Why Edward Cabrera has the 'stuff' to make an impact for the Cubs

Yahoo Sports senior MLB analyst Jordan Shusterman is joined by Lance Brozdowski to discuss how Chicago’s new starting pitcher could help the rotation at Wrigley. Check out the full conversation on the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

Let’s get into the positives, right?

We are going to get into some, Some reasons for either skepticism or concern, but let’s, Let’s stay positive here.

Why, why would any team… ‘Cause apparently a lot of teams were interested in trading for Edward Cabrera.

What is exciting about this pitcher?

The stuff.

Yeah, it’s the stuff.

I mean, we’ve heard this term a ton.

You’re comboing up release and velo and how the ball moves and coming up with, like, a singular number to grade the guy’s ability to miss bats, which is one of the most predictive things for success.

So that’s it.

Like, he does a really good job at this and Phil Tetro was joking about me.

They were like, Is he the smartest kid in the dumb school?

Because, like, The Cubs don’t have a lot of stuff.

And I was like, I think he’s a smart kid in that school, but also he’she’s cool if you send him too, like, Stanford.

He can, like, get B’s there.”

You know what I What do you mean?

Sure, sure.

I think he’s a great pitcher.

He creates nasty breaking ball shapes.

He’s got a hard fastball.

He’s got a wacky changeup that’s really hard.

And I think the big thing to notice is, like, year over year, He finally improved the walk rate.

Yes.

This is huge.

Like, I think this is sticky.

I don’t think the prior Marlins regime did a Great job of optimizing his usage.

And I think there’s, Like, a variety of ways you can improve command, although all of them are, Like, no one’s going to be like, “I can totally get this guy’s command better.”

But I’d say the most reliable way to do it is to get the guy on a pitch that he can zone more.

And he is more comfortable throwing.

They lowered his slot, or his slot fell.

I don’t think it was intentional from what I’ve been talking to people about.

So the slot falls, the sinker gets a little better from a quality standpoint.

And they go, “Hey, throw that thing a bunch,” because you’re actually better at zoning it.

Than your four-seam.”

You see his four-seam come down versus lefties and righties, Sinker shot up, throwing more breaking balls.

All of a sudden, The walk rate’s at 8% with a potential for, like, a high 20% strikeout rate.

I mean, it’s really easy to project him as, like, An impact, let’s say, like two or three in a rotation.

I don’t think he’s ace level.

You know, I don’t think he’s a square two.

Like, he’s probably in that 2-3 window.

He’s a really good pitcher.

Really fun stuff.

The other thing about Edward Cabrera, We talk about what has prevented him from reaching his potential.

We’re going to talk about the injuries in a second because that’s very relevant in terms of The sample size.

But this is a long time of having big stuff.

This dude hit 100 when he was a teenager.

That was almost a decade ago.

And as you mentioned, the Marlins regime, the Marlins have also developed many pitchers.

It took a really, really long time for him to finally put it all together.

And you can say that that’s maybe a good thing or a bad thing, based on how much he improved.

2025.

But the reason why I, why I bring up that sinker is because people in this space will also point to that pitch and be like, Well, hey, if I pull up Statcast and I look at how these pitchers performed, That sinker’s getting crushed.

That fastball’s still not performing well.

Right?

So when you look at the mix, beyond just moving away from a four-seamer that he clearly could not command at all.

What else could you say, and knowing the tendencies of how the Cubs like to optimize?

Pitchers, what are some other things you could maybe see with them?

If he can, you know, stay on the mound and make 30 starts, What are some other tweaks to the pitch mix that you could see kind of elevating?

Uh, his overall performance?

Yeah, I’ll speak to this sans Cubs for a Second, then I’ll incorporate the Cubs’ perspective, because I think it’s two different things.

In talking to people, the obvious two angles There’s probably a sweeper in here if he wants it.

And there’s probably a cutter of some kind.

So we’re getting to this trend we saw a ton.

Last year, David Adler had a really good piece on MLB.com.

About it.

Just everyone’s throwing more pitches.

And we’re understanding so much about seam effects and how airflow around the ball can Influence movement so that every dude can throw six pitches.

Especially if you’re able to get to the side of the ball relatively well and have high spin.

Capacity and cut the ball a little bit, which Cabrera can do a little.

So in that respect, you can push him to a cut and a sweep.

I actually think he threw a cutter a couple times.

I haven’t been able to back-check it.

I was talking to someone who said that he Threw it in on an outing a couple times.

So it’s there.

He’s thrown it.

Perhaps that’s something you could just elevate And push up.

The interesting part of this is that the Cubs Last year had the highest four-seam fastball usage in all of Major League Baseball.

They also had the highest 3-2 strike zone rate.

They are a low-leverage team that is comfortable throwing things directly in the zone and giving up barrels because at Wrigley Field, a lot of those times, Those barrels don’t get out.

It’s a philosophical thing that I believe they…

I don’t know if they’ve explicitly said, but you can read between the lines and look at Every single one of those starting pitchers.

Well… Yeah, and alsoit’s pretty obvious.

…

When your defense is this good and when PCA can run down Exactly.

… Um, you know, blistering line drives into the gap because you threw a fastball down the middle.

I know that’s, Uh, sort of simplifying things, but pitching and defenseno, It’s true.

It’s true.

It’s, it’s a… Not just pitching and defense, It’s pitching plus defense, right?

Yes.

It’s not…

The pitching has been designed to work in tandem with the defense in a lot of respects.

Why Edward Cabrera has the ‘stuff’ to make an impact for the Cubs

Tags: