"Miguel Cabrera doesn't just want to play third base. It's become a consuming desire to be the best he can possibly be at his old, but new position.

"Since Prince Fielder signed," said Alex Avila, the Tigers' catcher who works out with Cabrera in Florida, "he's thrown himself into being a third baseman. It's all he's thinking about."

Avila spoke about Cabrera's conditioning program on Friday with ESPN, but also over the phone with The Detroit News. Avila said Cabrera has lost 20-plus pounds with the intention of losing "at least 15 more."

"You know, you can make up your mind that you're going to be able to do something," Avila said, "but in this situation, Miguel has thrown himself into doing everything he can to do the best job he can."

Cabrera and Avila have done no work on the field — no grounders at a high school diamond, for instance. It's been mostly conditioning.

But it's all been positive as well.

Cabrera was bumped from first to third when the Tigers signed Fielder — but the move returns Cabrera to the position he was playing when the Tigers acquired him from Florida.

It's a position he enjoys playing. In fact, to Cabrera, it was the switch to first, not this move back to third, that was the challenge.

Even so, extra motivation has kicked in for Cabrera — to the extent that manager Jim Leyland recently said, "I think he wants to prove to the world that he can play third base.""