Ex-Giant Cabrera says he’s retiring

The Melkman has made his last delivery.

Melky Cabrera, the 37-year-old outfielder whose brilliant 2012 season with the Giants was cut short by a suspension for taking a banned substance, announced on his Instagram account his official retirement Friday, more than two years after playing his last majorleague game.

Cabrera, who played five seasons for the Yankees in the late-2000s, winning a World Series in 2009, had not played in the big leagues since 2019 with the Pirates.

In his five years with the Yankees, Cabrera was a respectable .269 hitter who provided a dash of speed and switch-hitting. His career took off when he left the Yankees after the World Series. With the 2011 Royals, Cabrera hit a career-high 18 home runs with 87 RBIs and 20 stolen bases. He was traded to San Francisco at the end of the year.

A blistering start to his Giants career earned Cabrera his first trip to the All-Star Game, where he won MVP honors. About a month later, he was suspended for taking a banned substance. The suspension cost him an opportunity to play in the 2012 World Series and also kept him from making a run at the batting title.

Things took a bizarre turn when the New York Daily News uncovered Cabrera’s attempt to avoid the 50-game suspension. A man described as Cabrera’s associate acquired a website domain for $10,000 and falsified the content to make it look as though Cabrera had unknowingly purchased the banned substance, hoping to exploit a loophole in the MLB drug program that allows a player who has tested positive to claim they did so accidentally.

Cabrera retires with 15 years of big-league service time. He also played for the Braves, Blue Jays, White Sox and Cleveland. The Dominican outfielder ends his career with 1,962 hits, 144 homers and a .285 batting average.

⏩ The independent Atlantic League is restoring its pitching mound to 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate and returning strike zone judgment to umpires after experimenting with moving the rubber back a foot and using an automatic ball-strike system.

The league has a partnership with Major League Baseball, agreeing to test rules and equipment that might one day reach the majors.

The automated ball-strike (ABS) system debuted in the Atlantic League for the second half of the 2019 season and has since been tested and tweaked in the affiliated Low A Southeast league. The so-called robo-umps might still one day make it to the majors, although a move to ABS there doesn’t seem imminent.

The 61-foot, 6-inch mound appears dead. Neither the data nor feedback from players or coaches last season suggest the extra foot had much effect.