Miguel Cabrera has owned the American League Most Valuable Player award for two straight seasons with Prince Fielder hitting behind him, but Fielder was traded to the Texas Rangers for Ian Kinsler earlier this offseason, changing the dynamic of the team completely. Cabrera said he was saddened to see Fielder go amid rumored "domestic issues" that were allegedly behind Fielder's departure.
"It's a loss for the team but [I] am not the one making such decisions," Cabrera told reporters in Venezuela, according to The Dallas Morning News. "Fielder is a great friend to me and friendship will remain, but it is hard to see a player like that [leave] and I wish him the best of luck with Texas."
While he's sad to lose one teammate, Cabrera is excited to welcome a new teammate in Kinsler to Detroit.
"Now we have Kinsler, a player who has good tools, and we have to try to make things go well for us," he said.
Cabrera won the Triple Crown and MVP award in 2012 and followed it up with another MVP season in 2013 where he hit a league-leading .348 with 44 homers and 137 RBIs.
Fielder was sent along with $30 million to the Rangers last month in exchange for Kinsler in the offseason's first blockbuster trade, but reports surfaced that there was more to the Tigers moving Fielder than just the shedding of salary, which was alluded to shortly after the deal by former Tigers pitcher Denny McLain on a Michigan radio program.
Deadspin.com reported that McLain appeared on the Detroit radio program Doctor & Bentley and said that there were darker "domestic issues" that led to Fielder being sent to Texas, not just because the team was trying to shore up its finances.
"I really believe it all had to do with all of the ongoing domestic issues," McLain said on the program. "There was a lot of pain here between Fielder and another player or two. There's some information apparently that was withheld from Fielder that people knew about and I think that's what sparked this thing as far as him wanting to leave."
McLain didn't specify then what the issues were about and he said that the information would likely leak in the next few days back on Nov. 22, but so far noting new has come out about the rumored issues.
"It doesn't surprise me; I think we'll learn a lot more over the next couple of days because the reporters who were all over this and who were not allowed to put out the story for whatever reason, I think that story will come out over the next week or two. It's kind of an ugly, ugly story," he said on the program at the time.
McLain also alluded to the fact that there was a top prospect that was traded to Chicago due to some issues he had with Fielder and that there was an"ugliness" and a "nastiness" to the situation.
Fielder hit .279 with 25 homers and 106 RBIs for the Tigers last season as Detroit picked up its third American League Central Division crown in what proved to be the final year with Jim Leyland at the helm. The Tigers were eliminated in six games by the eventual World Series champion Boston Red Sox in the ALCS where Fielder hit a mediocre .182.
Kinsler hit .277 last season with 31 doubles, 13 homers, 72 RBIs and 85 runs scored through 136 games while playing solid defense for Texas.
It's unknown what the issues were, but judging by the fact that Cabrera is going to miss Fielder, it would seem as though the issues didn't affect their relationship.
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