Cubs acquire Edward Cabrera, send top prospect to Marlins

The Cubs moved to strengthen their starting rotation on Wednesday, acquiring 27-year-old right-hander Edward Cabrera from the Miami Marlins.

The acquisition cost was not insignificant. The North Siders sent outfielder Owen Caissie, their top overall prospect, to Miami, along with infielders Cristian Hernandez and Edgardo De Leon.

The Cubs most definitely needed to add starting pitching this offseason, as their rotation was depleted by injury and ineffectiveness in 2025, and that contributed to their NLDS loss to Milwaukee Brewers.

In Cabrera, they are getting a pitcher coming off his best season. He started 26 games with Miami last year, going 8-7 with a 3.53 ERA. He struck out 150 batters (against 48 walks) over 137.2 innings pitched. His fastball averages 96.8 mph, and he also has a curve, slider and changeup.

The main concern for Cabrera: injuries. The 26 starts last season were a career high. Until 2025, he had never thrown more than 100 innings in a season. Even in a relatively healthy year, Cabrera experienced posterior elbow discomfort last July, and he also missed time in September with a right elbow sprain.

The bottom line: Cabrera is a talented pitcher, and he's effective when healthy. He joins a Cubs rotation that includes Cade Horton, Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga and Jameson Taillon. The Cubs are hoping to get left-hander Justin Steele (elbow surgery) back sometime during the first half of 2026.

Earlier in the offseason, the Cubs were connected to free agent pitchers Dylan Cease (Blue Jays), Michael King (Padres) and Tatsuya Imai (Astros). They obviously did not convert on any of those targets, necessitating this move.

This ends speculation that Caissie will be the Cubs' replacement for Kyle Tucker in the outfielder. Tucker, who played well for the Cubs in the first half of 2025 before being a combination of injured and bad in the second half, remains a free agent.

The Cubs obviously are in win-now mode, and this Cabrera deal is a win-now move. Last year, I was critical of the Cubs because I didn't think they were aggressive enough in addressing their starting pitching at the trade deadline. They acquired Tucker as a one-year rental last offseason, and they should have pushed their chips to the center of the table to win in 2025.

Instead, they tinkered around the edges of their roster at the deadline, adding guys like Michael Soroka and Willi Castro. They ended up getting their lunch money taken -- again -- by the small-market Brewers, who have been the best team in the NL Central in recent years despite their limited resources. 

Going after Cabrera is not without risk because of the injury history, but I think it's a worthwhile risk -- as long as the Cubs do not stop there.

If they aren't going to bring back Tucker, that's fine, but then they need to sign one of the other major free agents hitters still available -- Alex Bregman, Bo Bichette or Cody Bellinger.

If I'm the Cubs, and I most certainly am not, I'm going after Bichette. 

Following up: San Diego Padres acquiring Yu Darvish from the Cubs

Yu Darvish

One day after we talked about the San Diego Padres acquiring former Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell from the Tampa Bay Rays, we've learned sources say the Padres also are acquiring Yu Darvish from the Cubs.

According to the report, it's a seven-player blockbuster. Darvish, who finished second in the National League Cy Young voting in 2020, is headed to the Padres along with his personal catcher, Victor Caratini. 

In return, the Cubs receive right-handed pitcher Zach Davies and four kids -- outfielders Owen Caissie and Ismael Mena and shortstops Reggie Preciado and Yeison Santana.

Santana is the grizzled veteran among that quartet of prospects. ... He's 20 years old. Caissie and Mena are 18 years old. Preciado is 17. The latter two don't even have a Baseball Reference page yet.

It's hard not to like this deal for the Padres. Darvish has three years and $59 million remaining on his contract, and that's not cheap. But hey, didn't we just watch Darvish pitch like an ace on the North Side of Chicago in 2020? He was 8-3 with a 2.01 ERA in 12 starts. 

The Cubs don't win the NL Central without him, and you could make a good case that he deserved the Cy Young. With that production, he was earning his big contract.

San Diego's projected starting rotation is as follows:

1. Darvish
2. Snell
3. Dinelson Lamet
4. Chris Paddack
5. MacKenzie Gore

Those top three are formidable. The back of the rotation is young with plenty of upside. You can see a scenario now in which the Padres challenge the world champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West this year, and that's the whole point of the deal.

What's the point of this for the Cubs? Well, they just cleared a bunch of salary. That's it. They just traded their best starter -- perhaps their best trade piece, given that their entire offensive core had a down year in 2020 -- for a league-average right-hander (Davies) and a package of prospects who have never played about Rookie Ball.

None of these guys ranked any higher than No. 10 on the list of San Diego prospects. I suppose one or more of them could be good in 2024 or 2025, but I'm surprised the Cubs couldn't do better for Darvish.