What happened to the six players traded for Miguel Cabrera by the Detroit Tigers?

As Miguel Cabrera wraps up his career this weekend, it’s a good opportunity to look back at the December 2007 trade that brought him (and left-hander Dontrelle Willis) from the Florida Marlins to the Detroit Tigers.

Although it certainly has worked out for the Tigers — over his 16 seasons wearing the Old English “D,” Cabrera has moved into the franchise’ top 10 in most offensive categories — it wasn’t “the worst trade in major-league history,” as former Marlins team president David Samson good-naturedly suggested in Bally Sports Detroit’s documentary, “Miguel Cabrera: One Of A Kind.” For the Tigers, Cabrera went on to produce 48.7 bWAR (Wins Above Replacement, according to baseball-reference.com) and Willis had minus 1.1 bWAR, while the sextet of prospects that went to Miami — Burke Badenhop, Eulogio (Frankie) De La Cruz, Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller, Mike Rabelo and Dallas Trahern — produced less than 1 bWAR as Marlins, but would total 25.9 bWAR over their post-Tigers career.

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But let’s get a little more specific: What actually happened to the guys who went to the Marlins (post-Tigers bWAR in parentheses)?

RHP Burke Badenhop (4.1)

The Tigers’ 19th-round pick in 2005 made his big-league debut with the Marlins in 2008, posting a 6.08 ERA over 47⅓ innings. In four seasons (2008-11) with the Marlins, he had a 4.34 ERA with 190 strikeouts and 90 walks over 250⅔ innings. His best season came in 2014, with the Boston Red Sox, for whom he had a 2.29 ERA over 70⅔ innings.

RHP Eulogio (Frankie) De La Cruz (-0.7)

De La Cruz’s first season with the Marlins got a bit ugly, as he gave up 18 earned runs over nine innings in just six 2008 appearances. Shipped to the Padres for cash before the 2009 season, he had a 5.40 ERA in 3⅓ innings in San Diego, then spent the 2010 season in Japan. Upon his MLB return in 2011, he had a 2.77 ERA with nine strikeouts in 13 innings with the Milwaukee Brewers. That was it for his time in the majors; he pitched in various minor and foreign leagues before dying of a heart attack in March 2021, shortly after his 37th birthday.

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OF Cameron Maybin (13.9)

One of the centerpieces of the deal, the Tigers’ 2005 first-round pick (No. 10 overall) played in just eight games as a 21-year-old with the Marlins in 2008. In all, he spent parts of three seasons with the Fish, posting a .257/.323/.391 slash line in 144 games before getting traded in November 2010. Thus began a nomadic career in which he played for the Padres, Braves, Tigers (for the second time), Angels, Astros, Marlins (for the second time), Mariners, Yankees, Tigers (for a THIRD time), Cubs and Mets, all before retiring following the 2021 season. In all, Maybin hit .256 with 71 homers and 182 steals over 1,138 games.

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LHP Andrew Miller (8.9)

The other Tigers first-rounder — the No. 6 overall pick in 2006 — that convinced the Marlins to make the deal never really panned out in South Florida. Over three seasons (2008-10), he posted a 5.89 ERA  with 176 strikeouts and 125 walks in 220 innings for the Marlins. It wasn’t until he’d been dealt to the Red Sox in 2010 — and spent another season (2011) as a failed starter — that he found his niche. Moved to the bullpen in 2011, Miller became a new (and old) kind of relief ace, with a 2.68 ERA and 691 strikeouts over 469⅔ innings with the BoSox, Orioles, Yankees, Guardians and Cardinals. That run included back-to-back top-10 finishes (2015-16) in AL Cy Young voting, back-to-back All-Star berths in 2016-17 and the 2016 ALCS MVP award after throwing 7⅔ scoreless innings over four appearances for Cleveland.

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C Mike Rabelo (-0.2)

Already 27 at the time of the trade, the 2001 fourth-round pick played just one more season in the majors, with a .202/.256/.294 slash line over 34 games for the Marlins in 2008. After a short minor-league stint with the Tigers in 2010, he moved into coaching, rising as high as the Tigers’ skipper in Double-A Erie. Rabelo returned to the majors for 2022 as the Pittsburgh Pirates’ third-base coach.

RHP Dallas Trahern (0)

The Tigers’ 34th-round pick in 2004 is the only member of the group never to make the majors. The righty struggled with the Marlins’ Triple-A affiliates, posting a 6.14 ERA in 21 starts for Albuquerque in 2008 and a 6.28 ERA in six starts for New Orleans in 2009. He missed all of 2010 following Tommy John surgery, then returned in 2011 with a 5.63 ERA over 137⅔ innings in Double- and Triple-A.

Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on X (which used to be Twitter, y’know?) @theford. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.  

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Miguel Cabrera came to Detroit; what happened to the 6 Tigers who left?