Miguel Cabrera Needs to Sit
Another day, another Debacle in the D. The latest, Miguel Cabrera’s now public run-in with his wife, the law and booze, has put the Detroit Tigers in a disastrous PR position. Play him or sit him?
Raise your hand if you condone/excuse any of the following:
- A team’s franchise player partying ’til all hours during a playoff run
- Drunken outbursts in public and at home
- Spousal abuse
- BACs of .26 or higher
- Complete disregard for your team, its success or the privilege of your profession (this means you, millionaires)
- Excusing unlawful, disgusting behavior for the sake of winning one baseball game
If you raised your hand, congratulations — you’re an insufferable cad. Or, you’re the Detroit Tigers.
No matter how many Cabreras play tonight, the Tigers are cooked. They can’t hit, and their pitching has escaped them. The Twins are destined (and have been) to win by very much to very little tonight. Even if the Tigers do the unthinkable and steal this game, the Yankees await. That wouldn’t be pretty either. So what is to be gained by playing Sir Drinxalot tonight? (I’ll give you a few moments to tally that up.)
Now, what can be lost?
But let’s also look at this simply from a PR standpoint. (BOR-ring, says my dog.) The first fatal flaw of any PR crisis strategy is pretending the crisis doesn’t exist. By playing Cabrera tonight, after already dismissing direct questions about the incident, the Tigers are, in effect, condoning (or excusing) his behavior. By sitting/suspending him, they are sending both him and the team’s publics a clear message — this behavior is not condoned, regardless of how much his playing would serve the team’s self interests.
No matter what they do, the Tigers have a PR crisis on their hands. This should not be about one game, one fatally flawed playoff run. If they win with him in the lineup, they still have lost. If they lose without him, they have at least taken an honorable position, for which many will applaud them.
PR crises of any kind must be met head-on. Ignoring them or failing to address them implies complicity. United Airlines and Domino’s are two recent cases that come to mind: one who ignored a crisis that ballooned out of control (the former), and one who faced the music directly and relatively quickly. It’s all about the message you are sending: not only how you respond to a crisis, but when.
The Tigers can send one of two messages today:
- “Beating your wife in a drunken stupor and partying with the ‘enemy’ during the most important series of the season is excusable, as long as the party in question hits .300 or better.” (Would they have played Rayburn in the same situation?)
- “There is no place on our team for those who are not committed to the Tigers, to winning, to baseball, to family and to the rule of law; and until Mr. Cabrera addresses his own personal issues, we will commit ourselves to winning without him.”
Your call, Tigers. And you only get one strike, I’m afraid.
Don’t disagree with ANY of that. But perhaps this is an issue best left to the offseason? The entire team’s hopes are riding on this one win, and if Cabrera can help this entire squad clinch tonight, then perhaps you postpone the handling of his idiocy until a more appropriate time, one that won’t torpedo the dreams and efforts of everyone else on the team.
Hard call. I can argue either way. I think that this might be the end of the line for Cabreras with the Tigers, essentially because he is a piece of shit. But is benching him tonight and potentially costing the team the pennant the right solution? Again, I can argue either way.
I suspect the bench/no bench decision will come as a result of the many discussions I’m sure have taken place in the last 48 hours. If Leyland can get a read on him from that, his decision will come from that place.
Regardless of what the decision is, there’s going to be some pretty rigorous soul-searching for the Tigers organization as it relates to this moron.
Yuppers. I can see going the off-season route, too. But I think maybe my dad was too strict with me. I’m conditioned to believe that, if you screw up, too bad…live with the consequences. Immediately, not when it’s convenient. And if you’re letting down your team because I’m punishing you, well then, live with that too, you snot-faced little brat. Love my Dad.