Jan 10, 2026
3 min read
The Cubs have been quite quick about their desire to acquire impact starting pitching, with Jed Hoyer, the club's president of baseball operations, calling it the focus of their offseason back at the GM meetings in November.On Wednesday, Chicago completed its search by acquiring 27-year-old Edward Cabrera.
The Cubs have been vocal about their desire to make an impact right off the field, which Jed Hoyer, the club's president of baseball operations, said was their offseason priority at November's general managers meeting.
Cabrera is no ace, as he has a career 4.07 ERA and 4.55 FIP, and hasn't thrown more than 140 innings in any of his five seasons.But he made significant improvements last season — in particular, lowering his walk rate to the league-average mark — and has elite stuff, with a five-pitch mix that he's used against both left-handed and right-handed hitters.usesThe Cubs are betting that Cabrera, who has three years of club control, can continue to go in that direction.So they traded for him.
This is a very interesting game.Cabrera is a power pitcher but doesn't use his fastball often, and for good reason: He has a -12 run rate on 4% of his fastballs (defined here as four-seam and sinker) through 2025. With the Cubs, Cabrera joins a rotation loaded with ability, but they do the opposite, often succeeding without super speed.
This makes Cabrera stand out.He's very different from the other starters on the Cubs' 40-man roster and the starters they've fielded in recent years.Let's dive in.
Cabrera's average fastball velocity last season was 96.9 mph.Good for the 87th percentile in MLB, if Cabrera holds his ground, in 2026 he will become the hardest-hitting Cubs starting pitcher in the pitch tracking era (since 2008), a distinction currently held by swingman Ben Brown.In factNo Cubs starting pitcher (minimum 500 pitches) has yet to finish a season with an average fastball velocity of more than 96 mph. Cabrera, on the other hand, has done so in each of the last three seasons.
We can take this absurdity a step further: Cabrera's changeup averaged 94.2 mph last season.Using the same criteria (minimum 500 pitches) and time (since 2008) in Brown, Cade Horton, Jake Arrieta, Jeff Samardzija and Matt Garza, teams now have five starting pitchers with fastball averages of 94.2 mph or more per season.
Chicago's current rotation isn't full of high-speed pitchers.Last season, as a whole, the unit averaged 93.3 mph on their fastballs, boosted significantly by Brown (75 percent fastball velocity) and Horton (72 percent).Instead, the rotation consists of a number of outside fastball shapes.passes and makes flat angles.Horton, Javier Assad and southpaw Justin Steele -- scheduled to return from knee surgery sometime early this season -- threw fastballs with pitching action, which means they eliminate the glove side, defying a football player's expectations of what a four-hitter should look like.Marquee Sports Network analyst Lance Brozdowski previously liked the Bills for the ride.In the review, it was noted that while the models of public goods do not always like these screws, they have some advantages - among them is that their unusual shape helps the barrel to lose.
These movement profiles help explain why the Cubs starting pitcher relies more on their fastballs, even if they lack top-end velocity.Last season, only two pitchers -- the Mariners and Nationals -- threw a higher percentage of four-seamers and sinkers than the Cubs.Seven Cubs starting pitchers threw at least 500 pitches last year, and of that group, Jameson Talon had the lowest fastball usage rate at 45% (again, including cutters).
Overall, the Marlins bucked traditional practices and drastically reduced their usage in '25.They threw fewer pitchers than all but one team in the 2024 season.Only the 2024 Red Sox pitched fewer than that.He had a higher break-to-pitching ratio than Cabrera, who was successful 66% of the time.
Pitchers need to throw their best stuff often, and often they do.Cabrera has a combined three sacrifice bunts, not three, so he connects to throw them two-thirds of the time.Let's take a quick look at them:
- Opponents hit just .142 with a 45.2% whiff rate against his curveball, which took him from the elite to the elite after adjusting his stance, adding six inches of drop and nearly four inches of vertical movement.The two flights are unique.
- On average, his 1.5 mph changeup is faster than the last eligible fastball changeup (owned by former Cubs Brad Keller), and gained 1.5 inches of horizontal movement after lowering his arm angle from 42° to 36° last season.
And his best pitch might actually be a slider. It's a hard, bullet-like pitch that had a 43.7% strikeout rate and a .207 BA last season.
Cabrera was the only pitcher with some type of pitch that produced a whiff rate of at least 40% last season (at least 300 pitches).Thus a pitcher winds up 97.0 mph with a four-seamer that he throws just 13% of the time, with a power sinker that only sacrifices third to left and fourth to right.
None of this is to say that the Cubs are going to overhaul Cabrera's fastball size, or encourage him to throw his fastball more often.Smart organizations tailor their development plans to the pitcher's strengths and what makes him unique.For Cabrera, it's not his fastball — even though it will light up radar guns like we don't typically see from most Cubs starting pitchers at Wrigley Field.Doesn't pitch like starters, and certainly not like any other Cubs starter.This is what makes this couple so attractive.
