So if you didn’t like yesterday’s idea for the Cubs to trade for Sandy Alcanatara, perhaps you’d like his teammate Edward Cabrera better.
Like Alcantara, Cabrera was the subject of trade rumors at the deadline last July. And like all the useful starters around then, none was traded because the asking prices were too high.
Cabrera comes with a caveat: He missed three weeks in September due to a right elbow strain. Uh-oh, that can be a precursor to Tommy John surgery. On the other hand, the Marlins did not shut him dow. He returned and made two starts at the end of the season, one of them five shutout innings vs. the Mets Sept. 28, a game that helped put the Mets out of any postseason consideration. Cabrera struck out seven in that game, but also walked five… so, “caveat emptor,” as they say.
Apart from that, Cabrera’s 2025 season was probably his best, at 2.8 bWAR, and he set a career high with 150 strikeouts in 137.2 innings. And even with the five walks in that final 2025 start, Cabrera’s overall walk rate (8.3 percent) was the best of his career.
Cabrera turns 28 in April and is projected to make about $3.7 million in arbitration by MLB Trade Rumors. 2026 is Cabrera’s first arb-eligible season and so he’d come with three years of team control, a very attractive thing for a pitcher of this talent.
Here’s his pitch selection chart for 2025, which shows a strong reliance on offspeed stuff as well as a fastball at 97:
Really, there’s a lot to like here and this is a pitcher I would love to see the Cubs go after.
What would you give the Marlins for Edward Cabrera?