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Selfish Cabrera puts himself before his team
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Miguel Cabrera needs to prove he's worth the money the Tigers are paying him. (AP/Photo)
Miguel Cabrera put himself before the team. He made one of the most selfish and ridiculous decisions a professional athlete can make when he chose to go out drinking with the opposing team until the wee hours of the following morning during the most important series of the entire season.
News broke yesterday that Cabrera was out with numerous Chicago White Sox players Friday night following an 8-0 defeat. Cabrera was seen at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham before eventually arriving at his home around 5 a.m. Saturday morning. He got into an altercation with his wife, forcing her to call the police to their residence at 6 a.m. Cabrera was highly intoxicated and very uncooperative according to the police report. He was taken to jail where it was noted that he had a 0.26 blood-alcohol level -- the legal level to drive is 0.08. General manager Dave Domborwski had to come pick him up from jail at 7:30 a.m. to take him home. A few hours later Cabrera went 0-4 in the biggest game of the year, and ended up going 0-11 with two strikeouts during the series.
This has to be one of the most self-centered and parsimonious acts I’ve ever heard of. Cabrera is without a doubt the best hitter on the Tigers, not to mention one of the most talented players in all of baseball. His team relies on his bat as much if not more than just about any other team currently in the postseason, with the exception of maybe Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer. For him to think it’s ok to go binge drinking with the season on the line shows that he doesn’t care and thinks he’s more important than the rest of the team.
The baseball season is a 162-game grind. These players sometimes go weeks without a day off, and often may only get one or two days off per month. I understand that everyone needs to blow off steam and go out and have fun once in a while. But the timing of this incident is absolutely disturbing. It’s not like its April 3rd, or June 5th, or even mid-July. Those times are considered the dog days of summer. If a player wants to go out with friends from opposing teams and have fun during the middle of the season, fine. But to choose to do it during the final weekend of the year, when his team needs wins to ensure a playoff berth shows no respect for the game or his teammates.
I’ve gone out drinking until 5 a.m. before. I’m sure I’ve even had a blood-alcohol level at one time that approached Cabrera’s. But I can guarantee that when I did, I was no condition to even leave the house the next day, let alone go out and attempt to carry my team to a needed victory. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Cabrera seemed as though he was going through the motions over the weekend and was kept off the bases every time he stepped to the plate with the exception of one walk.
Cabrera is a tough player to figure out. He’s 26 years old and looks as though he just approaching his prime -- generally a player’s prime is between the ages of 27 and 32. He finished the season with a .323 batting average, 33 homeruns and 101 RBI. With the exception of a handful of players, that’s probably a career year for most big leaguers, but with Cabrera we’re left wanting more.
No doubt Cabrera’s season stats were affected by the lack of talented hitters in front and behind him in the lineup. But the same thing happened last year too. With his power and ability to hit for average, there is no reason that he shouldn’t be contending for a Triple Crown every season. Yet he’s never hit 40 homeruns in a year. And it’s not often the homerun champion in the American League hits fewer than 40. He looks lazy and disinterested at times during games. And because he swings at the first pitch so often, it appears as though he’s giving away at-bats. He frankly looks like he relies on his talent alone to put up his numbers without putting in the work that is needed for him to be as good as he can be and as good as we all want him to be. With his talent, there is no reason he shouldn’t be the best hitter in the Major Leagues not named Pujols. But it’s clear that he is too immature and unprofessional for that to happen.
If this was a first-time offense it would be one thing, but this has happened before with Cabrera. The Tigers warned him after a different incident that also occurred at the Townsend Hotel when police were called to a bar because an intoxicated Cabrera was getting into an altercation with another patron at the pub. And it was rumored that the first weekend in August, during a series in Cleveland that was tied 1-1 heading into Sunday, Cabrera and other Tigers players were out until 5 or 6 a.m. Sunday morning. That afternoon, with a chance to win the series on the road against a last place team, the Tigers lost 11-1. That game Cabrera went 0-4 with two strikeouts. This has become a pattern. Not exactly the example and leadership a team wants displayed from a player they are paying $152 million.
We don’t really know if Cabrera is even sorry for what happened. A written statement was sent out by the organization on behalf of Cabrera, but who really knows what that means. For all we know he didn’t even write it. I want to see him in front of the camera, standing at a microphone and hear the words directly from his mouth. Until that happens I don’t know if he truly does regret anything.
The real question is what the do the Tigers do with Cabrera? They can’t bench him for Tuesday’s playoff game in Minnesota as the only people that would punish would be the rest of the team. It would also appear as though the Tigers were only suspending him because the story went public. If they wanted to suspend him it should have been Saturday night. So what will they do?
I think it’s clear the team needs to take a long look at him during the offseason. Is this the type of player the organization wants to build around and be the team leader, much less pay an obscene amount of money to? If he shows that he is committed to being a great baseball player who will lead his team and do everything he can to win, then of course they want him as players with his talent don’t come around very often. But if he shows no remorse and appears to be more interested in partying and being a millionaire, then they may have to seriously consider trading him away.
We’ve seen players like this before, guys with enormous talent who seem to be their own worst enemy. Mickey Mantle is widely considered the most talented player of all-time. Scouts used to jokingly say Mantle was an eight-tool player -- as opposed to a five-tool player which is used to describe the best of the best. When Mantle first came up he was clocked at 11.4 seconds running from home to home around the bases. That’s insane! Yet Mantle is known as the poster child for wasted youth and talent. He rarely played a full season and often was getting hurt because he never took care of his body. He would play games hung-over and many times still drunk from the night before. One of his greatest quotes was when he was asked how he hit a specific homerun so far. His response, “I swung at the one in the middle,” meaning he was so drunk he saw three balls coming at him.
Despite him spending more time drinking and partying than working on his skills, Mantle was still able to put up Hall of Fame numbers because of his sheer ability. But looking back at his career, many baseball experts wonder what could have had he laid off the booze and worked as hard as he could. He knew as much when he was staring death in the eye, he spoke to the youth of America and said "kids, don't be like me."
Cabrera could be falling into that same trap. He has the ability to be one of the greats. But if he doesn’t have the sense of urgency to give all that he has to the game and work as hard as he can, then his career could be very similar to that of Mantle’s. A great player who puts up Hall of Fame numbers, but when it's all said and done, still leaves us wanting more.
Tuesday’s playoff game is a huge moment for Cabrera. All eyes will be on him now that this news is public. The fate of his team will most likely rest on his broad shoulders. If he can have a great game during the biggest of moments, it would surely go a long way to healing the relationship between him, his teammates and the fans. But if he comes out flat and the Tigers end up losing to the Twins, no doubt there will only be more scrutiny coming Cabrera’s way.
It’s up to him to prove he’s ready to be as good as he can be and lead his team on the biggest of stages. There will be no bigger stage than the Metodome Tuesday night.
For more info: Check out Detroit Tigers Examiner Randall Castro.
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