Detroit Tigers: Will shortened season cost Miguel Cabrera 500th home run?

With a shortened 2020 season likely, it’s worth asking whether or not Detroit Tigers legend Miguel Cabrera has run out of time to join the 500 home run Club.

Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera is one of the greatest hitters of my generation.

That’s beyond debate. And it’s a very short list- for me just an Ichiro and Mike Trout long- for players who might warrant being ranked ahead of him. You’ll find better athletes to be sure, slicker fielders and quicker baserunners. But as a pure hitter, Cabrera knows no rivals and few equals.

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Cooperstown is a lock for this MLB star. He’s done it all, leading MLB in hitting three times. Eleven All-Star appearances. Two MVP awards. And let’s be honest, he probably would have won a third in 2006 if he wasn’t playing for the Miami Marlins. Though, in their defense, the Tigers legend won his only World Series as a Marlin, not a Tiger, way back in his rookie year in 2003.

But there’s one thing Miguel Cabrera hasn’t done yet: make the 500 Home Run Club.

Currently, Cabrera is tied for 30th on the all-time slugger list with fellow future Hall of Famer Adrian Beltre, with 477 homers. He’s sixteen away from tying Fred McGriff at 29, and thirty-four away from cracking the Top 25.

One month ago, the prospect of Cabrera at least making the 500 Club was regarded as a coin toss by Fangraphs. Analysts on stat-heads favorite site gave Cabrera a 50% chance exactly of reaching 500 HRs if baseball is played in 2020. Personally, that seems a tad conservative, even given the dreadful stat lines the past two seasons. More of that is explained away by injury than age, and all indications this spring out of Detroit Tigers camp were that Cabrera was feeling good for the first time in awhile.

However, that same Fangraphs projection drops his chances to only 20% if the entire 2020 season is canceled. For the extreme optimists among you, it also wipes away his 1% chance at 600 HRs.

Even Miguel’s chances for 3000 hits take a heavy blow in the no 2020 scenario, though that at least still clocks in as probable if an entire season is lost. But it is the 500 homers that really seems in danger of being lost here.

As a result, if MLB loses the 2020 season, count Miguel Cabrera amongst the players that lose the most.