Replacing #24

People say that replacing the offense that Miguel Cabrera took with him to the Detroit will be nearly impossible. I find that to be a greatly overblown statemet. As good as Cabrera is he is still only one player. 36 dingers and 116 or so ribies is a lot of offense, but, there is a lot of talent in the Marlins line-up in 2008 and collectively they will be able to pick up the slack that Cabrera left.
Jacobs, Willingham, Hermida, Cantu. These men will be hitting between the 3 hole and the 6th spot all year. To me the key in replacing Cabrera's offense is not the HR and RBI aspect of it. It is the OBP and XBH aspect, and for that there can be nothing better than a healthy Jeremy Hermida. It is proven that when Jeremy is healthy he can get on base, he hit over .300 for the second half of the season in 07 and his plate discipline is among the best in the team, but, he has a realibility issue. Jeremy has been injured for a substantial time since he was called up in 06. When healthy, he gets on base as much as anybody in the game.
The run production side of it, falls under the responsibility of Jacobs and Willingham. Both can be productive in the right circumstances, Jacobs as a 3 hitter and Willingham hitting clean-up.
Mike Jacobs' skill set is a beautiful fluid swing, he can hit balls far and wide. But his issue is making contact. So far this year he has hit 2 homers both had been solidly hit balls. With Hanley and Uggla batting in front of him and Willingham behind him he will get opportunities to drive runs in and to get pitches to hit.
Josh Willingham proved last year that he can drive runs in, this year with pretty much the same line-up hitting in front of him and one more year of ML experience he has the capability of driving in a 100 runs.
Cantu, the replacement, the only downside to Cabrera's tenure with the Marlins was his shoddy and often lacksadaisical attitude towards playing defense. That is the only way in which the team has improved this off-season by picking up Cantu. Defense at 3rd base is greatly better for it and if he can hit .280, 20 HR and 80 RBI with the contributions of the others, the offense will be fine.
Coming Soon: The Pitching Rotation