The Chicago White Sox’s stealth pursuit of free agent Melky Cabrera paid off late Saturday when the former Blue Jays outfielder agreed to a three-year deal.
MLB.com confirmed the 30-year-old Cabrera agreed to a deal worth an estimated $42-43.5 million, pending a physical.
Cabrera does carry some baggage after being suspended for 50-games during the 2012 season with the Giants for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. That mistake cost him a National League batting title and a chance to play in the postseason for the eventual world champs.
Cabrera and his associates compounded the problem when a “paid consultant” of his agent, Seth Levinson, created a fake website in an effort to concoct a story that he inadvertently took the banned substance that led to the positive test. MLB investigators quickly sniffed out that ruse.
Cabrera’s past will always be part of his resume, but as Jhonny Peralta and Nelson Cruz have proven, there no longer seems to be any stigma to giving out lucrative deals to players associated with PEDs.
The move gives the Sox some much-needed on-base percentage from the left field spot, and another table-setter to join Adam Eaton. They’ve been in discussions with the Mariners on Dayan Viciedo, who also had pursued Cabrera. The signing suggests Vicideo is all but gone in a trade, whether it’s the Mariners or some other AL team.
Between Adam La Roche, David Robertson and Cabrera, the Sox have now spent over $113 million on three key free agents while filling holes at DH, closer and left field. They also acquired A’s starter Jeff Samardzija in a six-player deal. It’s the biggest offseason since general manager Rick Hahn took over, and indicates they’re looking to win now, as manager Robin Ventura reiterated at the winter meetings.
“We were setting ourselves up to do something at this winter meetings,” he said, “The last couple years, there really were not a lot of opportunities. We had a couple trades, but nothing of this magnitude. So that’s the part where you’re changing the mood and the view of how people see it.”
The switch-hitting Cabrera, who began his major league career with the Yankees in 2005, is a career .286 hitters with a .339 on-base percentage. His best season was in 2012 when Cabrera was the All-Star Game MVP and was leading the NL with a .346 average in mid-August while posting a .390 OBP.
But the positive test for testosterone led to the 50-game suspension, including the final 45 games of the regular season. At Cabrera’s request, MLB and the players union agreed to disqualify him for the batting title, and the Giants decided to leave him off their postseason roster.
“To be plain, I personally have no wish to win an award that would widely be seen as tainted, and I believe that it would be far better for the remaining contenders to compete for that distinction,” Cabrera wrote in a letter to the union. “So too, the removal of my name from consideration will permit me to focus on my goal of working hard upon my return to baseball so that I may be able to win that distinction in a season played in full compliance with league rules. To be plain, I plan to work hard to vindicate myself in that very manner.”
Teammate Buster Posey was awarded the title with a .336 average, even though Cabrera had enough at-bats to qualify.
“He was just manning up and saying he was wrong and he took himself out of the race,” said Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen, who finished second. “It was man of him to do that. I guess he thought that was the right thing to do and I commend him for doing that.”
After the season, Cabrera agreed to a two-year, $16 million deal with the Blue Jays. He hit .301 in 2014 with a .351 OBP, hitting 16 home runs, 35 doubles and 73 RBI.
The Sox will surrender a third-round draft pick for signing Cabrera, after giving up a second-rounder for signing Robertson.
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