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Remember when Drew Sheppard of Fangraphs.com made a GIF of Yu Darvish's five different pitches? Well, Mr. Sheppard is back at it, and this one below is just as fantastic.
Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera is the best hitter in the universe as things stand right now. There's very little doubt about that. After winning the American League triple crown and MVP last season, Cabrera leads the majors in runs, hits, RBI, batting average, slugging percentage, OPS, OPS-plus and total bases. He leads the AL in on-base percentage. In the past four games, he has homered six times with 13 RBI.
And, as you can see below, Cabrera can hit a ball out of the ballpark from just about any location.
Here is Sheppard's description of what we can see above:
This composite clip shows six pitches of varied location that Cabrera not only hit with power, but for home runs. The footage has been synchronized to the time of contact and stabilized at home plate to represent the end location of each pitch as accurately as possible. The pitches are taken from the last year, with the furthest off the plate over nine inches inside.
So, basically, even if you say "don't throw him a strike," Cabrera can still burn you. Even with mighty Prince Fielder hitting behind him, it's a safe bet that Cabrera's number of intentional walks (currently five) will start growing rather quickly.
