On Thursday, Miami Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix met with the media for about 15 minutes to discuss the moves his team has made up to this point in the offseason. Understandably, most of the questions concerned Wednesday’s trade that sent Edward Cabrera to the Chicago Cubs.
“I think we’re getting somebody who hits the ball very hard and hits for a lot of power—that’s a hard thing to find,” Bendix said via Zoom regarding the centerpiece of the trade return, Owen Caissie. “It’s a hard thing to find in any area. It’s usually very expensive to acquire and I think every good team needs power. With him, we’re getting someone who has shown the ability to make adjustments as he’s gotten older and as he’s faced better pitching. He’s still very young and has room for improvement offensively and defensively, but his performance to date in his career has been exceptional.”
Caissie slashed .286/.386/.551/.937 with 22 home runs, 55 RBI and a 139 wRC+ through 99 Triple-A games last season. As a left-handed-hitting corner outfielder, Caissie’s similarities to 2025 Marlins All-Star are “pretty easy to see,” Bendix admitted.
“To have somebody who’s on that career trajectory much earlier in their career, who crushed Triple-A pitching at a much younger age, that’s really exciting,” said Bendix. “It doesn’t guarantee anything and doesn’t mean that he’s necessarily going to step in right away and hit 40 home runs or anything like that. There’s certainly risk there, but it is unusual to have a player like Caissie, at his age, perform the way that he did at a high level, and that makes us really excited.”
Bendix also told the media that Caissie will still go to the World Baseball Classic, which takes place during spring training in March. He previously represented his native country at the 2023 WBC.
“I think that’s going to be a great experience for him,” said Bendix. “I think the more high-level competition he and all of our young guys can get, the better it is for them and for us.”
Caissie will compete alongside one of his new Marlins teammates in shortstop Otto López. Canada is part of Pool A, which takes place in Puerto Rico.
Along with Caissie, the Marlins acquired shortstop prospect Cristian Hernández and Edgardo De Leon, an 18-year-old infield prospect.
Hernández, who spent last season in High-A, slashed .252/.329/.365/.694 with seven home runs, 53 RBI, 52 stolen bases and a 99 wRC+. He played 95 games at shortstop, where it seems like he has a chance to stick long term.
In 2025, De Leon made the jump from the Dominican Summer League to the Arizona Complex League. In 43 games, he slashed .276/.353/.500/.853 with five home runs, 15 RBI and a 118 wRC+.
“I think Cristian Hernández is tooled up, does a lot of things well. Certainly has a lot of things he needs to improve, but he’s very young and has a lot of ingredients in place,” Bendix said. “Edgardo De Leon, he’s even younger and has further to go, but the power that he has shown, the exit velocities that he has shown, the aptitude that he has shown, is really exciting for an 18-year-old. When we were able to get a package of these three players that we think can help us this year and beyond, that ended up being what got us over the line.”
Cabrera had been the subject of trade rumors throughout the past couple of years. Last offseason, it seemed as if the Pittsburgh Pirates were a potential landing spot, then leading up to the 2025 MLB trade deadline, the Cubs and New York Yankees were among the clubs interested in the right-handed starter. During the Winter Meetings, it was reported that the Marlins and Baltimore Orioles were in discussions for Cabrera. Last Sunday, the Yankees reportedly re-emerged as a serious suitor.
In 2025, Cabrera broke out, posting a 3.53 ERA, 3.83 FIP, 9.81 K/9 and 3.14 BB/9 in a career-high 137 â…” innings pitched. That marked the first time in his career surpassing the 100-inning threshold. Even then, the injury-prone 27-year-old landed on the IL twice, most notably towards the end of the season with a right elbow sprain, but still made two starts to finish the season.
“There’s risk with every player in baseball,” Bendix said. “There’s risk with Edward Cabrera. There’s risk with just about anybody. There’s no such thing as certainty. I think what we try to do is we try to get players who do things well and also have areas of improvement that we think we can help. That gets to the idea of developing players at all levels, including at the major league level.”
A source did tell Fish On First that although the Marlins feel comfortable with their current starting pitching options, they still may go out and sign an experienced pitcher who can eat innings, similar to the signing of Cal Quantrill last season. Bendix also did not rule out the possibility of a top prospect like Thomas White or Robby Snelling winning a rotation job out of camp.
“I think there’s an opportunity there,” said Bendix. “There’s competition there, there’s open space there, and there’s a chance for a lot of guys to step up and earn a spot. There’s nothing we’re writing off at this point.”
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Prior to trading away Cabrera, the Marlins signed right-handed reliever Pete Fairbanks to a one-year deal worth $13M. Fairbanks, who Bendix knows well from this days with the Tampa Bay Rays, posted a 2.83 ERA, 3.63 ERA, 8.80 K/9, 2.69 BB/9 and a career best 27 saves in a career-high 60 ⅓ innings pitched.
“I really like him, respect him as a person, and I think he’s an excellent pitcher,” said Bendix. “I think that there’s more upside, even than what he’s shown recently. He added a new cutter that has a chance to be really good. I think he’s better understanding himself, his body, how to execute his pitches, and really to be a team leader. He’s going to step into a situation where he’s the veteran, he’s the guy in the bullpen, and I trust in him to be able to execute that leadership as well as execute his pitches.”
The final acquisition which was touched on very quickly was the one of Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Esteury Ruiz, who the Marlins acquired in exchange for minor league pitcher Adriano Marrero. In 2025, Ruiz was primarily in AAA, where he slashed .304/.412/.511/.923 with 16 home runs, 61 RBI, 63 stolen bases and a 137 wRC+. During his MLB career, however, Ruiz’s career slash line is only .241/.296/.343/.639 with eight homers in 197 games.
“We think (Ruiz) is a really helpful, complementary piece, who’s got upside beyond that,” said Bendix. “He’s one of the fastest guys in baseball, an elite base-stealing threat and made some real adjustments to his offensive game that we think are going to pay off huge dividends. We think he needs an opportunity to play and we can help him get a little bit more out of his game. It’s the type of skills that are truly elite at the top of the scale that are hard to find and it’s somebody who is still young and still improving and really fits our roster really well, too.”
“I think we’re executing on our plan of building a club that we think can be really exciting in 2026 and also continuing on this plan to make our franchise competitive every single year for the foreseeable future,” Bendix said. “I think we added a lot of really interesting talent and it’s going to be fun to see how some of these competitions play out in spring training.”
Thursday also marks the deadline to exchange salary figures with arbitration-eligible players. With Cabrera now gone, the Marlins have six players (all pitchers) who they are attempting to reach settlements with.