Miguel Cabrera is now part of one of the most exclusive clubs in baseball.
Cabrera put an exclamation point on his career when he became the 28th member of the 500-home run club with a sixth-inning blast for the Detroit Tigers on Sunday.
Cabrera’s home run was a 400-foot solo shot to right field off Blue Jays starting pitcher Steven Matz.
Now in his 19th season in the majors, Cabrera foretold his future greatness in his first major league game back on June 20, 2003, when he hit a walk-off home run to dead center field in the bottom of the 11th inning for the Florida Marlins.
Indeed, he was precocious enough at the plate as a much-hyped 20-year-old that by October of that year he was batting cleanup for the Marlins in the World Series. He is still the youngest player to start at cleanup in a World Series game.
It’s been a slow trek to 500 for Cabrera, as he had 446 home runs at the end of the 2016 season after hitting 38 that year, the 10th time he had reached 30 home runs. He hasn’t hit more than 16 in a season since then, however, as injuries and age sapped his power output. His 500th home run was his 13th of 2021.
Still, Cabrera is one of the best all-around hitters in the 500-home run club. His .311 career batting average ranks fifth among the 28 players, as only nine batted .300 in their careers. His adjusted batting is 19.2% better than the league average during his career, which ranks behind only Ted Williams and Babe Ruth among club members, and he won batting titles in 2011 (.344), 2012 (.330), 2013 (.348) and 2015 (.338). The only other right-handed hitters with 500 home runs and a .300 average are Manny Ramirez, Henry Aaron, Willie Mays and Frank Thomas.
Cabrera has also won two home run titles, leading the American League with 37 in 2008, his first season with the Tigers after a trade with the Marlins, and then again with 44 in 2012. That was Cabrera’s Triple Crown season, when he became the first player since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967 to lead his league in home runs, RBIs and batting average. He won his first of back-to-back MVP Awards that season, beating out Mike Trout both times.
A few more home run facts from Cabrera’s career:
• He has 41 two-homer games and two three-homer games. His three-homer games came against Oakland on May 28, 2010, and against Texas on May 19, 2013.
• His most victimized team: He’s hit 50 home runs against Cleveland.
• His most victimized pitcher: He hit seven off Phil Hughes.
• He’s hit seven walk-off home runs, that first one in his first game coming off Al Levine of the Devil Rays.
Next up for Cabrera: The 3,000-hit club, which has 32 members. He needed 134 hits at the start of the season and in spring training, Cabrera had hoped to join both clubs in 2021.
“I hope I can get to 500, 3,000 this year,” he said in February. “It’s one of my goals this year. Mentally, I feel good. I feel mentally strong. I’m trying to go day by day and trying to play hard.”
Cabrera had one stint on the injured list this year, missing 13 games in April with a biceps strain, but it looks like he will fall short of reaching 3,000 hits, as he is sitting at 2,955.
He’s still signed through 2023, however, so he should get there in early 2022. The 3,000/500 club includes just six other players: Aaron, Mays, Albert Pujols, Eddie Murray, Alex Rodriguez and Rafael Palmeiro.