Free agent prediction: Melky Cabrera

In 2010, Melky Cabrera was 0-for-8 in the National League Division Series for the Braves, finishing with a cool .000 OPS. A player failing to get a hit in eight at-bats isn’t noteworthy, even if it happens in the playoffs. I’ll never forget Melky Cabrera in that series, though. He was quite possibly the worst baseball player I’ve ever watched, and that’s not hyperbole. No player has made me question if he slipped past security and stole a real player’s uniform quite like Cabrera that series. The swing was out of celebrity softball. The baserunning was indifferent. The fielding was lethargic. The Braves agreed, in part, non-tendering him after the season.

Naturally, the Royals signed him that offseason.

Oh, that was when the Royals were funny. Remember that? Those were good times. These days, we’re an Internet with a loaded gun and an empty barrel. Come back, fish! Come baaaack! Back then, the Royals were hilarious, and they signed Cabrera, who was one of the worst players in baseball. It was amusing until he started hitting. He started hitting a lot. He hit for power and he stole bases. He rapped out 44 doubles and hit .305. He was an outstanding baseball player for the first time in his career.

Do it again, the Internet shouted.

Fine. The Royals did the smart thing, selling high on Cabrera, and the offense-starved Giants took a chance on him repeating his fabulous season. He was even better. Sure, a lot of that had to do with good fortune and a high batting average on balls in play, but he was dynamic. He was always threatening to stretch a single into a double, a double into a triple. He hit for power from both sides, and he won the All-Star Game MVP. He was hitting .356 and in line for a top-10 MVP finish. Then he was busted for performance-enhancing drugs, two months before making $90 million in free agency. He would have to take a shorter, prove-me deal.

Do it again, the Internet shouted.

He couldn’t. Except there was a good reason for it. Cabrera had a tumor in his spine. There are some injuries -- usually wrist or back -- that will get the blame for a player’s bad season, and you’ll be unsure how to react. On one hand, boy, backs and wrists sure are important to hitting baseballs. On the other hand, it seems like a convenient way to explain away something else. This isn’t the case with a tumor in the spine. That one explains everything, and Cabrera had another chance to prove his worth with the Blue Jays.

Do it again, the Internet shouted.

Cabrera most certainly did. Now we have three excellent seasons out of four, with the outlier being explained away with a freaking spine tumor, and he’s a free agent again. No one is shouting “prove it,” this time. Here, take a look at this comparison:

Melky Cabrera, combined four seasons before free agency
BA: .309
OBP: .351
SLG: .458
OPS: .809
OPS+: 124
WAR: 12

Shin-Soo Choo, combined four seasons before free agency
BA: .284
OBP: .391
SLG: .451
OPS: .842
OPS+: 136
WAR: 15

Choo was better, certainly. But give Cabrera a few bonus points for a) a year younger than Choo and b) those numbers including the tumor-ruined year, and you’ll find it’s closer than you might have guessed. Choo got seven years, $130 million. Cabrera will probably get a little more than half that money. He’ll get less than Pablo Sandoval, less than Hanley Ramirez. He’s probably the bargain of the offseason, in which “bargain” is defined as “player who is still going to be grossly overpaid by the end of his contract, just not as much.”

Now it’s time to find him a home.

Usually this spot is reserved for one of two things: either where the player would fit best from a baseball standpoint, or where the player would amuse/entertain us the most. Very rarely, there’s an opportunity to work both angles in. This is one of those opportunities.

From a baseball perspective, the Giants make a tremendous amount of sense. They’re looking for offense with the departure of Sandoval, and they could use a switch-hitter to break up the righty/righty combination of Hunter Pence and Buster Posey in the middle of the order. They know that Cabrera isn’t bothered by the spacious dimensions, and his high-contact, gap-power approach plays better at AT&T Park than the approach of other available hitters.

Then there’s the other thing. The amusing and entertaining part. That is, Cabrera burned his bridges with the Giants. He burned his bridges, and he mailed pieces of the bridge back to them, horrific and scarred, with cryptic, threatening notes reading “IF YOU DO NOT GIVE IN TO MY DEMANDS, I WILL SEND MORE PIECES OF THIS BRIDGE.” But there were never any demands. The Giants just kept getting piece after piece of burned bridge, eventually filing a restraining order against him. On the way home from the courthouse, they got stuck in traffic because Cabrera burned the bridge the Giants needed to get home.

The Giants were contenders in 2012, see. They were riding high, and then in August -- a week after they had the chance to replace a suspended outfielder on the trade market -- Cabrera was suspended. Not only that, he vanished. Some teammates groused that there was no apology, no address to the clubhouse. When he became eligible for the postseason roster, the Giants didn’t consider it. The Giants won the World Series, and there was never a Melky Cabrera bobblehead day.

There won’t be in the next couple of years, either.

It just makes too much baseball sense to let go, though. There are even the vaguest of whispers ...

This would have been a spot for the Blue Jays, but that was before the Mariners YOLO’d their way to Nelson Cruz. The M’s have a DH now, and they’re looking for one more outfielder. Because they burned a draft pick for Cruz, they’re not thinking too much about losing their second-rounder if the free agent is right.

For the same reasons that Cabrera was able to succeed at Kauffman Stadium and AT&T Park, the Mariners are right to be interested. Cabrera has a flat, level swing that produces line drives. The park seems beside the point with Cabrera, unless it’s a park that allows a fourth outfielder. The Mariners have money to spend, and a need for offense. There isn’t a lot of offense left to buy. It’s Cabrera or a dingers-first type like Colby Rasmus.

The other option is to exchange trade chips, but why do that when you can just spend that vast, vast Wii U fortune? The Mariners are the right combination of money and opportunity.

Another team that’s eager to spend on their 2015 roster: The Toronto Blue Jays. Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion are entering their golden years, so the Blue Jays took a chance and nabbed Josh Donaldson to upgrade their lineup. That doesn’t sound like a team that’s going to hang back and futz around with Jonny Gomes because they’re out of ideas. Cabrera hit for the Blue Jays last year, and he’s a fine choice to help them hit next year.

Melky Cabrera, Blue Jays -- 5 years, $83 million