Pittsburgh Pirates: has Melky Cabrera made his last delivery?

With rosters frozen, free agents remain in limbo. For a guy affectionately known as The Melk Man, Melky Cabrera may have made his last delivery.

If the fifteen year baseball career of Melky Cabrera ends on this note, such a travesty. The guy has withstood the aftermath of a PED suspension (which cost his 50 games), overcame a fractured pinkie (which cost him a month-plus to end the 2014 season), and has learned to play for eight different organizations.

All this, and he sits at home, a free agent as rosters are frozen while America figures out how to deal with the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.

Cabrera played in 133 games last year for the Pittsburgh Pirates and hit a respectable .280. The limited power he had during his long career is almost not a threat, and the days of him stealing 20 bases (2011) are long gone. The one thing he does and does well, is hit the ball, where they ain’t.

Cabrera is a lifetime .285 hitter and has amassed just shy of 2000 hits in his career. He can still play the outfield well and is a veteran bat off the bench, potentially a designated hitter.

Sitting in free agency hurts his chances of landing a job when the freeze is snapped. With rosters expanding to 30 players and a universal DH being implemented, teams are more than likely to look for suitable players who are already on their 40-man rosters.

If there are no minor leagues, fringe players will be left on the active roster so they can get seasoning, since they will not be allowed to develop on the farm.

Cabrera will be 36 in August and the longer he sits the less likely he is to land a job in the future, even outside of this year.

If this is the last hurrah for The Melk Man, we’ll always have the .391 he hit in the 2009 ALCS with the New York Yankees and the World Series ring he brought home later that year.