MLB Spring Training: Cole vs. Cabrera – the $66M question
By Bill Felber
Travis Demeritte and Miguel Cabrera twice go back-to-back on Gerrit Cole, and Mike Fiers looks strong in Thursday’s MLB spring training matchups.
The Detroit Tigers will pay Miguel Cabrera $30 million to hit baseballs this season. The New York Yankees will pay Gerrit Cole $36 million to prevent people like Cabrera from doing so.
Which one had the better of their tete-a-tete Thursday? That’s the $66 million question. And here’s the bonus question: How did Travis Demeritte horn into this discussion?
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Demeritte, Cabrera, and Cole were all prominent players in Thursday’s MLB spring training action, which included Detroit’s back-and-forth with the Yankees in Lakeland.
Here’s a look at the day’s winners and losers.
Loser: Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees pitcher
Obviously Cole has nothing to prove, so his third spring start against the Tigers was fundamentally an exercise in staying healthy. Still, it would be hard to see much positive in it.
In two innings, Cole faced 13 batters and whatever he intended to work on got worked over. Four Tigers homered off him (more on those momentarily), two others hit safely and he walked a seventh.
The sum of the damage was six earned runs, driving Cole’s spring ERA to 9.53. Forty percent through the team’s planned 35-game spring schedule, Cole has made it through just 5.2 innings, less than a third the 16 innings he got in last spring.
Afterward, he tried to keep it in perspective. “It’s not my favorite day of 2020 so far, but it’s just spring training,” Cole said.