The Minnesota Twins are probably not going to sign Shohei Ohtani. Jordan Montgomery, Blake Snell, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are also very, very unlikely to find their way to Minneapolis this winter. Their contracts will be too rich for Minnesota’s budget. Luis Severino and Shota Imanaga could be budget options in a relatively old free-agent class. Still, they might be better off trading for players instead of adding them in free agency.
Acquiring Pablo López from the Miami Marlins for second baseman Luis Arraez was Minnesota’s biggest move last offseason. Their most significant move this offseason could be acquiring Edward Cabrera from the Miami Marlins for Jorge Polanco, their current second baseman.
They don’t necessarily have to move Polanco, but the Marlins have made a few pitchers available. Miami talked with the Colorado Rockies last winter about a potential swap involving Brendan Rodgers. Cabrera has remained a trade candidate, according to various baseball insiders.
The Marlins won’t just give Cabrera away, though. He already showcased his upside in 2022 when he completed 71.2 innings in 14 starts with a 3.01 ERA (137 ERA+). However, he wasn’t as good this past season. In 99.2 innings and 20 starts, he finished with a 4.24 ERA (106 ERA+). It was not a bad season, but it featured some kinks Cabrera needs to work out.
Cabrera has some of the best stuff in the league. But also some of the worst control.
His 96 mph four-seamer works pretty well up in the zone, but Cabrera rarely earned strikes with it. The pitch’s 56.8% strike rate was in the 4th percentile among starters last season, and its 43.8% zone rate was in the 6th percentile.
Even in 2022, the pitch earned strikes only 50% of the time, with a 41.3% zone rate.
Here’s an example of Cabrera pinpointing his four-seamer perfectly:
His changeup is a different story, though.
It’s barely a changeup. It sits at 93 mph with an absurd 16.6 inches of induced horizontal break. The average horizontal movement on a changeup is 14.3 inches (for righties). The average changeup velocity is just 86.1 mph. It’s a nasty offering more akin to a sinker but with even more horizontal movement.
Batters chased it 44.9% of the time Cabrera threw it outside the zone (90th percentile). That led to an 82nd percentile swinging strike rate, 97th percentile ground ball rate, and an 85th percentile ideal contact rate. Ideal contact rate measures if batters are hitting barrels, solids, flares, and/or burners.
The pitch often looks like a middle-low or even middle-inside fastball out of his hand before violently breaking away from lefties. He threw this one in a 2-0 count when Christian Yelich likely thought he was getting a fastball:
When he’s got sufficient command of it, he can use it against righties as he did against J.T. Realmuto here. He’s confident in the pitch that even in a 0-0 count, he can get the whiff:
Most changeups rely on a change in velocity to get whiffs. Not Cabrera’s. As mentioned earlier, it’s more of a sinker with additional horizontal movement. However, Cabrera throws both pitch types.
He prefers throwing his sinker to righties to jam them. It’s a high-value skill that is difficult to master.
Below is an example of Cabrera jamming Pete Alonso:
The pitch looks like a strike out of his hand and stays a strike for quite a while, eventually ending in a location that Alonso can’t make quality contact on.
Two breaking balls, a slider, and a curveball make up the rest of Cabrera’s arsenal. The curveball has been the better of the two pitches in his career. Cabrera doesn’t throw it in early counts often, but when he does, he gets plenty of called strikes (88th percentile early called strike rate). He’s favored it more each year over his slider since debuting in 2021.
Cabrera’s arsenal has some elite offerings. An increased zone rate on his four-seamer would elevate him to near-ace levels. It’s easier said than done.
His 15.2% walk rate last season was in the 1st percentile in the league. Former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Robbie Ray had a 17.2% walk rate in 2020. As you may know, Ray lowered that number to 6.7% while keeping the same great 30% or so strikeout rate he always had on his way to a Cy Young award in 2021. How did he do it, and can Cabrera follow his blueprint?
Ray spent the offseason between 2020 and 2021 with Driveline Baseball. While there, he altered his mechanics. He included a counter-rotation and messed with the length of his arm action to become more efficient in his throwing motion. Whether or not Cabrera could benefit from something similar is up to brighter minds.
Based on his four-seamer pitch chart, it looks like Cabrera has issues with hinging and striding. All of those misses high may be intentional. He seemingly likes to throw his four-seamer up to induce whiffs, like what Bailey Ober does with his four-seamer. What likely isn’t intentional is all of those misses down and glove-side and his misses east-west on either side of the zone.
A pitcher’s front hip can act as a guide. If his hip isn’t properly aligned based on his hip’s anatomy, he can open up too quickly and miss arm-side or open too late and have to yank glove-side.
The difference between these two isn’t necessarily large.
Here’s an example of Cabrera missing arm-side:
And here’s an example of Cabrera yanking a pitch glove-side:
Finally, an example of Cabrera hitting his spot:
You can see the release point of those three pitches here. The first image is when he hits his spot, followed by the arm-side miss and the glove-side miss in order:
It’s the pitch in which Cabrera is straighter that he throws the strike. Cabrera is bending glove-side much more on the two misses. That might be because his lower body outpaced his upper body.
Here are three images of Cabrera at the moment his arm cocks. They are once again in order of the good release, arm-side miss, and glove-side miss*:
It’s a relatively small difference, but it appears his arm is further along when he yanks the pitch (third picture), and his arm is further behind when he misses arm-side (second picture).
Whether or not this is the case is something that his coaches can determine. Cabrera could become a top-of-the-rotation part if he can correct this timing mistake to hit the zone more.
The Twins would have to part with a decent batter to obtain Cabrera — perhaps someone like José Miranda or Austin Martin, if not Polanco. If the Twins can identify the issue that’s plagued Cabrera for his career, they could get value for another high-upside pitcher from Miami.
*An earlier version of this article displayed the images out of order. We regret the error.
