Right-hander Dylan Cease has found a new home. The San Diego Padres are finalizing a deal to acquire the right-hander from the Chicago White Sox, sources confirmed Wednesday to Yahoo Sports.
Cease has been one of the hottest names on the market this offseason, and over the past month, Chicago received renewed interest from teams looking to make a major splash ahead of Opening Day.
In return for Cease, the White Sox will receive pitching prospects Drew Thorpe and Jairo Iriarte, outfield prospect Samuel Zavala and reliever Steven Wilson, according to multiple media reports. MLB Pipeline ranks Thorpe as the No. 5 prospect in San Diego’s system, Zavala as No. 7 and Iriarte as No. 8.
Last season, Cease went 7-9 with a 4.58 ERA for the White Sox, but his 3.72 FIP shows that the hard-throwing righty was better than his numbers indicated. He displayed much sharper form in 2022, when he posted a 2.20 ERA with 227 strikeouts over 32 starts and finished second in AL Cy Young Award voting.
The trade for Cease takes care of a huge void for San Diego, which needed someone to fill the No. 1 role in the rotation following the presumed departure of NL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell in free agency. Not only does this move give the Padres a new ace, but it also allows right-handers Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove and Michael King to slot back in the San Diego rotation. That said, there remains plenty of room for concern about this rotation, given Cease’s backslide in 2023, Musgrove’s injury issues last season and the fact that Darvish is now 37.
As for the White Sox, they have been looking to re-stack the deck since last season, and new general manager Chris Getz hasn’t wasted any time in trying to get his ballclub turned around. In Thorpe, who was part of the Juan Soto trade, Iriarte, Zavala and Wilson, Chicago receives four young, controllable assets in return for the two years remaining on Cease’s contract, a valuable swap at the beginning of an ugly rebuild. Seeing as Chicago had little expectation of contending in 2024, trading Cease now made far more sense than holding on to him until this summer’s deadline or next winter.
