Cubs Hope to Add New Breaking Ball to Edward Cabrera’s Arsenal
There were high hopes for Edward Cabrera after he was acquired for top prospect Owen Caissie in early January, but the big righty was downright bad. A bad hamstring strain and persistent blister issues limited him to just 80 innings over 18 total appearances, and his stuff took a big step back even when he was healthy. Some of that was due to him concealing the blisters, which contributed to mechanical flaws and the inability to execute his breaking balls in particular.
“How much that impacted his different spin pitches is unclear,” Jed Hoyer said during his end-of-season presser. “But he’s super talented. He has the swing-and-miss stuff that we’re looking for.”
We have covered Cabrera’s disappointing campaign previously, looking specifically at the mediocrity of the curveball that had been his most effective pitch in 2025. Pitching coach Tommy Hottovy and his staff worked to correct some issues with the lower half that led to Cabrera not being linear enough with his move, and the initial results seemed positive.
“Usually when you see guys’ arm slot drop, a lot of times there’s a shoulder impingement and they don’t want to get into that, so they work (down) to create space,” pitching coach Tommy Hottovy explained. “His is much more about an inefficiency with the lower body that was creating a rotational move with the upper body.”
Whether it was the lack of consistency or fear about exacerbating the blister, Cabrera simply wasn’t able to maintain any of the improvements. And it wasn’t just the curve that suffered. Cabrera’s changeup, sinker, and four-seam all generated negative value, with the latter’s -8.6 standing as the worst of his career by far. By the time he returned from his second blister-based IL stint, which came after he left his first game back from the hammy, the Cubs had to use him as a reliever.
Despite knowing they had much more work to do with Cabrera, he was essentially a car driving on a donut spare over those last few games. The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma reported that the Cubs had hoped to add a new breaking ball to his repertoire, but his myriad problems prevented any significant adjustments. While my initial thought was that said pitch would be a sweeper, Cabrera’s tendencies indicate to me that he’s a pronator.
That doesn’t mean he can’t get around the corner to create more horizontal movement, only that it’s unnatural for him. As such, maybe they’re looking to incorporate a cutter that would have a similar shape to his slider with a few more ticks of velocity. Of course, some would classify that more as a fastball variant than a breaker. It’s also possible that they’re just looking to change the grips on his slider and/or curveball.
Or maybe the focus needs to be on Cabrera not breaking.
Whatever the case, they really need Cabrera to get back to being the guy they traded for. Hoyer acknowledged the team’s obvious shortcomings on the pitching side, which included league-worst velocity and a lower-tier strikeout rate, and Cabrera was a primary culprit on the latter front in particular. A bump from him will go a long way, but Hoyer had better not count on anything.
