While the former unanimous Cy Young Award winner has the better track record, before the surgery, of being the ace of a rotation, Sandy comes with a lot more question marks that could make teams hesitant to part with valuable assets. Not to mention that he would come at a higher financial cost with less team control.
How We Got Here
Edward Cabrera joined the Miami Marlins back in 2015 out of the Dominican Republic via international free agency.
Cabrera began to debut on the Top Prospects list after one full season in professional baseball, ranking as high as fifth in the Marlins organization before making his Major League debut in the 2021 season. Across nine Minor League seasons, he pitched to a 3.31 ERA over 437.2 innings and a K/9 right under 10.
Throughout his time under the Marlins’ pitching development team, he was able to fine-tune his repertoire, which is now highlighted by the diabolical upper-90s change-up that continues to make its waves across social media when he toes the rubber.
As I mentioned in the opening, a combination of injuries and inconsistencies has been his downfall leading up to the 2025 season.
It started to rear its ugly head back in 2019, when he was in Double-A, when a nagging shoulder injury began to creep up. Since then, in his time in the big leagues alone, he has suffered nerve damage in his bicep, continued shoulder flares, elbow sprains, and the forever-lurking blisters.