When Juan Soto was made available and shipped out of DC to San Diego, it was easy to compare him to the man who was later shipped out of DC to San Diego. Miggy was one of the last good hitters to be traded. He began his career in Detroit at the age of 25.
When they traded for him, the Tigers only had to hope that he would have a Hall of Fame career. He will go down as one of the best right-handed hitters of all time, as it appears that this may be it for him. TheTigers won four straight division titles with the hammer in their lineup.
The trade that the Marlins did not net them multiple plus players is what has kept them from doing anything. After leaving Florida, Andrew Miller became a primeReliever. Maybin was a good player but not great. It was all done. You spend a decade or more wandering the wasteland of mediocrity, mumbling about how good you had it once, while tasting nothing but sand. It's possible that the Nationals are from here on out.
It goes beyond that. Sports have become judged in a way that is simple and straight forward. Either you won or you didn't. It is more common in the NBA and the NFL than you might think. Even though only one team gets to win every year, and there are a lot of factors that go into it, we tend to see things the same way. The Dodgers are the best run organization in the world because they put everything they have into fielding the best team. They have only won one World Series in the last few years, and in the season-in-a-can of 2020, some will never see it as viable. Even though fans would swap places with those in blue in a heartbeat, they are seen as failures because of that.
The singular chase has allowed teams to be run in a variety of ways, used as a shield to defend their moves and costs. Every time a team moves along a fan favorite, they will tell you that it is the chase for the most efficient way to the World. The expansion of the playoffs was about this as well.
Miggy's career in Detroit could be considered a failure. The Tigers never won a World Series with him and only got there once. Two more ALCS losses followed that trip in 2011. The day that the Tigers brought Miggy north, they told themselves and their fans that it was the most important step in bringing a World Series winner to the Motor City. Even though it didn't work out that way, the fans were told they lost out. If you ask any of them, they will tell you that the source of so many memories and fun was Cabrera. If they care, it will be more of a pity for him than they missed out on. They will say that Miggy was deserving.
The defining player for so many Tigers fans will be Cabrera, what they remember most during Detroit's crushingly dark winters and what will make them laugh randomly. There are no memories of a World Series victory. It will be the first thing a generation of Tiger fans think of when they think of their favorite player.
Nats fans won't be able to see this now. They will have a new year, but there will be a hole. Watching one of the best in the game do his job every day is a rare treat and one fans treasure as much as anything.
It seems that owners and GMs stopped caring about what deepens a connection between fan and team long ago. There are a lot of reasons why the Nats will lose that trade. Nothing they got back will be Juan. Being a Nats fan would have been different if there was something that deprived them of. They would have had a lot of fun with Juan Soto. They won't get to talk about him in hushed tones like I talk about Ryne Sandberg or Sammy Sosa, even though Cubs ownership pretends he never existed. That may be the most serious crime.
There is a new legend that is hitting this one in Minnesota.
115 miles per hour. There have only been 15 homers hit this season at a 17-degree launch angle. Had everyone just gotten out of the way and prayed it didn't cause a crater in the Target Field bleachers, the numbers wouldn't matter. Hopefully, these kinds of moments will last for a long time.
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