MLB Rumors: Could Toronto Blue Jays' Melky Cabrera Serve Second Suspension With Latest PED Link?

He’s already been caught and paid the price once before for taking testosterone, but Melky Cabrera‘s name has resurfaced from the recent investigation into the Florida anti-aging clinic Biogenesis, and that can’t be what Toronto Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos wanted to answer questions about when the team’s head brass gathered for the yearly State of the Franchise meeting.

Anthopoulos, of course, defended his player as expected, saying that the team will “give a player a second chance”, though perhaps not subsequent ones.

But what if that second chance never comes?

That was one of the questions raised by Sportsnet’s Bob McCown, who wondered if MLB could move to suspend the player again, if records turned up that showed Cabrera to have definitively violated MLB’s drug policy outside of the violation for which he served a 50-game suspension last season with the San Francisco Giants.

Those records, of course, are still under investigation, with the Miami New Times having recently revealed mentions of Cabrera in Biogenesis clinic chief Tony Bosch’s records going back as far as 2009, and as close to when he was suspended last season.

What all of that means is anyone’s guess at this point, although Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports did suggest that if MLB did find additional times when Cabrera – or anyone – would have taken PEDs other that the one that they caught him for, that “they would go after those players for a second time,” adding that Cabrera is “by no means out of the woods yet.”

Those woods might not be too friendly, as a second suspension would mean 100 games off the books for the Blue Jays’ new left fielder.

The team won’t have to pay him during the suspension, but the scenario would be a significant blow to both the goodwill from the fans that all the off-season moves have generated, as well as the Blue Jays’ on-field product in 2013.

A second suspension would mean that by the time Cabrera comes back, he would have been out of MLB action for over a year, and paying some $11 million dollars for 224 games from whatever form Cabrera will be in then, along with all the circus surrounding his drug history, is probably not the team was bargaining for.

Until there’s definitive word coming from the league, no one really knows what’s going on. That said, the hoopla around Cabrera’s drug history certainly not something that’s going to go away in Spring Training until the issue is resolved.