Set aside, for a moment, the off-field incidents in which Cabrera was involved during the last couple of months of the regular season -- incidents which could possibly scare off some teams from looking into a trade for the young first baseman. And set aside, for a moment, that he appears to have gained a lot of weight since he broke into the big leagues; Cabrera is only 26 years old and already seems to be in much less than ideal physical condition.
There is going to be interest in him because he is, without a doubt, a staggeringly talented hitter. Cabrera already has four seasons in which he's hit .320 or better, three consecutive seasons of 34 or more homers, and five straight seasons of 34 or more doubles -- and on top of that, he has at least demonstrated the ability to take a walk, having once drawn 86 in a season.
If he was a low-cost player, the Tigers would be overrun by aggressive offers, regardless of the off-field and conditioning questions.
But Cabrera has completed only two years of an eight-year contract, and the year-to-year payouts, when cast against the current market prices, are whoppers:
2010: $20 million
2011: $20 million
2012: $21 million
2013: $21 million
2014: $22 million
2015: $22 million
Most teams would not be willing to take on that kind of contract. Other teams, such as the Yankees, have the money but don't have the need; the Yankees have Mark Teixeira and A-Rod locked into long-term deals on the corners. The Brewers, just for example, already have a young first baseman in Prince Fielder. The Tigers' options on paper would seem to be very limited, and it's hard to imagine them trading Cabrera without kicking in tens of millions of dollars to make the deal work. But, for the sake of discussion …
Some possible landing spots:
For which teams could land Cabrera, and how, plus a ton of free agent chatter, you must be an ESPN Insider.
Buster Olney
Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.
He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).
Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."
For which teams could land Cabrera, and how, plus a ton of free agent chatter, you must be an ESPN Insider.
Buster Olney
