Fantasy Baseball: How Detroit Tiger Miguel Cabrera's Drinking Affects Your Draft

As many of you have probably heard, Miguel Cabrera was arrested again for an alcohol related incident. And trust me, it gets worse. Following is an excerpt from Yahoo Sports:

"Cabrera, 27, was spotted by a deputy in a car that’s engine was smoking alongside a road in Fort Pierce. Inside the vehicle, Cabrera smelled of alcohol, had slurred speech and took a swig from a bottle of scotch in front of a deputy, according to St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office said. He refused to cooperate and more deputies were called to the scene.

"He was wandering into the road with his hands up before he was handcuffed, the report said. He kept saying, “Do you know who I am, you don’t know anything about my problems,” and cursed at deputies who tried to get him into a patrol car."

It takes quite a bit of audacity to CONTINUE drinking after the police arrive, but to top it off, he even pulls out the old “Do you know who I am” line on the cops.

Now the question is how do we factor this into upcoming fantasy drafts? There could be implications from jail time to rehab to simply just having to continue dealing with incidents like showing up hungover for games.

On a recent ESPN mock draft Cabrera went off the board as the third pick ahead of players such as Troy Tulowitzki, Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford, Robinson Cano and Roy Halladay. Players that, barring injuries, don’t seem to have these types of off-field issues for fantasy managers to negotiate around.

As a Cabrera fan, I hope that he finds his way and continues to perform, but as a fantasy manager I don’t think I want to be the person who takes him in the first round hoping that there are no future problems. His behavior seems to be becoming more erratic instead of less, so my recommendation is grab a sure thing in the first round and if you get lucky and he’s on the board for your second or third pick, take the risk.