New Miami Marlins outfielder Owen Caissie felt the shock of a recent trade, but quickly embraced a winning vision.
Owen Caissie was fishing when he heard the news.
The 23-year-old outfielder had been preparing to go to spring training with the Chicago Cubs, but those plans changed when the Cubs traded their top prospect to the Miami Marlins as part of a package for starting pitcher Edward Cabrera.
It wasn’t the first time Caissie had been traded.
After the 2020 season, the San Diego Padres — who had drafted Caissie in the second round months prior — traded Caissie to the Cubs to land another top-line starter in Yu Darvish.
But even with past experience, the news came as a surprise to Caissie.
“I guess the first initial reaction was kind of surreal,” Caissie told reporters on a Zoom call Tuesday, “like, is this really happening? ... It took a day for it to really set in.”
Once it set in, Caissie started to like the idea of joining the Marlins organization.
“[T]hey want to win, and I can definitely see that they're bringing the right people to do that,” Caissie said. “It’s going to be a good couple of years, and playoff baseball’s on the way.”
The Marlins surprised a lot of people last season under first-year manager Clayton McCullough.
Miami lost 100 games in 2024, but improved its record by 17 games with Major League Baseball’s youngest roster last season
“We're all in it together as one big family," Caissie said. "Really, it’s just getting to know guys, and us being the same age is going to be a lot of fun.”
Marlins catcher Liam Hicks and Caissie are both Canadian, and they’ll be suiting up for their country in this year’s World Baseball Classic.
After that, Caissie’s focus will return to the Marlins.
So what kind of team is he expecting to join?
“I feel like it's going to be an extremely light-hearted team, but at certain points of time we're going to get that work done and have no worry about that,” Caissie said. “But us being like a younger team, we can go show them that younger guys can really do it.”
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