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**Kitty** · 04-15-2008, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Miguel Cabrera said he felt that people were laughing at him. He said he'd never been through anything like the slump he's been in lately.

His disappointment and frustration were obvious at the end of long, cold, bad-baseball weekend in Chicago.
So what does a manager say to a 24-year-old (but about to turn 25 on Friday) who just signed a humongous contract but is struggling in his opening weeks with a new team

"I've already talked to him about just being himself and playing his game, that's all I want him to do," Jim Leyland. "I think he's obviously putting some pressure on himself. So I told him, 'Be yourself, play your game, don't worry about it. Don't try to be anything but what you are and who you are.'

"A lot of times, anybody, not just Miguel Cabrera, but anybody that signs a big contract and gets off to a slow start, people get on them. That's just the way it is. "We can convince him how good a player he is, which he is, and just to be himself, which is all I want. But you can't eliminate that."

Leyland can, or at least try to, eliminate Cabrera being too hard on himself, however. "He's one of the big faces of the future for this organization," the manager said.

"But you have to be able to block some things out. That's also a little bit of a growing process, too. This probably has never happened to him before.

"So he's dealing with something new. But I want him to be comfortable, be happy and do what he's capable of doing."

What's troubling Tigers' Miguel Cabrera?

Slumps happen, just look at Big Papi. He will snap out of it eventually.