Karl Merton Ferron, Baltimore Sun
Why do you sign Everth Cabrera?
It’s certainly not because of his exemplary moral character. American professional sports teams don’t traffic too much in morality — there’s too much money involved. It’s a fundamentally amoral stance, which gets lauded as progressive when a team doesn’t care about a player’s sexual orientation and gets criticized when a team doesn’t care about a player’s criminal record. The Orioles are, sadly, not distinct from any other team in the league — or in any league in the country — in that regard.
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Nevertheless, it bears mentioning that over the past three years, Cabrera has been arrested for domestic assault against his wife (prosecutors would later abruptly drop the charges without specifying why), driving under the influence, and resisting arrest (which was later appended to the DUI charges). This is important primarily due to what it says about Cabrera as a person — I have similar reservations about Delmon Young, and had similar ones about Francisco Rodriguez when he was in town — but it’s also important because a guy who can’t stop getting in trouble with police is a guy you can’t depend upon to stay out of trouble with the police in the future. He’s a guy who might get himself arrested in spring training, when he allegedly assaulted his wife, or at the end of the season, when he drove under the influence. He’s a guy who gives team executives reason to think that if they sign him, there’s a distinct possibility that they might get a phone call one night saying he’s been arrested because he put his wife in the hospital, and that the responsibilities of their job will dictate that they do everything in their power to get him out of jail, get the charges dropped, and get him back in a position to take his hand to her again. Following this year’s goings-on in the NFL, the words “the next Ray Rice” presumably shoot through their heads.
Then there’s the steroids stuff. A couple different San Diego Padres got popped during the Biogenesis scandal, but Cabrera was the one hit hardest by it — his suspension came right in the middle of his career year, the year that put him on the map as a trendy young up-and-coming shortstop. Any gains he’d made were destroyed by that suspension, which will rightly follow him around the rest of his career.
Both steroid use and criminal behavior are things most executives are willing to rationalize away if the player’s good enough. But while some of the other guys tagged in the Biogenesis hunt went on to do just fine — Melky Cabrera, Jhonny Peralta, and Nelson Cruz all had good to great years in 2014, for example — Everth Cabrera fell off a cliff last year: 391 PA of .232/.272/.300 hitting, finally sent to the DL in August for a pulled hamstring and never called back. The Padres’ new regime non-tendered him, signed Clint Barmes to push Alexi Amarista for the everyday shortstop gig, and never looked back.
So Cabrera has a new start in Baltimore, but not a clean one. He’s a liability on the field and off of it, and no one should ignore that just because he’s changed cities. What use, then, does this team have for a guy like that, considering that unless the Orioles are comfortable eating $2.4 million in salary, Cabrera will be making the major league roster? Jonathan Schoop hit just as poorly last year, and he’s younger with far more upside at second base. Ryan Flaherty was better than both Schoop and Cabrera at the plate last year and is someone Buck Showalter is comfortable relying on to play just about any position on the diamond. Neither has one criminal charge to their name, let alone three, let alone a domestic assault charge during a time when that crime is at the forefront of the national conversation about sports.
The answer is that before they signed Cabrera, the Orioles lacked two things on their roster: anyone with any mentionable basestealing ability whatsoever, and anyone who could be considered a prototypical leadoff hitter. Following the departure of Nick Markakis to the Braves, Alejandro de Aza has been tentatively projected as that guy — but he’s unremarkable both at getting on base (.330 career OBP) and running the bases (career 0 runs from baserunning per Baseball Reference, and -3 over the past two years), and when he is on base in a stolen base situation, he only steals at a 68% clip. Ideally de Aza wouldn’t be a firm lock to be an everyday starter, let alone a leadoff hitter.
Cabrera, on the other hand, was about the same at getting on base in his breakout year of 2012 (.324 OBP), was worth 6 runs on the bases that year alone, and stole 44 bases, only being caught 4 times. In 2013, he got caught more often, stealing 37 and being caught 12 times; his totals were 18 and 8 last season. Cabrera’s baserunning game probably isn’t going to be as good as it was in 2012 ever again, but considering the rest of the Orioles lineup — David Lough led the team last year with 8 stolen bases — he’s far more suited to the traditional concept of a leadoff man than anyone the Orioles had on the roster before he signed. Of course, they’re gambling that he’ll return to the form he had while breaking MLB rules to enhance his performance, but that’s why he’s only being paid $2.4 million with incentives based on plate appearances. If Baltimore has to deep-six the contract because he can’t hit or stay out of trouble, it’s a relatively small expenditure.
The good thing about a skillset like Cabrera has is that it’s almost more useful situationally than not — that is, he could be the pinch runner the team needs. While the overall utility of stolen bases over the course of a season can be rather low, there are certain game situations which demand someone try to take a base, or go first to third. If you’re in a situation like that and you can put a guy like Cabrera on base without forcing him to earn his way there, it’s well worth it to have him available to you on your bench. Assuming, of course, that hamstring injury from the end of last year is fully healed.
Cabrera’s also insurance for the worst possible scenario: Manny Machado hurting his a knee again. Considering the way the past two seasons have ended for him, it’s something that needs to be taken into consideration — and the Jimmy Paredes “solution” the Orioles tried at the end of the year was painful to watch. Should Machado injure himself again, it’s far more palatable to install Cabrera at third base than anyone else the Orioles might dig up from the waiver wire or AAA Norfolk. Cabrera hasn’t played much of the position, but watching him, he’s an average defensive shortstop with an arm that fits his position — which means he has the arm for third base, too.
In the end, while Cabrera will be on the Opening Day roster for Baltimore pending some injury or other issue, hopefully he will not do so in any capacity other than as a utilityman and pinch runner who can spell Schoop, Hardy, or Machado for a game or two and hit leadoff when he does. Should he perform well enough for expanded duties, then expanded duties he shall receive. Ryan Flaherty seems like a cool dude, but as much as baseball’s lorekeepers like to protest otherwise, professional sports are not a morality play. The minor leagues are full of good guys who couldn’t cut it.
Maybe Everth Cabrera will join them, some day. Maybe he deserves to join them. For the time being, however, he is a Baltimore Oriole with a guaranteed major league contract. Here’s to hoping his time with us is brief, and that while it lasts he is used to the best of whatever ability he has left to offer.
Jonathan is a contributing writer for VICE Sports. His work has previously appeared in Sports on Earth, Baseball Prospectus, The Classical, and ESPN’s SweetSpot Network. Born in central Maryland, Bernhardt currently lives in the New York metropolitan area.