Cabrera to Detroit

December 4, 2007, the winter meetings in Nashville. The Florida Marlins traded Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers for Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller, Mike Rabelo, Burke Badenhop, Dallas Trahern, and Eulogio De La Cruz. Maybin and Miller were the prospects the deal was built on. Cabrera was 24 and already one of the league's best hitters. Willis was the other All-Star in the package, and the reason it was not a one-player sale.

Detroit was adding him to a lineup that already had Magglio Ordóñez, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Guillén, and Iván Rodríguez. The cost was public the day it was made: two of the organization's best young players, plus four more. That is the part the shorthand drops when the trade is remembered as Cabrera for a pile of names that did not become stars.

In 2012 Cabrera won the American League Triple Crown in a Tigers uniform. Willis did not become the pitcher the package had advertised. Maybin and Miller had major-league careers that were not the ones the prospect lists had sketched. The record of the trade is both things at once: a steep price, paid, and a hitter who was not finished.