Marlins’ Edward Cabrera Drawing Trade Interest From Several Clubs
Exactly three weeks from the July 31st trade deadline, the Miami Marlins hold not one but two highly sought-after arms amongst the starting pitching market.
The worst-kept secret in the industry is that Sandy Alcantara will probably be traded by the end of the month. However, the 2022 NL Cy Young winner may no longer reside as the franchise’s most coveted trade chip – a title that likely now belongs to Edward Cabrera.
After enduring a rough 2024 season, Cabrera has enjoyed a strong first half this season, pitching to a 3.33 ERA and 3.88 FIP across 15 starts, recording a career-high 15.3-percent strikeout-to-walk rate difference (K-BB%). And many teams are starting to take notice of his impressive results.
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported last month that the Chicago Cubs were amongst the clubs monitoring the right-hander’s market. Meanwhile, Spanish reporter Francys Romero suggested the New York Mets were another team that had expressed interest.
On Wednesday, Héctor Gómez added the Toronto Blue Jays to the list of teams as potential suitors for Cabrera’s services – if the Marlins make him available ahead of this season’s trade deadline, that is.
Cabrera, who’s under club control through 2028, isn’t a certainty to be traded this year – at least not compared to Alcantara. The Marlins could decide to keep the talented hurler around, allowing him to help lead their rotation in future seasons, assuming the latter of those two is dealt between now and the deadline.
Still, if Miami’s front office does opt to trade Cabrera, they’d surely receive a significant haul in return.
The 27-year-old righty is making a very affordable $1.95 million in his first of four arbitration years before hitting the open market following the ‘28 campaign. While he got off to a slow start in April, he’s been on quite the roll lately, boosting his trade value considerably.
Over Cabrera’s last 11 starts, he’s allowed two earned runs or fewer in all but one of those outings, pitching to a 2.11 ERA and 3.32 FIP with 60 strikeouts and 19 walks across 59.2 innings. Both of his last two performances have been excellent, completing seven innings in each start while issuing 11 total strikeouts and only one walk.
Given Alcantara’s poor showing (7.22 ERA in 18 starts) since returning from Tommy John surgery, Cabrera may present Miami’s only avenue to netting a meaningful return ahead of this season’s trade deadline – which figures to be an extreme seller’s market, particularly for controllable starting pitchers.
The only roadblock in those plans could be Cabrera’s injury history, which has prevented him from logging at least 100 innings in a single season since debuting in 2021. His career-high currently stands at 99.2 innings set two years ago – a figure he stands to blow past in ‘25, considering he’s already thrown 78.1 frames.
Even so, with several playoff contenders searching for an impact starter this summer, the Dominican native is shaping up to be a desirable mid-rotation arm with plenty of long-term upside.
-Thomas Hall
Twitter: @Hall_Thomas_
Photo: Jeff Ruane. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.