Twice in the last eight seasons, the Chicago Cubs rolled into September leading the NL Central—and proceeded to blow it.
Here in 2025, after fantastic opening three months, the Cubs are doing that whole second-half-of-the-season backsliding thing:
You can point the finger at their pesky starting rotation.
Chicago starters Justin Steele, Jameson Taillon, and Shota Imanaga have all spent their fair share of time in the Cubbies trainers room—while Imanaga is back in action after dealing with a hammy, Steele is out for the season, and Taillon is weeks away from a return—Ben Brown was (justifiably) shipped to the minors, and Cade Horton, while showing signs, needs some marinating.
Thus, the Cubs, if they want to avoid another September meltdown, require another starting arm. Or two.
So maybe it’s time to shoot a text to somebody, anybody in the Miami Marlins front office.
If the Marlins—who, as of this writing, are 10.5 games behind the NL East first-place Philadelphia Phillies and, according to ESPN, have a 0.2% shot at making the playoffs—are ready to tear it down (as well they should be), they might be an ideal trade partner for the Cubs, who could be down for this:
Chicago Cubs Receive:
Miami Marlins Receive:
Cubs fans will bristle at the Alcantara-for-Alcantara (Sandy-for-Kevin) move, as Kevin is projected to be a beast. But if they want to hold back the Brewers this season, two legitimate starters would go a long way towards making that happen.
But are Alcantara and Cabrera the guys to do just that?
Tough call, because you can’t get a true gauge of a pitcher’s value when the baseball team playing behind him isn’t particularly good at baseball. Alcantara’s and Cabrera’s combined 2025 numbers are less-than-impressive, but the Marlins, as a whole, are even less impressive, so take this with a grain of salt:
The ERA and WHIP are concerning, but both righties have had some success in this league—Alcantara’s 2022 Cy Young season was scary-good, while Cabrera had a quality ’22 of his own, winning six of his ten decisions while posting an ERA of 3.01—and there’s no reason to think that if supported by an elite offense, they won’t regain their form.
The 29-year-old Alcantara would be under team control through 2027, while the 27-year-old Cabrera’s contract runs until 2028, meaning they’ll both enter their primes on the North Side of the Windy City.
Does this infusion of experienced starting pitching get the Cubs across the finish line this season?
In a vacuum, that gets a big ol’ maybe. Alcantara and Cabrera aren’t staff anchors—they’re Miami’s top two starters, and that isn’t working out particularly well—but stick them in the rotation after Matthew Boyd, Imanaga, and Colin Rea, and suddenly, the Cubs would boast one of the strongest batch of starters in the Central. And when Taillon returns, look out.
Yeah, this move would semi-gut Chicago’s farm system, but if it keeps them in the World Series discussion for the next two or three seasons, few will kvetch.