What Should Tigers Do With Cabrera?

After Miguel Cabrera’s “eventful” Friday night — partied with players from the White Sox, was out until six in the morning, had a .26 BAC (a .30 usually leads to blacking out) and ended up at the police station after his wife called the authorities when he began to (drunkenly) fight with her — the question now becomes: what do the Detroit Tigers do with Cabrera?

Yahoo!‘s Kevin Kaduk says the punishment needs to be “strong,” and that Tigers’ GM Dave Dombrowski — the one who picked up Cabrera from the police station Saturday morning — should send him home for the rest of the season, even if they beat the Twins Tuesday night.

Pulling a Milton Bradley on the Tigers’ best positional player and franchise cornerstone might seem drastic, but the truth is that Cabrera’s actions over the weekend rank much, much worse than badmouthing one’s own team through the media. Detroit needs to send a message that Cabrera’s decisions simply aren’t tolerable, no matter how much money he makes (eight years, $153 million) or what type of numbers he put up during the regular season.

By reportedly heading out for a night of drinking with the opposing White Sox on Friday night before returning home early Saturday morning and getting into a domestic dispute with his wife, Cabrera abandoned both his team and fans in some of the worst ways possible.

Kaduk goes on to say that this is clearly not the first time a baseball player and alcohol have mingled, but that the circumstances surrounding Cabrera’s incident is cause for a tough and immediate reaction from the Tigers (which should include providing help if Cabrera needs it, be it alcohol or relationship counseling, or both).

Drinking the night before a big game? The spirit of Mickey Mantle really doesn’t see what the big deal is.