Yankees insider's unique angle gives fans another reason to fear Edward Cabrera trade

Analytics are here to stay. They're an incredibly effective evaluative tool. They allow teams that use them properly to gain a development advantage. Of course, as more and more teams have access to the same data, it becomes harder and harder to sneak one past the goalie. The Marlins know they have an elite changeup artist in Edward Cabrera under team control; they won't be surrendering him to the Yankees, or anyone else, for a cheap package just because of his surface statistics. There are no more dumb teams out there — except for those that rely solely on metrics and fail to peek at contextual counting stats.

The Yankees, when they look at Cabrera, see a below-average fastball thrown at above-average velocity. They see a tantalizing changeup and breaking ball. They see someone coming off a (still low) career high in innings pitched and an elbow issue he may or may not have gotten past. They see a pitcher who looks like a No. 1 when he's on, but isn't on nearly often enough. They see someone with ace-type stuff who can be acquired below an ace-type price because he isn't an ace. They see a three-year window to improve him rather than a ticking, blaring clock. So, you lose a year and a half to injury. You've still got a year and a half in the lab! Can we time that year and a half correctly? We can't? No harm, no foul. Just got to cross our fingers and hope the timing works out (it never does for the Yankees, no matter how crossed their fingers are).

So, when is Cabrera an ace and when is he an also-ran? Yankees insider Joel Sherman ran one of the simplest examinations possible on Monday night as food for thought — so simple it feels like the Yankees will choose to ignore it in favor of something more complex.

Sometimes, though, baseball really does come down to the simplest matchups: can you beat good teams? When you face top-10 offenses, how do you fare? Do they batter you, or do you best them?

Last season, Cabrera had a 4.96 ERA in nine appearances against baseball's 10 best, a fact that Sherman clearly held below the fold of Joe Ryan's photo purposely for effect. That includes six two-hit, seven-K, one-run innings against the 2025 Yankees. Of course it does.

Yankees should look at performance in big games as part of Edward Cabrera evaluation

This is not to say that the Yankees should randomly pivot and overpay Justin Verlander (though Zack Littell would be a nice flyer if they're afraid of the acquisition cost). It's just to note that Cabrera leveling up is far from a certainty, and that the experience he does have in "challenge" games pales in comparison to what more finished products like Freddy Peralta (second on the list in ERA) and MacKenzie Gore (third) accomplished last season.

Again, there aren't stupid teams out there anymore. Everybody reads the same printouts. But there are teams that have decided they don't need to quantify heart, and that their team of pitching/hitting scientists is so smart that there's no character flaw they can't coach out.

Does Cabrera have the heart of a champion? Does he rise to the occasion? There's not enough evidence to claim with certainty that he can't, but there's no reason to believe he can, either.