The Chicago Cubs are among the teams “involved in the mix” as the Miami Marlins entertain trade offers for Edward Cabrera, a source with knowledge of talks said early Wednesday. It’s not clear whether Chicago is the current frontrunner, but the Baltimore Orioles are also pursuing Cabrera, for whom the Marlins seek multiple pieces. 

In July, Cabrera was the Cubs’ top priority as they focused on controllable starting pitchers ahead of the trade deadline. They didn’t ultimately land him (or any such player), but the talks between the teams then have rekindled this winter, according to multiple sources. Miami has long coveted Owen Caissie, the left-handed slugger and a candidate to take over right field for the Cubs in 2026. Caissie would have been the main return if the two teams had completed a deal they nearly finalized last winter, which would have sent left-handed starter Jesús Luzardo to Chicago. That deal fell apart only because of medical concerns (on both sides), and Caissie showed in 2025 that he could bounce back after the sports hernia that hampered him in late 2024 and required surgery.

Cabrera has three years of team control remaining, and will turn 28 years old in April. He’s the kind of hard-throwing, bat-missing starter Chicago has been missing for the last few seasons, and in 2025, he made huge improvements in his control, which had been the stumbling block for him before that. He’d walked 13.3% of opposing batters through 2024, but that number was 8.3% this year. He achieved that leap without losing the strikeouts, which stayed north of 25% of opponents. When he’s on the mound, Cabrera has the ability to dominate.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t as successful in shaking off the other big knock on him: that he’s injury-prone. Cabrera did pitch a career-high 137 2/3 innings, but he missed the first fortnight of the year with a blister and three weeks in September with an elbow sprain. In 2023 and 2024, he was hampered by shoulder impingements, though he avoided major structural damage or surgery. The elbow issue from late in 2025, in particular, could complicate the Marlins’ efforts to extract top value for him. Cabrera altered his arm slot this season to alleviate the strain on his shoulder and shore up his control, but if that just passed the problem down to his elbow, he could be in danger of blowing out as he accumulates a greater workload with the new delivery.

Caissie could be one piece in a Cabrera trade, but not the only one. The Cubs will have to outbid teams (including the Orioles) who also have good young bats to trade, and the years of control and upside of Cabrera will make him expensive. Therefore, even as they remain engaged with Miami, the team has made inquiries with the Washington Nationals about MacKenzie Gore. The left-handed Gore has one fewer year of team control and (perhaps) a lower ceiling, but he also has a better track record when it comes to durability. The Nationals prefer Matt Shaw to Caissie, according to one source, so a deal for Gore could be part of a two-pronged maneuver: acquire the top-flight starter in a trade centered around Shaw, then sign one of Alex Bregman or Eugenio Suárez to take over at third base for multiple years.

A source within a different front office speculated, based on the Cubs’ recent activity behind the scenes, that the team wants to ensure they land one of Cabrera, Gore or Zac Gallen. The latter, of course, is a free agent, and his asking price remains higher than Chicago is willing to go. They can wait Scott Boras out a while, but Jed Hoyer would prefer to make a trade for one of the team-controlled starters and spend his money on a slugger. That would seem to better balance the team’s dual mandates for this winter, too.

While the Winter Meetings haven’t yet yielded the big trades that made them famous, the Cubs (and plenty of other teams) have gotten deep into discussions on deals that could come to fruition in the next few days. With other items on their checklist (a key offensive infusion, bench and bullpen help), Hoyer and company want to get a starter as soon as possible—but they rarely allow that sense of urgency to force them into a move. They’ll be patient, at least until more of their top targets come off the board.