The game of baseball has had great hitters like Frank Robinson, Chuck Klein, Ty Cobb, Jimmie Foxx, Joe Medwick, and Lou Gehrig. These players were all great hitters and they also have another thing in common, this is they are all former Triple Crown winners.
However, there is one thing that all these great players never accomplished in their career, and that was they never earned the award in consecutive seasons. The history of baseball has not had any player ever accomplish this.
The Detroit Tigers have a player that has an opportunity to rewrite history and go down as one of the greatest right-handed hitters with his play this season. Miguel Cabrera became just the 17th player to win the award last season and the first one since Carl Yastrzemski did it 1967. Rogers Hornsby and Ted Williams are the only batters to have earned it twice.
This is without a doubt one of the hardest awards for any baseball player to earn. For those of you that don’t know what it takes to earn this prestigious honor, an individual has to lead their respective league in batting average, RBIs, and HRs.
There may not be a more complete hitter on the planet than Cabrera, and in case you need a reminder of why he won it last season. He had a .330/.393/.999 triple-slash to go along with 44 HRs, 139 RBIs, and 377 total bases.
This season he is on pace to eclipse all of those numbers and possibly do the unimaginable, which is to win the award for a second consecutive season. He is a nightmare for any opposing pitcher trying to get him out, as indicated by his .367/.442/1.110 triple-slash.
Those numbers look great, and they only improve when there are runners in scoring position. This is where it becomes almost impossible to pitch to him; he has a .515/.585/1.541 triple-slash on the season.
He is in the prime of his career at age 30, and it’s crazy to think that he could do this consistently for the next five or six years.
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