How good is this kid?
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...articleid=3419
It might seem like a lifetime ago, but it wasn't so far back on the calendar that we were warning eager fantasy leaguers against harboring expectations that were to high for budding übermensch Miguel Cabrera. Cabrera, after all, featured but a modest weighted-mean projection in Baseball Prospectus 2004--an unadjusted line of .264/.323/.439 in roughly 450 trips to the plate--despite Hall of Fame-level comparables and a bitchin' long-term outlook.
I think it's safe to say we were wrong.
Currently hitting .312/.386/.543 in one of the better pitchers' parks in the National League, Cabrera has been the third-most productive right fielder in the senior circuit this season, trailing only Bobby Abreu and J.D. Drew with the bat. In fact, Cabrera has been completely off-the-chart, according to PECOTA, as his 90th-percentile EqA projection of .310 is just a notch below his current rate of .313.
That said, assuming Cabrera can avoid tanking in the month of September, what does this do for his long-term outlook? Well, we'd hate to spoil one of the surprises in store for Baseball Prospectus 2005 by running his PECOTA just yet, but there are more simplistic ways of evaluating the implications of Cabrera's strong age-21 campaign that could perhaps give us a window into his future. For instance:
Age-21 and Career EqAs for Miguel Cabrera's Top-10 PECOTA Comparables
Code:
A21 A21 Career
Player AB EqA EqA Delta
Ron Santo 578 .292 .293 -1
Gary Sheffield 487 .296 .320* -24
Hank Aaron 602 .315 .324 -9
Sammy Sosa 532 .261 .298 -37
Curt Flood 208 .252 .268 -16
Willie Mays 127 .274 .326 -52
Adrian Beltre 538 .272 .274 -2
Ed Kirkpatrick 312 .256 .260 -4
Brooks Robinson 463 .224 .267 -43
Lloyd Moseby 378 .238 .275 -37
MIGUEL CABRERA 481 .313 -- --
Above are the top 10 comparable players for Cabrera coming into 2004. As we've pointed out, this list is populated with a group whose quality is unmatched; three current Hall-of-Famers can be found here, as well as a number of soon-to-be and should-be residents of Cooperstown, N.Y.
As you can see, Cabrera's age-21 production is matched by a select few players--most closely Hank Aaron, who posted nearly identical rate stats (.310/.366/.540) as a 21-year-old in Milwaukee in 1955. No one else is particularly close, with a number of (admittedly lesser) players checking in with EqAs more than 75 points lower than Cabrera's .313.
What's more impressive about this table, however, is how each hitter's age-21 season compared to his career production with the bat. Not a single comparable player finished his career with a lower EqA than the figure he posted as a 21-year-old regular. Not a single one.
Now, does this mean that Cabrera is already destined for a place among the game's greatest? Hardly. After all, we're dealing with a sample of only 10 hitters, all of whom featured unique skill sets of their own, in a varied number of contexts. But it has to be a point in his favor, and yet another reason to be excited for the Marlins' future, overall.
