Contemplating Miguel Cabrera

Dan Gladden, it was obvious Friday, has not yet recognized the new reality with Miguel Cabrera: "Miggy" is no longer the overwhelming hitter he once was.

Cabrera's slash line after 0 for 4 Friday was an underwhelming .248/.328/.397. Coupled with his subpar defense at first base, and you have a player who is barely better than replacement, at least by Baseball Reference' version of WAR.

Gladden seems to think that the 34-year-old Cabrera is still MIGUEL CABRERA. He's not. Same person, with sharply diminished skills.

The "fun" part for the rebuilding Tigers is that this was the first year of an eight-year contract extension. Unless the big guy finds a way to reverse the ravages of age -- I wouldn't count on it -- the Tigers have seven more years of this ahead of them.

The Tigers revamp their infield

Ian Kinsler has made three All-Star teams in his
eight major league seasons, all with the Texas Rangers.

The Prince Fielder-Ian Kinsler deal, once it becomes official, essentially means a complete revamp of the Detroit Tigers infield.

Presumably the Tigers will return Miguel Cabrera to first base and install prospect Nick Castellanos at third base. Castellanos is just 21 (turns 22 during spring training) and spent 2013 playing left field in Triple A, but third is reckoned his best position.

It's possible, of course, that the Tigers will add a veteran corner infielder -- ESPN's Tim Kurkjian on Wednesday night specifically named former Twins first baseman Justin Morneau as a possibility -- but if they really regard Castellanos as a major piece of their future, I think they'll avoid blocking him.

And that would represent quite the transition for a team that has prioritized offense over defense.

2013 infield: Fielder at first, Omar Infante at second, Cabrera at third, Jhonny Peralta at shortstop

2014 infield: Cabrera at first, Kinsler at second, Castellanos at third, Jose Iglesias at short.

That's three new faces, with the one holdover shifting position.

Peralta and Infante are free agents. Detroit general manager Dave Dombrowski had said early in the offseason that Peralta was unlikely to be re-signed; presumably the same is now true of Infante.

The Tigers traded for Iglesias in midseason just before Peralta was suspended 50 games for his involvement with Biogenesis. They are very different shortstops; Peralta has limited range but makes few mistakes and is a productive hitter. Iglesias is very rangy in the field but, despite a good set of rookie stats, is not expected to help at the plate.

Kinsler is Infante's superior in the field. Infante had the better 2013 at the plate, however, and Kinsler's numbers the past couple of years have not lived up to his peak production. Kinsler has benefited over his career from playing in Texas, a hitter's haven; his offense may well take a sharp drop between a less hospitable home park and advancing age. (Kinsler for his career in Texas: .304/.387/.511; elsewhere, .242/.312/.399.)

One wonders if the tradeoff of offense for defense is deliberate, or if it just happened as the Tigers sought more payroll flexibility. This projected 2014 infield wouldn't produce runs as the 2013 infield did, but the Tigers should be better with the glove at each position.

Jhonny Peralta isn't a particularly rangy shortstop,
but he's a better hitter than most shortstops.

I am far from convinced that the better defense will adequately compensate for the decrease in runs. I specifically doubt that Iglesias is a overall step up from Peralta (although he will be considerably less expensive, which will allow resources to be diverted to other needs).

Kinsler has been a top-of-the-order hitter for Texas; Infante hit at the bottom of the Tigers order. I'm curious about how new manager Brad Ausmus will handle this. The Tigers lost their cleanup hitter; will Ausmus move Torii Hunter out of the second slot to hit fourth or fifth and install Kinsler in the two-hole?

On hitting coaches

Miguel Cabrera homrs Sunday in Fenway Park.

It has long been said that you can't teach hitting. A player either has the hand-eye coordination to hit or he doesn't. The most a hitting coach can do is refine the talent.

Yet major league teams today are increasing adding assistant hitting coaches. The Twins are said to be discussing internally adding a seventh coach to the staff and rearranging duties; it seems likely from this outside view that somebody will be joining Tom Brunansky as an assistant hitting instructor.

I just came across this Wall Street Journal piece from earlier this month about Miguel Cabrera and how he fits — or doesn't fit — into the various theories of hitting.

My favorite paragraph from the story, which comes after describing some unique things Cabrera does:

Batting coaches generally strangle such habits early on. "You know what Ted Williams would have done with this guy?" said Toby Harrah, an assistant batting coach with the Tigers who played for Williams when he managed the Washington Senators in 1971. "He would have left him alone."

It's worth reading not so much for what Cabrera does — he is, as the piece explains, a unique beast — as for the background on hitting coaching, approaches and techniques.

There's enough variance in ideas and theories that I wonder if the organizational habit of telling players This is how we do it is misplaced. Joe Mauer and Trevor Plouffe, to pick two Twins who have played for no other organization, are very different hitters, and it seems unlikely that they would benefit from the same instructional emphasis.

Calling somebody an "assistant hitting coach" implies that the "hitting coach" has the authority and the responsibility. Maybe it has to be that way; there is clearly a risk of confusing a player with contradictory advice and instruction. But I doubt anybody knows enough about hitting to make any one approach mandatory.

Pic of the Week

Miguel Cabrera crushes one.

When this photo came floating across my Twitter feed this week, I had to take it to colleague Pat Christman, who does most of The Free Press' sports photography.

PC, I really want you to bring back a photo like this from the next MoonDogs game you shoot.

Pat started mumbling about special video cameras that shoot 30 frames a second, to which I said:

Even if you lucked into just the right fraction of a second, none of the MoonDogs is Miguel Cabrera. 

This is a truly frightening image, to see a baseball flattened like that.

Outrages I'm having trouble being overly outraged about

Jose Reyes is one-and-done in
Miami.

Outrage 1: The Miami Marlins turned themselves into fish sticks with a major salary-dump trade with Toronto (it's still not official, pending physicals and probably some salary review by the commissioner's office). Mark Buehrle, Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, John Buck ... they signed last winter for big coin with the the Fish, and now they're gone.

In a pure baseball sense, it's probably a good trade for Miami. It's not like they broke up a good team. The Marlins finished last with those high-priced guys. They can finish last without them.

The real reason this deal draws universal derision when the Red Sox got a pass for doing the same thing in midsummer is that Jeffrey Loria and his co-conspirators in the Miami organization have poisoned the well. They don't get the benefit of the doubt, because they burned that long ago.

I believe that Loria and Co. are slimeballs and represent the worst of big-time pro sports ownership. I also believe that they are systematically wrecking Miami as a baseball market, just as they did Montreal.

I can despise Loria and everything he stands for without trashing this trade.

Miguel Cabrera wasn't the worst defensive
third baseman in the league -- hello, Trevor
Plouffe -- but he was close.

Outrage 2: Miguel Cabrera won the American League MVP award Thursday in a one-sided vote over Mike Trout.

Miggy had a big year, but he wasn't better than Trout, Triple Crown or no. Trout wasn't far behind Cabrera as a hitter, and was far superior in the field and on the bases. Yes, Cabrera's team made the playoffs, but Trout's team (a) won more games (b) playing a far more difficult schedule.

But this isn't the biggest outrage of recent MVP voting. This isn't Juan Gonzalez winning an MVP for piling up RBIs in an extreme hitter's park.

Outrage 3: David Price on Wednesday won the AL Cy Young Award in a close vote over Justin Verlander.

Again, Price had a fine season. Verlander was better. This is very much akin to 2005, when Bartolo Colon won the award over Johan Santana, an award the writers apparently began to regret almost as soon as it was announced. Colon had a good year, but everybody knew Santana was the superior pitcher.

The same is true this year, perhaps not to the degree that it was in 2005, but still ... I doubt anybody in baseball would rather have Price than Verlander (ignoring the salary difference).

Pic of the Week

Miguel Cabrera contemplates the plight of his
Detroit Tigers team during the ninth inning of
Game Three — the second straight shutout defeat
for the American League representatives.

Miguel Cabrera had a single Saturday in Game 3 of the World Series. But in what may have been the single most crucial at-bat of the series — bases loaded, two out, Cabrera against Ryan Vogelsong in the  bottom of the fifth inning — Miggy popped up harmlessly.

The Triple Crown winner hasn't done much at the plate. Neither have his teammates. Through three games, the Tigers have yet to take the lead. They've scored three runs, all in the first game, and two of them in a garbage time ninth inning that they entered trailing 8-1.

But Cabrera is the big man, the figure everybody's looking to, and his response Saturday night wasn't good — he fled the stadium after the game and avoided the media.

The Giants are up 3-0 in the series, and they haven't played their ace — Matt Cain — yet. That comes tonight.

The myth of lineup protection

Prince Fielder is examined for signs
of a concussion after being hit
by a thrown ball while running
the bases.

Prince Fielder, as you know, switched teams and leagues this past offseason. He left Milwaukee, where he hit behind Ryan Braun, and signed with Detroit, where he hits behind Miguel Cabrera.

The two situations are similar. Fielder, an outstanding left-handed hitter, hitting behind a suberb right-handed hitter. And broadcasters will frequently talk about how Fielder "protects" the man ahead of him. The idea is that Fielder is so imposing that opposition hurlers have to throw strikes to Braun/Cabrera, and that in Fielder's absence, those strikes aren't coming.

Well ...

Braun this year, with Aramis Ramirez -- another right-handed hitter, a good hitter but no Fielder -- entered Friday's play hitting .309/.385/.585. This is basically what he's done throughout his career (.311/.372/.565), which had been spent entirely as Fielder's teammate until this season.

Milwaukee isn't as good a team without Fielder. But his departure has not made Braun a less productive hitter.

Cabrera this season has a slash line of .322/.383/.583. This, again, is basically a match for his career line (.317/.398/.568).

Braun and Cabrera are great hitters. They are great hitters with or without Fielder.

Grounds crew games in Chicago

Miguel Cabrera explains the issue
to the home plate umpire,
Adrian Johnson.

The groundskeeper for the Chicago White Sox, Roger Bossard, is the third generation of his family in the field, and he is widely regarded as the best in the business.

And the craftiest. His grandfather, Emil, was the man who helped Bill Veeck rig a movable outfield fence in Cleveland — the numbers on the fence stayed the same, but the wall would move in and out depending on the opponent. Yankees in town, move the fence back; the punchless Senators are visiting, bring 'em in tight. Such illicit gamesmanship helped the Indians win the 1948 pennant (and the World Series; Cleveland hasn't won the Series since). Roger Bossard is the heir to that tradition, and by reputation there is nobody better at grooming the field to the advantage of the home team.

Which makes Friday's batter's box incident at the White Sox's home opener curious indeed.

Miguel Cabrera noticed that the box was not properly aligned with home plate, and the umps quickly agreed. The grounds crew was ordered out to rechalk the boxes. The White Sox radio crew (I was listening via my iPad) ridiculed Cabrera for the delay, but described the boxes as "six to eight inches" too far out toward the pitchers' mound.

Now ... anybody who's watched a grounds crew chalk the boxes knows that kind of error is no accident. They use a template that fits the side of home plate. The only way to make the boxes a half foot out of alignment is to place the template a half-foot out of alignment, and that would be obvious.

Bossard does not run a slipshod operation. If the batters' box was six inches out of place, it was done deliberately.

The thing is, I'm not sure how it helps the White Sox in this particular matchup. Max Scherzer, the Detroit starter, probably throws harder than the declining Jake Peavy, the Sox starter Friday. Peavy could probably use the help — make his fast ball six inches quicker — but Scherzer probably stood to benefit more.

Revisiting the Tigers and Royals

Miguel Cabrera was bleeding profusely after
behind hit by a ground ball. It apparently looks
worse than it actually was.

On the past three Saturdays I've reviewed the offseasons and outlook for three divisional rivals of the Twins. (The fourth will publish this coming Saturday.)

Already two of those, the Royals and Tigers, need to be revisited.

One of the more intriguing moves of the offseason was Detroit's decision to move Miguel Cabrera to third base to make room at first for Prince Fielder. On Monday Cabrera took a bad hop off the face; on Tuesday the Tigers said he had a non-displaced fracture of the orbital bone under his right eye. They say his vision is fine, and he'll be rechecked in a week after the swelling has gone down.

We can assume that the Tigers and Cabrera figured they'd lose some runs on defense by playing him there. They probably didn't figure that he was going to be exposed to injury.

The chatter at Tigers camp Tuesday was that the sunglasses he was wearing at the time were responsible for the bloody cut but probably protected his eye from the ball; Detroit GM David Dombrowski said the ball's laces left an imprint on the lens.

For what it's worth, Jim Leyland says nobody was going to handle that hop and that Cabrera's drawbacks at the position had nothing to do with the mishap. He may be right. But it will be interesting to see if Cabrera flinches on hard-hit balls whenever he gets back on the field, which probably won't come much before Opening Day at the earliest.

Kansas City's closer, Joakim Soria, has ligament damage in his right elbow and may require Tommy John surgery. It would be Soria's second such operation. Among the fallout: Aaron Crow is to remain in the bullpen, although he doesn't figure to take Soria's closing role.

The Royals have also lost catcher Salvador Perez to knee surgery for about the first two months.

Around the AL Central: Detroit Tigers

Miguel Cabrera is reported to have
lost at least 20 pounds over the winter
in preparation for his return to
third base, suggesting this was in
the works well before the signing
of Prince Fielder.

The 2011 Detroit Tigers won 94 games, which is a nice figure but probably a bit of an over achievement, as they had the stats of an 89-win team.

The 2010 Twins won 94 games also, with the stats of a 92-win team, and we know what happened to them the following season.

Nobody expected that debacle, and I'm hardly here to predict a similar fate for the Tigers. The Twins collapse was, as far as I tell, historically unique, to have a drop-off that drastic without trying to tank the season (a la the 1915 Athletics or the 1998 Marlins). But while the Tigers have reason to be optimistic about 2012 -- more reason, really, than anybody else in the division this March -- it's worth remembering that they have flaws.

Yes, they added Prince Fielder. They also subtracted Victor Martinez, who had a marvelous season. The exchange doesn't add all that much to the offense -- and takes away a bit on the defensive side, because the Tigers are moving Miguel Cabrera to third base to make room for Fielder at first.

Fielder, who has trouble scooping low throws (probably because his belly gets in the way) figures to be a slight downgrade from Cabrera at first. And Cabrera at third ... well, the Tigers moved him off third base in 2008 because he was such a defensive disaster there. He has clearly slimmed down considerably this offseason, but I would expect that the absolute best the Tigers can hope for is that he's merely a below-average defensive third baseman.

This is not unfamiliar territory for Jim Leyland; he won his World Series with Bobby Bonilla engaged in a daily war with the position (Marlins, 1997).

The Tigers have prodigious strong points. Justin Verlander is Justin Verlander. Cabrera and Fielder represent the best middle-of-the-lineup duo in the game. Any team with those three guys at the top of their games should be a serious contender, no matter the rest of the roster.

But this is also a team with some serious weaknesses. The infield could be a defensive disaster; the only regular with speed is Austin Jackson; the on-base percentages, aside from Cabrera and Fielder, range from OK to dismal. There is, on a purely logical level, an insanity to a lineup with Cabrera, Fielder and Delmon Young in which a fourth player is the DH. (The reason for the insanity is quite sane; Leyland wants to keep his stars happy, and none of them are willing to embrace the DH role.)

Do you remember the White Sox of the early 2000s? They had a flock of potent but immobile hitters: Frank Thomas, Carlos Lee, Magglio Ordonez, Paul Konerko, Jose Valentin ... they had four hitters better than anybody in the Twins lineup. Once a week or so they'd run up a football score on somebody, just embarrass a pitching staff. And they'd follow a 13-run game with three games in a row of one or two runs, and they couldn't win pitchers duels because of their defense and dependency on the long ball. And it was the Twins who won divisional titles.

I can see something along those lines happening for this Tigers team. There's a lot here, but there's some significant stuff missing as well. The rest of the division has to hope this mirrors 2008, when the Tigers expected to score 1,000 runs and instead fell apart on lousy defense, injuries and a little bad luck.

Favorites? Sure, the Tigers are the favorites. But there is reason to play the season.

Prince Fielder, Mike Ilitch and the quest for value

Prince Fielder and Mike Ilitch: One is rich, the other is richer.

Now that Prince Fielder is officially a Detroit Tiger ...

The Tigers owe Fielder $214 million over the next nine seasons. They owe Miguel Cabrera $86 million over the next four seasons. They owe Justin Verlander $60 million over the next three seasons.

That adds up to $360 million for three players.

According to Forbes, which each spring publishes estimates of the worth of each major league franchise, the entire Tigers franchise was worth $385 million as of 2011. (Forbes valued the Twins at $490 million.)

Frankly, I'm over my head when it comes to numbers like these. I'd be a fool to think that I know more about finances than Tigers owner Mike Ilitch; he and his family have built an empire of pizza and pro sports and casinos and who knows what else that's worth at least $2 billion, and I ... haven't.

I don't even know if extremely pricey players such as Fielder, Cabrera and Joe Mauer count as assets or as liabilities when Forbes estimates a team's worth. There may be no real connection between payroll and worth.

But it feels out of balance for a team to have essentially its entire value tied up in three players.

Certainly Ilitch runs his team differently than do the Pohlads. Forbes consistently estimates that the Tigers operate at an annual loss of more than $20 million; the Fielder signing pretty much guarantees that will continue. The Pohlads have, I'm sure, subsidized the Twins from time to time, but in the main they expect the team to pay its own way.

The Pohlad approach seems to me the more stable way to operate.

Like the late Carl Pohlad, Ilitch has offspring who are active in the family empire, and it would seem likely that there is a succession plan in place — likely that the Tigers will not, when the 82-year-old Ilitch dies, enter the bizarre world of probate that ensnared the Red Sox and Royals when their big-spending owners passed on.

Still: The Tigers have a major market payroll and small market revenues. At some point, that contradiction is going to bite them.

Prince Fielder to the Detroit Tigers

Detroit will pay a king's ransom for Prince Fielder.

Well, I sure didn't see this coming.

Prince Fielder landed with the Tigers — nine years, $214 million, pending a physical (which will doubtless find that he's one really heavy dude).

Long, huge contracts are always a risk, and once this one becomes official it will be the fourth largest ever. It's longer and more costly than even the Joe Mauer contract, and the Twins are probably far less comfortable with that one just one year in than they ever imagined. And Mauer isn't lugging around a big belly.

If you're going to spend $200 million-plus on a player, best that it be one of Fielder's age. It would also be preferred that it not be on one of Fielder's body type.

Fielder can certainly hit. He and Miguel Cabrera figure to be as imposing a pair of back-to-back hitters as one could hope for -- as was Fielder and Ryan Braun in Milwaukee. But both Fielder and Cabrera have been first basemen for several seasons now, neither is particularly agile, and neither wants a steady diet of DHing.

Cabrera, who was moved from third base in 2008 after embarrassing himself with five errors in 14 games, is supposedly to return to the hot corner. Considering that the Detroit shortstop, Jhonny Peralta, was moved to third base by the Cleveland Indians because of his lack of range, and that their patchwork at second base frequently involves a transplanted outfielder (Ryan Raburn) and this has the very real possibility of being the worst defensive infield I'll ever see in the majors.

But the Tigers are heavy on power pitchers, and if anybody is equipped to play with an infield of Iron Gloves, it would be a staff led by guys like Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. Rick Porcello, not so much.

The middle of the Tigers lineup certainly won't be fun to pitch against the next few years, so in the short run, the Fielder signing may work. In the long run, guaranteeing a player with Fielder's conditioning issues that much money for that long a term is lunacy. But Mike Ilitch, the pizza magnate and former minor leaguer who owns the Tigers, is in his 80s. In the long run, he's dead. He wants a World Series first.

Following up on Miguel (DWI) Cabrera

Miguel Cabrera: Hits baseballs, hits bottles.

The Tigers general manager and their field manager have, let us say, rather different reactions to this week's DWI arrest of Miguel Cabrera.

From GM Dave Dombrowski:

We have an issue here that needs to be addressed and helped — and we're going to help him. We fully support him in trying to get help. But it also can be tough help sometimes.

From manager Jim Leyland:

It has no effect. It might make some dramatic reading material. It’s not going to do (bleep). Believe me. Nothing.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

From all indications, Cabrera isn't looking at jail time out of this. He didn't get in an accident, he didn't kill or injure anybody. Which is just lucky, I guess. 

But the Tigers have committed $106 million to this doofus, and they need him in the lineup. But they also need to be able to rely on him, and off his 2009 incident and this one, I can't regard him as reliable. Leyland may not care if Cabrera has a drinking problem as long as he hits .320 with 40 homers, but if the Tigers take the hands-off approach he appears inclined toward, this is going to end badly. And if they take an aggressive, lets-get-this-fixed approach, Cabrera may miss considerable time this season.

The Tigers' spring training buzzkill

Here is how the Tigers thought they could win the AL Central this season: power arms in the rotation and bullpen, three big bats (Magglio Ordonez, Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez) in the middle of the lineup, fill out the lineup with gloves and OK bats.

It's fun to be drunk and in jail, right, Miggy?

It could work. Or Miguel Cabrera could get arrested for drunken driving before he ever gets to spring training.

This is not good on any level. Taking a swig out of a bottle of scotch in front of the officer is ... bizarre. Stupid. Self-destructive.

Two years ago, Cabrera's drinking got him arrested in the middle of the final series of the regular season — a series in which the Tigers got swept, a sweep that forced Detroit into Game 163 against the Twins, a game that cost Detroit the divisional title.

He was supposedly clean and sober since. If so, not anymore. And the Tigers have a multi-million dollar problem on their hands.

At this point, it's unclear what the Tigers will do with him, but I would assume that it's going to be awhile before their best player shows up in camp. As with CBS and Charlie Sheen, Cabrera is too valuable not to have at work, but also far too valuable to let him drink himself to death. He needs rehab — but that's only going to work if he wants it to work.

Dazed and confused

Saturday's announcement that Justin Morneau will skip the All-Star Game because of his concussion is correct, proper and wise.

Of course, if Torii Hunter were still around, he'd be implying that Morneau is being a wimp.

Morneau's withdrawal makes Miguel Cabrera the All-Star starter for the AL, and that might have been justifiable even if Morneau were healthy.

Dick-n-Bert have spent about a month hyping the "need" to vote often for Morneau; a few days after the announcement that Morneau won the fan voting, they agreed that Cabrera is the current front-runner for the MVP award.

Let's see ... Cabrera's the league's MVP, and he's a first baseman, but somebody else should start the All-Star Game at first base ...

Morneau's not the only one with a headache.

Notes, quotes and comments

When you have problems, you can't hide. When you know you don't do right, you need to do something and ask for help.

— Detroit Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera (right) on his alcoholism rehab. The slugger, who had a notorious drinking binge late in the season as the Tigers blew the divisional title, says he hasn't had a drink since October.

---

The Twins are linked to free agent Jim Thome? Really? I don't see the point of making the lineup slower and even more left-handed, even if he figures to come cheap.

---

A player who might have been a fit with the Twins is Gary Matthews Jr., at least at the price the Mets are paying for him. But the Angels moved him for almost nothing because he's not willing to fill the fourth outfielder role, and that's what he'd have been in Minnesota, so I can't be too upset that he's going to Citi Field.

The Met will be paying Matthews about a million this year and next, which isn't horrendously out-of-line for a veterans reserve CF, and he is at least insurance on Carlos Betran's knee surgery. The Angels will pay $21 million-plus to have him on somebody else's roster, which is something they probably should have foreseen when they signed him to that ridiculous contract.

The crybabies are out

A few quick examples:

* The St. Louis Cardinals lost Game 2 of the NLDS Thursday when (a) the always-overrated Matt Holliday let a routine fly hit him in the belly button with two outs in the ninth (above) and (b) closer Ryan Franklin apparently decided that absolved him of the need to throw strikes.

So the Cardinals, rather than blame their supposed stars, blamed ... the fans in Los Angeles. Starting pitcher Adam Wainwright:

I mean, that ball got lost in 50,000 white towels shaking in front of Matt’s face. It doesn’t really seem fair that an opposing team should be able to allow their fans to shake white towels when there’s a white baseball flying through the air. How about Dodger Blue towels?

Someday I'd like to see a Tony LaRussa team lose with some class. It may take a while.

* Jim Leyland is still moaning about the no-call on Brandon Inge in the top of the 12th inning Tuesday:

I'm really upset that it ended the way it did, having Brandon get hit by a pitch, because that totally changes that game. I can understand how the ump didn't see the pitch hit him, but to say video was inconclusive upsets me, because everybody in America saw that it did.

OK, Mr. Leyland. I'm willing to concede umpire Randy Marsh blew that call if you're willing to admit Marsh missed the call on Alexi Casilla's slide home in the 10th. It he gets that one right, there's no 12th inning anyway. For that matter, perhaps you would acknowledge that letting Gerald Laird swing away on 3-1 with the bases loaded was a mistake.

Oh wait. That would be your mistake. Better to pin it on the ump.

* Speaking of the Detroit Tigers: Detroit GM David Dombrowski, who had the pleasant chore of fetching his $153 million first baseman from police custody last weekend, implied during his end-of-season press briefing that (a) this isn't the first time Miguel Cabrera has had too much to drink and (b) that he urged Cabrera, in a meeting Wednesday with the slugger and his agent, to get treatment. Implied rather than stated outright, with a lot of talk about the team's obligations and limitations under the collective bargaining agreement and employee assistance program. In other words: We can't make him do anything about his problem.

It wasn't sweet Tuesday night hearing fans chant "al-co-hol-ic" at Cabrera. The only defense for it is that it's true.

Meanwhile, there is serious speculation that Cabrera may still have been legally intoxicated at the start of Saturday's game against the White Sox, in which he went 0-for-4.

Cabrera wasn't the first big star to play in a key game hungover or drunk or otherwise self-medicated, and he won't be the last. That doesn't mean he doesn't have a problem. And when the team's got a $153 million commitment to the player, the team has the problem too.

Division champs

I'm still absorbing one of the strangest, and best, games I've ever attended.

So much to say about Tuesday's 6-5 12-inning tiebreaker.

I'll start with this: I was seated in the upper deck right field, which means that the right fielder was just a rumor to me and that home plate was about 400 feet away.

To my eyes, the home plate ump (Randy Marsh) was brutal. I understand, having perused a few stories and columns since I got home, that people with a better angle than I agree.

Further comments:

*Nick Punto was a marvel. His last three plate appearances were superb — a single on a 3-2 pitch (and a run scored), a walk on another 3-2 pitch, and what should have been the game-winning sac fly. I believe he fell behind in all three at-bats and battled back. Plus he had that marvelous force play at the plate to save Bobby Keppel's bacon in the 12th inning.

* That forceout followed what I thought was a questionable decision by Ron Gardenhire to walk Ryan Raburn intentionally to load the bases. Yeah, Raburn is a better hitter than Brandon Inge or Gerald Laird; that's not saying much. My issue with it is that Keppel's command is always dicey.

Inge bounced into the force play, but only after apparently getting grazed by a Keppel pitch. I thought it caught his jersey, at least, but — again — I was 400 feet away, and if that's the best place to call pitches they'd put the ump out there. Laird followed the force out by getting ahead 3-1; I said to the guy next to me that Jim Leyland should give him the take sign. Instead, Laird fouled a pitch off — I suspect it was high — to go to 3-2, then chased a low pitch for the strike out.

Questionable decision by Gardy, worse one by Leyland.

* I wanted Brian Buscher to pinch hit for Alexi Casilla in the 12th. Gardenhire had other ideas. His worked. Still, Casilla had had just two at-bats since Sept. 11, as Gardenhire follows his pattern of running with a set lineup in the final month — and Casilla was the worst hitter with 200 plate appearances in the AL this year. And he was in the DH slot, so defense wasn't a consideration. But then, Buscher has had one game appearance — no trips to the plate — since Sept. 19.

*Rick Porcello struck out eight Twins. That matched his season high. Considering his low K rate — 4.4 K/ entering the game — and the tight leash on innings he's been kept on — I'm surprised he'd had an eight strikeout game. If he stays healthy, he's going to be great.

* Leyland apparently boiled his bullpen down the four guys he was willing to take a chance with: Fu-Te Ni, Zach Miner, Brandon Lyon and Fernando Rodney, which is how he wound up having his closer throw 48 pitches. Gardenhire went a lot deeper than that — I think he would have used Jeff Manship in the 13th if the game had gone that far — and was, if anything, over aggressive in pulling Ron Mahay after one batter.

* Jose Mijares may have hit the wall. Or be scared by the Delmon Young incident last week. Or something. Whatever it is, he's been brutal his last few outings, and they'll need him effective against New York.

* Other than Jason Kubel's home run — and wasn't that a bomb? — the Twins' RBIs came from Matt Tolbert, Casilla and Orlando Cabrera. Joe Mauer reached base four times, but when he came up with men on base, he was walked.

*Miguel (Drunk Tank) Cabrera doubled, walked and had a two-run homer (plus three ground outs). Had he rung up another 0-fer as he did through the White Sox series last weekend, he would have been a prime scrapegoat for the Tigers' failure to win the divisional title.

He still may be, but he's still Detroit's best player. Which, in a way, only deepens their dilemma about what to do with his behavior.

Hurting the team, hurting himself

Ballplayers, as a group, aren't saints. (Neither are journalists, for that matter.)

So it's not necessarily surprising that Miguel Cabrera had a few drinks after Friday's game.

But that he stayed out until 5 a.m.; that he got into a fight with his wife when he returned home; that he blew a .26 on an alcohol breath test — more than three times the legal limit — all these things are bad news.

And that he did this in the middle of a crucial series ... well, if his teammates aren't displeased with him, something's wrong in that clubhouse.

Cabrera is a talented hitter. With Vladimir Guerrero on the downslope of his career, Cabrera may be — check that, IS — the best right-handed hitter in the American League.

I'm in no position to make a judgment on the domestic violence part of the story. The police deemed both Cabrera and his wife to be aggressors, and while one suspects that there would have been no fight had the husband come home earlier and sober, it is also possible that theirs is the sort of marriage that is combative even without alcohol.

It's the drinking — the amount of drinking as well as the timing — that sets off alarm bells. With the divisional title slipping away, this 240-pound man (so he is listed) spent the night getting massively sloshed.

That sounds like a problem drinker to me.