Miggy gets paid…again. 

Bananas. 

[Photo Credit: Jim McIsaac/Newsday]

Over at Grantland here’s Jonah Keri on why Mike Trout is the AL MVP and not Miguel Cabrera. That said, Bobby Valentine has a better chance of keeping his job than Trout does of winning the MVP.

[Photo Credit: Jeff Gross/Getty Images]

Check out Joe Posnanski’s appreciation of Miguel Cabrera over at Sports on Earth. Cabrera is in the running for the American League MVP. I don’t think he’s the best player in the league–and I generally feel the best player is the most valuable–because when you factor in base running and defense, Mike Trout is his superior.

But I think Cabrera will win the award (see 1996, Juan Gonzalez over Alex Rodriguez). He’s got the RBI and he’s been great for a long time now. This will like when Paul Newman won the Best Actor Oscar for The Color of Money, a lifetime achievement award. And even if you believe Trout is the MVP, you could do worse than Cabrera.

Whether he’s your MVP or not, he sure is a Load.

[Photo Credit: Robin Buckson/Detroit News]

Tyler Kepner on Miguel Cabrera:

Only five players in major league history have had 1,500 hits and 250 homers, while hitting .310 or better, through their age-28 season. They are Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, Hank Aaron, Albert Pujols and Cabrera.

That is heady company, but Cabrera said he did not think much about his place in history.

“It’s too early,” he said Friday night after the first victory of a three-game sweep over the Cleveland Indians. “You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow or next month or next year.”

The man is a monster talent.

[Photo Credit: CBS News]

Miguel Cabrera’s swigging-scotch-in-front-of-the-arresting-officer DUI last month was already firmly in the bad news category, but details are emerging – as details will – that make it seem even scarier. According to the Detroit News:

Before his drunken driving arrest last month, Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera threatened to “blow up” a bar that refused to serve him and then told police to shoot him, according to a police report released Wednesday that reveals new details….

…Cabrera walked into the Cowboys Bar-B-Q & Steak Co. after last call and was asked to leave, bar manager Fletcher Nail said in a statement to police.

The ballplayer ignored the manager and walked up to a table of strangers and began talking to them, said Nail.

When Nail again asked him to leave, Cabrera patted a bag on his shoulder and leaned down close to the manager’s face.

“You don’t know me,” Cabrera told him. “I will kill you. I know all of you, and I will kill all of you and blow this place up.”

The News also has video of the arrest, but I felt uncomfortable watching; it’s too embarrassing. Anyway, you don’t even know what’s really going on with a public figure lie Cabrera, but if he doesn’t have a serious problem he’s doing a great impression of someone who does, and I hope the Tigers are doing what’s best for him.

Meanwhile the Mariners recently started giving players and employees key fobs with the number of car services on them. That’s one of those good common sense sort of things that can only help, and can’t hurt, but I always wonder how much responsibility – if any – clubs have, or ought to have, for their players’ extracurricular behavior. A guy who drives his Rolls Royce drunk despite having a truck of security professionals with him is probably not going to be reasoned with.

Over at SI.com, our man Cliff takes a look at how the Award season will play out. AL MVP?

1. Miguel Cabrera, 1B, Tigers (1)

Season Stats: .328/.419/.624, 38 HRs, 126 RBIs

September has been Cabrera’s worst month this season by far, but his extraordinary consistency is starting to win out as he has heated back up over the last week and enters Monday night’s action with an active six-game hitting streak during which he has gone 9-for-23 with four home runs. Cabrera doesn’t do much outside of the batter’s box and plays for a team barely keeping its head above .500, but no other American Leaguer has produced at such an elite level so consistently throughout the 2010 season. Cabrera has also started all but six of the Tigers’ games this season.

2. Robinson Cano, 2B, Yankees (3)

Season Stats: .318/.379/.532, 28 HRs, 105 RBIs

Hamilton has far and away the superior rate stats, but due to their disparate playing time, Cano leads the injured Rangers’ outfielder in RBIs, hits, runs, and walks (!), and is just one double and three home runs shy of Hamilton’s season totals. Give Cano additional credit for playing a far more challenging position, striking out fewer times in more than an hundred extra plate appearances, and for simple reliability (he has started all but three of the Yankees’ games this year), and he slips past the former frontrunner in this race.