Dolphin Stadium and Comerica Park play quite similarly for right-handed hitters; Cabrera does pick up eight points of slugging average, but that isn’t much.
Now, that difference is a little more noticeable — a 64-point drop in OPS. It’s much harder for a player to stand heads and shoulders above the pack in the American League. Since 2001, there are 36 players who have posted an OPS of 1.000 or higher in the National League, as compared to just 23 in the AL.
But here’s the key question … does this make Cabrera any less valuable to the Tigers? Absolutely not. This simply represents the prevailing exchange rate between the two leagues. Cabrera will be just as valuable to the Tigers, even if he might not be quite as valuable to his fantasy owners. And if more players like Cabrera migrate to the American League, the gap between the two circuits is only going to increase.
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Wonky disclaimer: this should not be read to mean that there is a 64-point gap in talent between the AL and the NL. The talent gap is big, but more along the lines of 25-30 points of OPS. The balance of the difference has to do with the fact that the NL is actually a better hitter’s league right now, especially for a power hitter, perhaps because it has a lot of small ballparks.
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