Anthony Fenech

Detroit Free Press

Last year, Miguel Cabrera was hurt.

You could see it in his swing, in the way he couldn't exert power from his lower leg late in the 2013 season and when Dave Dombrowski looked at that leg and the purple and the blood that drained there, he said, "you knew he was in extreme pain."

Cabrera had surgery to fix that injury, similar to a sports hernia, last off-season.

This year, Cabrera was hurt again.

It was his right ankle this time, but it only hurt some of the time, Dombrowski said, and it could send him back under the knife for a second time in as many off-seasons this winter.

Dombrowski said in his end-of-the-season news conference on Tuesday at Comerica Park that it's a possibility the Tigers' first baseman will have surgery to remove a bone spur from his right ankle.

"Is it a possibility? I'd say it's a possibility. I don't know if it's going to happen or not," he said. "But is it a possibility? Sure."

Dombrowski said this about the process of determining whether surgery is needed on Cabrera: "We're checking him out from a physical perspective and we've already done some of the work on that and we'll do some more this week. Then we'll determine what we're going to do beyond there and that will be more of a doctor's decision."

Cabrera hit .313 this past season. He hit 25 home runs — a career-low for a full season — and drove in 109 RBIs.

"There's no question that the ankle started to bother him at times based upon a couple of incidences, probably more sliding, at various times in which he was affected," Dombrowski said. "It hurt him at times worse than others because it was there but if you would do something to jar it, it would hurt him."

But unlike in 2013, when he was hampered to a limp throughout much of the final two months of the season, Cabrera finished strong this September and into the postseason.

He hit .379 with eight home runs in September and October, and was named the American League player of the month of September.

Dombrowski said that people who have looked at Cabrera's ankle thus far have said that if the bone spur needs to be removed, then "it's a relatively for them simple procedure," but did not want to commit to the slugger getting surgery until he was fully evaluated.

"I don't want to draw any conclusions yet," he said, "because he's not done with that whole process."

Cabrera, 31, is due to make $22 million in 2015. He has nine years remaining on his contract.

Contact Anthony Fenech: afenech@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @anthonyfenech.