Miami Marlins poised to make their splash by dealing Edward Cabrera to Chicago Cubs

it sounds like the Miami Marlins have finally pulled the trigger on trading one of their starting pitchers.

As was first reported Wednesday afternoon, the Miami Marlins and Chicago Cubs are nearing agreement on a trade. Edward Cabrera would head to the North Side, with Owen Caissie reportedly coming back to Little Havana. Well, at least to the Sunshine State- it's not an absolute certainly that anyone coming back in this hypothetical trade would break camp with the big league club. It could be Caissie. It could be Caissie and others. Could just be others. It could also be nothing.

Clearly, this is all hypothetical still. No deal has been finalized, which has made this one of the more hilarious afternoons on Miami Marlins social media in recent memory. Right around this time a year ago, the Cubs and Marlins were reportedly close on a deal for Jesus Luzardo, only for the Cubs to back out once team doctors took a closer look at Luzardo. If there was ever a pitcher in Marlins history that might cause a doctor to suddenly freak out, non-Sixto Sanchez division, it'd be Edward Cabrera. So it's not over yet, not by a long shot.

However...this is pretty exciting stuff for Marlins fans.

Cabrera has long been viewed as more of a lottery ticket/ticking time bomb for the Marlins than a long-term piece of the puzzle for the franchise. Just yesterday, we at Marlin Maniac made our case for Peter Bendix cashing in ASAP on the Cabrera rehabilitation project. Which means, if nothing else, it's nice to know we here at the site are taken seriously, and have the ear of the President of Baseball Operations.

Now if you could just speak to Bruce about teal uniforms, Pete...

Kidding aside, cashing in on Cabrera and dealing from a position of strength makes all the sense in the world when you're not going to be spending at the top of the market for offensive reinforcements. So kudos to the team for doing so. They correctly held fast in July, and will have made the correct call again this time around if they can move Cabrera for what the rumors suggest he will be bringing back.

Especially since the biggest pieces coming back are MLB ready pieces. Caissie, the Cubs No. 1 prospect, is the most glaring example of that, but a staggering eight of Chicago's Top 10 prospects have 2026 listed in their MLB debut column. It would be hard for this trade not to immediately help improve the competitive chances of the 2026 Marlins. Particularly since Miami has question marks at plenty of the positions featured near the top of this list. Another case of high school pitchers and shortstops coming back this is not.

The combination of those two facts, a trade partner offering MLB-ready upside talent and the found treasure nature of Cabrera himself, makes this very different from the kind of trades Marlins fans have gotten used to. Throw in the refreshing change that this is in no way whatsoever a salary dump, and it's hard to argue that this wouldn't be the most exciting trade the Marlins have made in a decade. Only the acquisition of Starling Marte during the 2020 playoff run comes close in my mind, but in my humble opinion, the short-term nature of that deal puts it firmly in second behind having a top talent like Caissie under Marlins control for the next six seasons.

Now all that needs to happen...is for the Marlins and Cubs to make this happen.