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The Marlins have been trying to build a winner around young pitchers for quite some time. Those efforts produced one of the worst playoff teams in baseball history, a 2023 squad outscored by 57 runs that stayed in the postseason for about 28 hours. Cabrera has been hurt, Max Meyer got hurt, Braxton Garrett got hurt, Eury Perez got hurt, I think Crockett and Tubbs ended up on the IL at one point. Gloria Estefan may have had Tommy John surgery somewhere in there. It’s been a mess, the team unable to keep a rotation together or assemble an offense to support the pitchers who did stay upright.
So I like the shape of this deal for the Marlins, turning a pitcher who finally had a full-ish, healthy-ish season into an outfielder who could become a lineup anchor. We’ve been talking about Owen Caissie for a long time. The Cubs traded for him as part of the Yu Darvish package more than five years ago. when Caissie was a 17-year-old second-round pick out of Canada. He advanced at a level a year -- exactly a level a year, unusual in modern player development -- and got stuck at Triple-A in 2025 when the Cubs had no room at the inn. Even hitting .286/.386/.551 in his second turn at Iowa got Caissie just a quick cup of coffee in the majors and no more.
