Padres acquire Dylan Cease
The Dylan Cease sweepstakes are officially over! The San Diego Padres acquired the frontline starting pitcher from the Chicago White Sox Wednesday in exchange for Drew Thorpe–who San Diego acquired in the Juan Soto trade earlier this offseason–Jairo Iriarte, Samuel Zavala and Steven Wilson, MLB Network insider Mark Feinsand was among the first to report.
The San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers and New York Yankees were all reportedly in the running for Cease.
The White Sox were expected to enter the 2024 season as not only the worst team in a dire AL Central, but among the worst in MLB. Cease, 28, was expected to be involved in myriad trade rumors ahead of the early August trade deadline–similar to last year–despite being under contract through the 2025 season.
Regardless of where you think his status is as an “ace,” he’s a strong No. 1 or, at the very least, a prime No. 2 in a good rotation. Last year, he was a bit erratic, but still sported a 4.58 ERA, 3.72 FIP, and 214 strikeouts across 177 innings (33 starts).
Cease finished second in the AL Cy Young voting in 2022 after a 2.20 ERA, 3.10 FIP and 227 strikeouts across 184 innings, ranking in the top-5 across MLB in strikeout rate (30.4 K%) and in the top-15 in K-BB% (20.0%).
Cease will seemingly fill in for the spot departed by reigning NL Cy Young Blake Snell, who’s still without a new home. He joins a rotation led by Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove plus newly-acquired arms Michael King and Jhony Brito.
As for the prospects that Chicago got in return, Thorpe–MiLB’s pitching prospect of the year in 2023–was the only one ranked inside MLB Pipeline’s top-100 prospects for 2024 (No. 85). According to their new team rankings, Thorpe will be the No. 3 prospect–behind Colson Montgomery and Noah Schultz–while Zavala and Iriarte are the team’s new No. 6 and 9 prospects, respectively.
Thorpe could be a good building block in that rotation, but it remains to be seen if the other prospects will be panned out. Iriarte throws gas but is still probably further away than Thorpe, while Zavala, 19, is further away from both. This is a solid haul for Chicago.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
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