Melky Cabrera's Bizarre Cover-Up Will Cost Him Everything

The New York Daily News is reporting on Sunday that San Francisco Giant Melky Cabrera, suspended 50 games last week by MLB for testing positive for elevated testosterone levels, could be in even more trouble than previously thought.

Cabrera may have earned some credit for his early assumption of responsibility when news broke of his positive test for a banned substance.

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"My positive test was the result of my use of a substance I should not have used ... I am deeply sorry for my mistake." - Melky Cabrera.

— MLB (@MLB) August 15, 2012"

But whatever benefit he may have enjoyed by apparently admitting to his malfeasance is gone now—smeared away by the truly bizarre and deceitful lengths he went to in hopes of wriggling out of MLB's punitive grasp.

According to the story in the Daily News, Juan Nunez, a member of Cabrera's entourage who is referred to as the player's "paid consultant," spent $10,000 to set up a phony website. The site was intended to utilize a loophole that allows players to escape punishment by showing their ingestion of a banned substance was accidental. To quote the story, in all its soap opera drama:

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The idea, apparently, was to lay a trail of digital breadcrumbs suggesting Cabrera had ordered a supplement that ended up causing the positive test, and to rely on a clause in the collectively bargained drug program that allows a player who has tested positive to attempt to prove he ingested a banned substance through no fault of his own.

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So Nunez created a fake product and advertised it on a fake website, all in the interest of giving Cabrera a way out of the positive test. Cabrera and his team allegedly used the website to try to explain his positive test when called to account in front of MLB's governing bodies.

But Commissioner Bud Selig and the Executive Council apparently weren't fooled. And the story quotes Selig as saying owners "would be 'shocked'...when this all comes out."

In some ways, it's not so hard to understand why players use performance enhancing drugs.

Just take the latest example: Cabrera was only a couple of months away from completing a season that probably would have made him about $50 million as a free agent. He turned himself from a fringe major leaguer into a potential batting-title winner, and almost cashed in. The risk of cheating was great, but the reward could have arguably justified it for him.

Cabrera's positive test was already going to cost him a chance at a postseason birth, tens of millions of dollars in free agency and his reputation.

But now, MLB—which is receiving increased scrutiny for its continued inability to curb PED use—has the opportunity to drop the hammer on Cabrera, who did the only thing worse than cheating.

He lied about it. Calculatedly and deliberately.

You can bet that Cabrera's punishment won't be confined to the already imposed 50-game ban. It seems inevitable that he'll either suffer additional consequences for his indiscretions, or even worse, go down in history as the namesake for a rule that MLB is sure to institute to further punish attempted cover-ups of positive tests.

The only thing worse than a cheat is a lying cheat. Expect MLB's decision-makers to let players know that by coming down even harder on Cabrera.