A while back, we took a look at a great example of reputation management, utilized by a fictional character, Barney Stinson. Today we’re going to look at an example of reputation management that is all too real. About this time last year, then San Francisco Giants outfielder, Melky Cabrera, was looking to win the NL batting title.

By the end of last summer, he was considered a cheater, and the biggest laughing stock in baseball. If you’ve been following baseball over the last couple of decades, you’ve probably guessed by now that he was considered a cheater for using performance-enhancing drugs. What makes this story so embarrassing is Melky’s unethical use of reputation management.

For a player’s first offense of violating the drug policy, Major League Baseball suspends a player for 50 games. Melky Cabrera, like many other players, decided to appeal his suspension. So what was the basis of Melky’s appeal? He was buying a supplement from his native Dominican Republic, of which he didn’t know contained synthetic testosterone.

Many players use the excuse that they weren’t aware that the supplements they were taking contained banned substances, so this wasn’t surprising. What was surprising is that the substance that Melky Cabrera claimed to be taking didn’t exist.

When Melky Cabrera found out about his impending suspension last August, he hired his associate, Juan Nunez, to purchase three websites for $10,000. These websites contained doctored information about a fictitious supplement, (which had fraudulently been spiked with testosterone), that Melky Cabrera was supposedly taking. Had this appeal worked, Cabrera would have been absolved of his first suspense, and 50 game suspension.

Purchasing websites

What Melky Cabrera’s associates had done was purchase three Spanish-language websites that actually sold health supplements. Cabrera’s people simply changed the banners, complete with pictures of the fictitious supplement. The website even had a contact number, and information for purchasing the drug.

Unfortunately for Melky, the MLB did their due diligence, and even traveled as far as the Dominican Republic to procure a bottle of the supplement. The MLB sent the bogus supplement to a lab in Utah for testing. Eventually, Melky admitted to taking a banned substance; and removed himself from contention for a batting title. Although he would have been eligible to play for the Giants in the playoffs, (who would go on to win the 2012 World Series), the team elected not to activate Melky as a result of this scandal.

So what’s the moral of the story here? If you find yourself with a reputation problem, don’t create false web content to claim your innocence. By attempting to cover up his scandal, Cabrera actually made his reputation worse in the long-term. Let’s take his online reputation, for example. Now, rather than a week’s worth of negative news articles detailing his suspension; there are tons of articles, written by very authoritative websites; which detail Cabrera’s suspension and attempted cover-up.

Better off

Melky would have been much better off accepting his suspension, which he was clearly guilty of, and done some positive reputation management instead. Believe it or not, Cabrera has actually done his share of charity work in his native Dominican Republic. He could have managed his reputation much better by A) admitting to cheating and accepting his suspension admirably; and B) creating positive content detailing his admittance and charity work, then promoting that content to the top of Google. This would have at the very least created some measure of goodwill towards Melky; as yet another player who made a mistake, but was a good guy who was willing to admit his faults.

Last week, Melky Cabrera, now a Toronto Blue Jay, accepted his 2012 World Series Championship ring. Although, a simple Google search won’t tell you he was a champion- it will tell you that he was a cheater, and a liar.