored. That's the best hitter in baseball. It's tough, at this point, to see Cabrera not making the Hall of Fame: this is only his age 30 season, it's only May, and he's got 332 career home runs, 1869 career hits (so he should hit 2000 later this year), 398 career doubles, 1170 career RBI, 995 career runs scored, and, oh yeah, 50 career Wins Above Replacement, despite being an absolutely incompetent defensive player. This guy is scary good. If anyone can do back-to-back Triple Crowns, it could well be Miggy.