Miguel Cabrera to play in the Venezuelan League this fall

Detroit Tigers and Miami Marlins great Miguel Cabrera is not quite done with professional baseball. Before he retired from his Hall of Fame worthy 21-year career after the 2023 season, Cabrera expressed a desire to play one more season back in the place where he made his start in professional baseball. Now he’ll give it a go with the Tigres de Aragua, who play out of his hometown of Maracay.

The Venezuelan League doesn’t get started until October, so perhaps the Tigers will see him around the team, or at least around their Lakeland home base, in his role as special assistant to Scott Harris this summer. With plenty of time to prepare, Cabrera could hit against young or rehabbing pitchers on the backfields in Lakeland to help get back to game speed on top of the usual cage work and BP. It was also announced recently that he’ll be the hitting coach for Team Venezuela in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, so Cabrera is going to have plenty of involvement in the game over the next year.

When he retired, his main goals were to give his body, particularly his legs, plenty of time to heal up after decades of wear and tear in the game. Cabrera has a surgically repaired ankle and dealt with plenty of knee and hip issues in the latter half of his career. The hope was that time and rehab work would get him into a better place in which to play some winter league ball. We’ll see how he holds up.

Cabrera played in the Venezuelan League from the time he turned pro in 1999 until the Tigers signed him to a long-term extension prior to the 2008 season with the stipulation that he would take the winter’s off to prepare for the next MLB season. His last appearance in Venezuela came after his retirement when he took part in the 2023 home run derby. Now he’ll get to take a full tour of the league where it all started for him.

Plenty of other older major leaguers have retired from MLB only to go back to play professionally in their home country. Jason Beck writing for MLB.com notes a chief inspiration in Nelson Cruz’s farewell tour of the Dominican Winter League after he retired, and plenty of less notable names have done the same to stay in the game a while longer. It’s hard to know what to expect, but even as he struggled to get to his power over the final eight years of his career, Cabrera was still plenty capable of destroying minor league pitching.

The Venezuelan League is a combination of young pitchers comparable to Single-A level, but with plenty of crafty veterans who could pitch in the upper minors but without the velocity or raw stuff to expect to break through into the major leagues. Two years away from game action is a lot, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Cabrera could still slug against that caliber of pitching. It will be interesting to see how much he plays, and how well he does.

Cabrera has spent most of his time since retirement in full sports Dad mode. His daughter is on a highly ranked volleyball team that plays national tournaments, and Cabrera has been a fixture at those events around the country. Meanwhile his son Christopher is a well regarded young hitter, and Cabrera’s social media posts are routinely filled with the two of them hitting in the cage and doing drills.

So it’s hard to know what to expect in terms of performance, but in the end it doesn’t matter much. The point is to thank the home fans for their support from afar over all these years, and to help young Venezuelan players take the next step in their pro careers. Cabrera will be a featured attraction and have a final chance to say goodbye to pro ball in his native country, while taking a larger role as a coach and mentor in preparation for the WBC next spring. We wish the big fella all the best.