Jed made his move

Three years running now, Cubs tiny little president of baseball nonsense Jed Hoyer has made a really good move. Two years ago it was ditching the Guinness Book of World Records holder for most concussions in a lifetime, David Ross, to hire Craig Counsell. Last year it was trading Cam Smith, home run giver upper champion Hayden Wesneski and human parallelogram Isaac Paredes to the Astros for Kyle Tucker. This year, he traded "not all top prospects are actually good" Owen Caissie and a couple of minor leaguers who can open spots for some guys from whatever Country Day school Jed's kids go to, for Marlins' starter Edward Cabrera.

If his past trajectory holds, this will be the one good move he makes before going back to doing a lot of nothing. Jed has nothing, if not a very long refractory period.

Cabrera was a target of the Cubs at the trade deadline last year and he really would have come in handy as the Cubs didn't have enough starting pitchers to make eight postseason starts among them. He's 27, he throws hard (something Cubs' starters haven't bothered to do since Jake Arrieta left the first time) and nagging injuries limited him to 40 starts between 2023 and 2024. Last year he made 26 starts and was very good. He struck out 150 in 137.2 innings, walking just 48 and allowing only 121 hits.

He also did this, which seems pretty good.

Cabrera immediately becomes the Cubs' most talented starting pitcher. Cade Horton can challenge him, but nobody else. And as a sign of how meh the Cubs assortment of threes and fours is, Cabrera was at best the third most talented pitcher on the Marlins' staff behind Eury Perez and Sandy Alcantara.

There are some Prospect Perverts who are crushed by this trade. The Cubs parted with Owen Caissie, who has been a prospect in their system for 27 years and is somehow only 23 years old. Last year he hit .286/.386/.551 at Iowa, which feels like a real top prospect, but it's the International League.

Do you remember Nick Solak? He's an outfielder who has played 259 games in the majors over six seasons with Pissburgh, Atlanta, Detroit and Texas. You don't remember him? Nobody does.

Here was his slash line in Owen Caissie's league last year - .332/.411/.492. Bobby Dalbec slugged .525 for three different teams in that league last year.

Caissie's .551 slug was impressive, but it didn't even lead the I-Cubs. Carlos Perez, the 34 year old backup catcher with the A's, Rangers, Angels, etc. slugged .571 for Iowa in his 17th minor league season.

All that is evidence of is that it's not that hard to hit in that league. Just ask Matt Mervis, who had a career .523 slug in AAA and a .322 slug in the big leagues.

Caissie might be a good player. But it's hard to get too excited about a guy who struck out 632 times in 1841 minor league at bats, including 121 times in 370 last year. And before he smushed his face into the right field bricks, he had struck out 11 times in 26 big league at bats including five of his last six at bats before he got injured and missed the rest of the season on September 13.

Caissie was the last remaining piece of the Yu Darvish trade (technically, Reginald Preciado is, but he's 22 and hasn't made it out of class-A yet, and he's never going to). Now that Edward Cabrera is what the Cubs have to show from that trade, it's far better than it has been in years.

Still bad.

Two other hitting prospects were dealt to Miami in this deal. The one you've probably heard of is Cristian Hernandez. He was a hot shot international free agent signing before the 2021 season out of the Dominican. Big (6'2) and skinny, the projection was that he would grow to hit for power while still being able to handle short. He's handled short fine, but the power has never come, with just 16 homers in his four seasons at class-A.

The other guy is Edgardo De Leon, an 18 year old who signed in 2024 from the DR. He has yet to play above Arizona Complex League. He has a career .861 OPS in his two short season league stints, which could mean something or nothing.

The "Arizona Complex League" always reminds me of this Tim Kazurinsky Weekend Update bit.

Considering I was clamoring for Cabrera back in the summer, and I long ago decided that Caissie most likely sucks, this seems like a very good trade to me.

And, given that Cabrera is just entering his first arbitration year, he's going to cost the Cubs less than $4 million this season. Considering their other option was to pay somebody like Zac Gallen six times that amount, it really should allow them to get more aggressive trying to sign Bo Bichette or Alex Bregman, and to not have any reason to trade away Nico Hoerner if that happens. Adding Cabrera and losing Caissie's league minimum salary for 2026 should put the Cubs about $32 million under the first luxury tax level, and as a reminder they are $191 million under it for 2027. If you can't figure out a way to structure a contract for a real bat with that kind of flexibility, well, you're probably Carter Hawkins.

The trade of Caissie means the Cubs have either decided to just let Seiya be the everyday right fielder (which, face it, he would have eventually been even if Caissie had stayed) with Moises Ballesteros as the primary DH, or the Cubs are going to get back into the race to sign Kyle Tucker or Cody Bellinger.

Hah. I made myself laugh out there trying to finish that sentence.

Of course they aren't going to sign Tucker or Cody.

Hell, they aren't going to sign Bichette or Bregman, either.

Guess where that money they no longer have to pay for a starting pitcher is going?

Regardless, enjoy Edward Cabrera. He's good. The Cubs need more good players. He is one, and they added him without giving any of theirs up. They should do this kind of shit more often.

Also, if Edward gets a little cocky about coming over to the Cubs to be their ace, one of his new catchers can remind him of the three run jack he hit off of him last May.

Then again, maybe Edward will just point out to Miguel that if not for yet another clank job by left field Gold Glove finalist Kyle Stowers, it would have just been another long F7.

He struck out seven in that game, including Petecrow twice, the first of which was...well, just watch what he did to him.

This was a strong opening move by Jed to improve his team over the one that clearly was lacking last year.

But it's only an opening move if it's followed by others.

I've learned not to hold my breath with this bunch.