Melky Cabrera's Fake Website Sent MLB Investigators All The Way To The Dominican Republic

Can we all just take a second and appreciate how batshit insane Melky Cabrera's scheme to get out of a PED suspension really was? Like, legitimately incredible. In five years, it's going to be hard to believe this is a thing that actually happened. Like Jason Grimsley crawling through the Comiskey ductwork, or the Astros doing this. So thanks, Melky, you've brought joy to millions.

From the , it was assumed that Cabrera (or at least his "associate," Juan Nunez) simply bought a website and created a fake ad for a product that didn't exist. Cabrera's appeal hinged on him taking that product, which unknown to him contained synthetic testosterone. Well, the Daily News has more details today, and the plan was more involved that anyone could have guessed.

Team Cabrera actually purchased three existing Spanish-language sites that already sold health products, because investigators would have easily been able to expose a newly-created site. They stuck banner ads for the mysterious product, which contained nothing but a picture of a jar and a phone number in the Dominican Republic. MLB investigators called the number, and it led them to the Dominican Republic, where they actually purchased a jar of the stuff and sent it to the WADA lab for testing.

How deep did this go? Was this a real product, or did they whip it up just for the charade? Was the person MLB purchased it from in on the scheme? Is there even really a Dominican Republic? We eagerly await the next plot twist—even as a source says baseball hasn't ruled out further punishment for Cabrera.