The deal: Padres acquire RHP Dylan Cease from White Sox for RHP Drew Thorpe, RHP Jairo Iriarte, OF Samuel Zavala, RHP Steven Wilson
The last trade between these two clubs? When the San Diego Padres acquired a little-known prospect named Fernando Tatis Jr. for James Shields in 2016. A.J. Preller might not get that kind of value in Cease -- he's under team control for just two more seasons, after all -- but this deal with the Chicago White Sox dramatically changes the Padres' playoff odds just as they prepare for the long flight to Korea for the opening two-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Let's grade the trade:
Padres: Last season, with Cy Young winner Blake Snell leading the way, the Padres led the majors in rotation ERA -- but Snell, Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Nick Martinez, who combined for 91 starts, were all free agents. This offseason, Preller had to re-make the rotation behind Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove. The Juan Soto trade brought in Michael King, who has primarily been a reliever in the majors, to join a group featuring Jhony Brito, Randy Vasquez and Thorpe. That's not a lot of certainty for a team looking to contend given a veteran, high-priced lineup that still features Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts and Tatis.
The question for the Padres: Which Cease are they getting? In 2022, he finished second in the Cy Young voting with a 2.20 ERA and 227 strikeouts in 184 innings. In 2023, his ERA rose to 4.58 and he allowed 43 more runs while pitching seven fewer innings. Of course, the biggest difference between the two seasons wasn't strikeouts, walks or home runs, but batting average allowed on balls in play, which a pitcher doesn't necessarily hold a lot of control over. His BABIP was .261 in 2022 and .331 in 2023. Was he simply lucky one year and unlucky the next?
We can look at some of the Statcast metrics to get a better idea and the results say ... Not necessarily. In 2022, he gave up an expected overall batting average of .184; in 2023, it was .241. The White Sox defense was a train wreck in 2023, which didn't help him out, but Cease did allow more hard contact. His fastball and slider velocity were both down about 1 mph from 2022, and that played a role. More importantly, his slider just wasn't as dominant as it was in 2022, when it was the single best pitch in the majors via run value. It had less right-to-left horizontal break last year -- and right-handed batters hit .230 against it in 2023, compared to .163 in 2022.
Of course, there was likely some bad luck involved: Among pitchers with at least 100 innings, Cease had the eighth-highest BABIP allowed. Other than Hunter Greene, the guys ahead of him were pitchers who don't throw nearly as hard. So for 2024, we can probably expect the middle ground. His peripheral stats in 2023 were still better than a pitcher with a 4.58 ERA, so even if he's not going to post a 2.20 ERA, something around the 3.50 range makes sense, maybe a little lower given a new home ballpark like Petco Park (maybe a lot lower if leaving the White Sox just gives Cease good vibes). He's been durable, making 32, 32 and 33 starts the past three seasons, so that's another positive. He still throws hard.
With Cease, Darvish, Musgrove, King and whoever fills the fifth slot, the Padres now project to a top-10 rotation, maybe right on the edge of a top-five group. In the wide-open National League wild-card race, that makes them contenders.
Padres grade: B+
White Sox: For the White Sox, Thorpe is the headliner, just as he was in the Soto trade. He was 64th on Kiley McDaniel's top 100 prospect list, a polished, close-to-the-majors right-hander. He reached Double-A at the end of 2023 and was absolutely dominant there in 30 innings, allowing just 15 hits with a 44-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He's certainly one of the five best starters in the organization right now, although we can expect him to spend a little time in the minors. He's viewed as more floor than ceiling, as hit sits 91-94, with a changeup his best pitch. Still, as a potential mid-rotation starter, it's a decent starting point as the return for two years of Cease.
The other two prospects are fliers. Iriarte just missed McDaniel's top 100 after a breakout season in which he reached Double-A, with a fastball that averaged 95.7 mph and a plus slider. He also has decent changeup to give him a starter's repertoire, but he walked 45 batters in 90.1 innings, so the command has to improve or he'll end up as a reliever.
Zavala is a 19-year-old left-handed hitting center fielder -- all ceiling and no floor right now. He performed well as an 18-year-old in Class A, hitting .243/.391/.406 with 14 home runs and an impressive 94 walks -- although that came with 140 strikeouts in 115 games. Zavala was regarded as one of the top pure hitters in his international signing class, and he has room to add some strength. If he can stick in center, the skillset right now projects as a well-rounded player, but he'll have to keep the strikeouts in check as he climbs to higher levels.
All in all, it's a solid return for a pitcher who really has had just the one dominant season. Given the injuries that have popped up in spring training -- Gerrit Cole, Lucas Giolito and Kodai Senga, for starters -- it looked like Chris Getz's decision to hold off on trading Cease might pay off with an even bigger return, but I'm not sure this kind of deal is all that different than what he could have received in December. It's also possible that if he had waited until July, the return might have been even better -- but then you run the risk of Cease getting injured. And if Zavala hits it big, maybe he even becomes the White Sox version of Tatis.