Dylan Cease traded to Padres
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
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Huh, would have expected the Rangers despite the Padres rumblings as well.
I really dislike AJ Preller going huge all the time, but to be fair to him the top prospects he's moved this decade like CJ Abrams, Robert Hassell III, Luis Patino haven't amounted to anything just yet.
I really dislike AJ Preller going huge all the time, but to be fair to him the top prospects he's moved this decade like CJ Abrams, Robert Hassell III, Luis Patino haven't amounted to anything just yet.
Considering all the rumors of what the White Sox were demanding, I assume Jackson Merrill is part of the return.
Preller seems to be able to pretty quickly restock the farm with a bunch of good prospects every time, so if I were him I'd keep making these deals too. They gave up a monster package for Soto and barely broke a sweat.
I should say, AJ Preller's style of GM-ing. Most times I think he's pretty insane, then he's not fired and doing alright. It works for him... for now.
White Sox deserve a karmic fleecing here after giving up Tatis Jr for Shields.
White Sox deserve a karmic fleecing here after giving up Tatis Jr for Shields.
Yeah, I was going to say, he had a really rough rookie season in 2022 when expectations for him were sky high, but he improved a lot in 2023, particularly as the season went on. Put up 3.4 WAR, showed speed and some power, and he's still only 23. Needs to improve his on-base skills, but looks like he's going to be a solid major league regular at a minimum.
Wow, that flew under the radar for me.
James Wood also is one to watch, most promising power prospect in the minors right now.
James Wood also is one to watch, most promising power prospect in the minors right now.
Those are the Padres 5th and 8th ranked prospects per MLB. https://www.mlb.com/prospects/padres
(Bleis and Yorke to answer your next question, although don’t know how they stack up)
(Bleis and Yorke to answer your next question, although don’t know how they stack up)
A GM's job is to win baseball games, not to continually horde theoretical value in an attempt to win points with people who've read Jonah Keri's book.. Preller took over what was arguably the most irrelevant team in all of baseball (they'd finished under .500 in 6 out of the previous 7 years before he was hired) and turned it into a perennial contender that plays in front of constant sell-outs and is arguably the most fun team in all of baseball. Poor Padres fans.
Yet they have had two disastrous seasons out of the last three, and probably only spent so much because the owner was on his deathbed.
Prospect list ranks for Thorpe…
Athletic: not ranked
BA: 58
BP: 45
FG: 73
ESPN: 64
MLB: 85
I believe the only place that had Iriarte ranked was FG at 61.
Athletic: not ranked
BA: 58
BP: 45
FG: 73
ESPN: 64
MLB: 85
I believe the only place that had Iriarte ranked was FG at 61.
I think it's clear the White Sox wanted pitching prospects in return, so I don't think there's really an equivalent package the Sox could have offered. They basically got a higher floor guy in Thorpe (to the extent a pitching prospect can have a high floor) and an exciting high ceiling guy in Iriarte. I don't think Iriarte is in a lot of top 100 lists going into the season but he can definitely get in there by the end.
It's an absolute no-brainer deal for Preller imo. The Padres still retain their top two pitching prospects in Robby Snelling and Dylan Lesko (their #3 and #4 prospects per BA). They've also still got another solid pitching prospect in Adam Mazur at AA, who BA had ranked just behind Iriarte.
This is the benefit of having pitching depth in the system, I'm very much looking forward to Breslow having a couple drafts to load up and give the Sox some ammo.
The Padres were HISTORICALLY unlucky last year - and I don't use that term lightly:
By pythagorean wins, they were the 8th best team in all of baseball. If you want to call that "a disaster" and use it as some kind of indictment of AJ Preller's roster construction, you're free to do so, but not without taking everything advanced statistics has taught us about the random variance inherent in baseball and throwing it out while replacing it with a giant heaping of confirmation bias.
Thorpe could probably immediately step in as the White Sox #3 or 4 starter. Do they immediately plug him in, or give him a month in AAA to get used to the organization?
Edit: man, actually, if he breaks camp he wouldn't be a terrible bet to be their best starter this year. It's rough over there.
Edit: man, actually, if he breaks camp he wouldn't be a terrible bet to be their best starter this year. It's rough over there.
Zavala is in the ballpark of Bleis, so this is something like Wilkeman Gonzalez, Luis Perales, Miguel Bleis, and Justin Slaten/Isaiah Campbell/choose your own middle reliever type with substantial contract control.
He doesn't even have to be on the 40 man yet so I'd guess they'd keep him in the minors for at least a few months to get an extra year of control.
Kind of interesting, if you combine the Soto and Cease deals, Drew Thorpe cancels out:
The Padres essentially acquired:
2 yrs of Dylan Cease
6 of Randy Vasquez
1 of Kyke Higashioka
2 of Michael King
6 of Jhony Brito
for:
1 yr of Juan Soto
2 of Trent Grisham
6+ Jairo Iriarte
6+ of Samuel Zavala
4 of Steven Wilson
They have a very solid top 4 in the rotation now: Musgrove, Cease, Darvish, King, and all locked up through at least 2025.
The Padres essentially acquired:
2 yrs of Dylan Cease
6 of Randy Vasquez
1 of Kyke Higashioka
2 of Michael King
6 of Jhony Brito
for:
1 yr of Juan Soto
2 of Trent Grisham
6+ Jairo Iriarte
6+ of Samuel Zavala
4 of Steven Wilson
They have a very solid top 4 in the rotation now: Musgrove, Cease, Darvish, King, and all locked up through at least 2025.
Definitely interesting, and sort of the opposite approach to building a starting rotation as the Mariners, Rays, Red Sox, Cubs, etc. of building from within.
The Padres are all about trading for pitchers that have proven themselves elsewhere: Snell, Musgrove, Darvish, King, Clevinger, Manaea, now Cease.
People are calling the package underwhelming, but it looks fine to me.
The Sox equivalent is more like Nobody [23 y/o AAA SP — we don't have a Drew Thorpe equivalent; Richard Fitts, maybe, if he were a year younger at the same levels and also struck out more people and gave up fewer HR? Oh also, he dabbles in the outfield], Wilkelman Gonzalez [22 y/o SP who K's ~15/9 but also walks too many — Jairo Iriarte], Miguel Bleis [teenaged outfielder with insane SLG — Samuel Zavala], and (I know we already traded him, but) John Schreiber [a pre-arb, competent 28 y/o reliever – Steven Wilson].
It's not hard to see why we couldn't match that.
Also the improved defense should really help him, the White Sox are awful defensively and the Padres have a team literally full of shortstops.
Actually I didn't make the connection before, but it's pretty funny that the high-spending Dodgers are so desperate at SS currently that they just moved a 31 year old Mookie there while the Padres have maybe 5-6 different guys who would upgrade LA because of their ability to play SS (playing SS, Mookie back to 2B, Lux sits).
Actually I didn't make the connection before, but it's pretty funny that the high-spending Dodgers are so desperate at SS currently that they just moved a 31 year old Mookie there while the Padres have maybe 5-6 different guys who would upgrade LA because of their ability to play SS (playing SS, Mookie back to 2B, Lux sits).
Thorpe is certainly an interesting prospect. Fantastic last year and the Yankees traded him. Goes to the Padres and then they trade him after seeing him for a few weeks. Teams must be a little afraid his fastball is not going to play well in the majors.
He was the #2 guy traded for Soto and the #1 traded for Cease, that's a lot of value for a guy who has pitched one professional season so far. Also both NY and SD have pretty full veteran rotations (when healthy) and a few other SP prospects they like a lot (NY-Warren, Hampton, and SD-Snelling, Lesko), you gotta give something to get something.
This is interesting on Thorpe, from a BP writer who is very high on him:
View: https://twitter.com/jaseidler/status/1701214107750330759?s=20
Also BTV is widely mocked and often very wrong, especially on teenagers, but they nailed this one:
View: https://twitter.com/BaseballValues/status/1768075477426827698
View: https://twitter.com/BaseballValues/status/1768075477426827698
A lot of that is just how bad they were in extra innings. Even with the Manfred Man, I think they scored only like 2-3 runs the entire season in extras until they had been eliminated. Cease isn't going to help with that.
I
I agree and should have pointed out that he has value. I just find it interesting he has been traded twice in a few months. The Padres may have forced the Yankees to include him. I wonder about the discussion between him, Snelling, and Lesko from the Padres and a white Sox perspective.
They drew 3.3 million people last season, easily an all time record for them. What a disaster!
Yeah, I used to sneer at AJ Preller, but I don't any more. I'm actually a little bit admirative.
This is like Dombrowski. You may quibble with the approach, and perhaps they will be a disaster in five years; we know what happens when DD leaves. But man, you can't deny they seem to care, are aggressive and put together exciting teams. They are exciting in the winter with trades and contracts, and they are exciting during the year. Other than winning it all, not sure what else a fan can ask for. Compared to this, the Red Sox are like a sloth on Prozac. No wonder we're all depressed.
It’s actually really different from Dombrowski (although I get what you meant) in that Preller is fantastic at continually reloading the farm system. He gave up so much for Juan Soto mid-2022 but restocked so quickly that SD is back in the upper echelons of farm systems already.
Exactly, they had 6 players in the Top 100 on Fangraphs and BA, I imagine other place's rankings are similar. That includes Ethan Salas being in the top 10 of most lists at 17 years old. And the buzz around Leodalis De Vries is that he could very well rocket up the rankings like Salas did last year.
He's Dave Dombrowski if Dombrowski was allowed to use the infinite ammo cheat code. There's little more a fanbase could ask from Preller. Yea they've had some weirdly poor results on the field, but it's pretty hard to say that he shouldn't have acquired Fernando Tatis, Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Joe Musgrove, Blake Snell, etc.
He's Dave Dombrowski if Dombrowski was allowed to use the infinite ammo cheat code. There's little more a fanbase could ask from Preller. Yea they've had some weirdly poor results on the field, but it's pretty hard to say that he shouldn't have acquired Fernando Tatis, Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Joe Musgrove, Blake Snell, etc.
Yea. And really...
Parlaying 1 year of Juan Soto into 2 years of Dylan Cease (who is being underrated due to his ERA last year that was artificially inflated) and 2 years of Michael King is pretty awesome stuff.
A.J. Preller has been GM of the Padres for nine full seasons, below is the ranking of divisional placements and games back from the division leader from 2015 on
4th (18), 5th (23), 3th (33), 5th (25.5), 5th (36), 2nd (6, COVID), 3rd (28), 2nd (22), 3rd (18)
They haven't been within 18 games of first place in a full season under his management. They have two playoff appearances, a first round sweep in the COVID season and an LCS exit in 2022. San Diego spent 250m last year, 202m in 2022, 175m in 2021 - at least in the last few years they've been spending like anyone not based in LA or New York. Soto and Snell are gone now (I mean I guess Snell could still re-sign but trading for Cease kind of suggests that's not the plan), Machado's deal is going to become extremely unfriendly soon, and Tatis will be ramping up.
Preller and his org deserve a TON of credit for keeping the farm system as fruitful as it has been through great scouting/development and some very timely trades - and the benefit of being a terrible baseball team for many years (the Juan Soto trade involved former 3rd overall, 6th overall, and 8th overall picks for instance), but like...I think people could want the team to actually win, or like...a 90 win season. GMs have been fired for less egregious underperformances than the Padres have had and they're gonna have a lot of challenges to deal with.
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I mean, you have to consider the other parts of these deals too right? This wasn't purely 1 year of Soto for 2 years of Cease and King, there were other players of value moving. Like, what's the real trade here when considering the extended Sotoverse?
Padres Gave Up:
Robert Hassell (1st round pick, low end Top 50 prospect who struggled heavily in 2023)
Jarlin Susana (IFA Live Arm,struggled last year in his first true foray in High A)
James Wood (Current Top 15 prospect in MLB with huge power potential)
CJ Abrams (Current SS for Washington who put up a 3 WAR year last year at 23)
Mackenzie Gore (MLB caliber SP who put up 136 IP last year and 2 WAR)
Luke Voit (who cares)
Trent Grisham (to NYY - decent 4th OF type guy, with more possible offensive upside if he can re-find the bat)
Samuel Zavala (a very promising young bat who made it to high-A at 18 and raked in Rookie/A at 17 and 18)
Jairo Iriarte (another very promising young arm who put up 12.8 K/9 - obvious question and risk with control and just being a young pitcher)
Padres Got
936 PAs of Juan Soto - one in a playoff year where they lost in the LCS and one in a sub .500 season
177 PAs of Josh Bell - who gave them a terrible half season and signed with Cleveland
2 Years of Dylan Cease (TBD - likely quite nice)
2 Years of Michael King (TBD - quite nice)
Jhony Brito (at least a live arm which is good)
Randy Vazquez (see Brito, I assume JA and others will have more on Brito and Vazquez)
Kyle Higashioka (replacement level catcher)
Like, it's not bad, obviously would look way better if the 2022 Padres could have won it all, and the Padres have enough talent that Cease and King in the short term could absolutely help them win in this window, but that's a LOT of high end young talent to give up that could be helping them now for a team who ended up, well....where the 2021 Sox peaked (to this point).
Backwards looking like this is rarely indicative on good or bad decision making.,
What they paid for Soto is irrelevant to the moves they made involving him since.
You still didn't mention the two top 10 org prospects they gave up with Thorpe or Grisham to start with. And the only reason they had Soto to deal was everyone else. When the thread is discussing Preller it needs to be considered. Especially when folks here are praising Preller heavily when he's now had two runs where John Henry would've fired him for them and the people here would have been celebrating.
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I get what you’re saying. And I’ve been a little perplexed myself at times, at how liberal Preller seems to be with prospect value. I also realize they’ve had some tough seasons, as you’ve outlined - and I’m still stunned by that stupid Bogaerts contract.
Then I look at the excitement of getting those players, and being in it throughout the year, and I know I’d take that any day, over depressing offseasons and trade deadlines, an ownership/front office for whom winning seems to be secondary, and successive last place finishes. Maybe Henry would have fired him, but given the impact Preller has had, there is a case to be made that that would not be the right decision.
The bottom line for me is it’s got to be exciting to be a Padres fan these days, and frankly, I’m envious of that.
I guess my thing is, we have had a few rough years in Boston. There was a half decade of AJ Preller playing the farm system build / prospect game for an absolutely terrible Padres team in the late 2010s, a legit wholesale build. We can look at Tatis for instance, great trade for them on all fronts, strictly a rebuild trade though. SD had the patience for that which is enabling a guy like Preller to deal like this, Boston has not. Like, the second paragraph you had was describing the Padres through the 2010s.
The X contract is a fun callout because they traded their cheap version of X to get Soto (Abrams) ...then paid Xander to fill that slot, so then they could not afford to keep Soto. Kinda funny.
I dunno, at this point the Padres have to prove it to me. They got VERY unlucky last year but have lost who is likely their best hitter and their best pitcher, hard to tell if these trades will suddenly propel that team to the promised land considering the losses. If you believe the Pythag record was right and this was a 90 win team in an 80 win team's body, I think this is largely fine and keeps the window open for a couple more years (I still don't dislike the trade, just not accounting for the acquisition cost of Soto to what he actually did for the Padres), Preller is playing to his proverbial "wincon" here. I think Preller does a good job at making deals happen and a ton of credit is due to him and his scouting/development folks for helping to replenish the farm (at least on this one cycle, we will have to see if that's sustainable or not), it's exciting, but like we're entering season 10 and I don't think anyone really thinks SD will contend for the division this year and will need one of those wild card + hot streak runs to make it to the WS despite spending 200m+, I guess I'm not terribly impressed by it all. I'd say the same thing if Craig Breslow jettisoned out an equivalent package for Cease.
The X contract is a fun callout because they traded their cheap version of X to get Soto (Abrams) ...then paid Xander to fill that slot, so then they could not afford to keep Soto. Kinda funny.
I dunno, at this point the Padres have to prove it to me. They got VERY unlucky last year but have lost who is likely their best hitter and their best pitcher, hard to tell if these trades will suddenly propel that team to the promised land considering the losses. If you believe the Pythag record was right and this was a 90 win team in an 80 win team's body, I think this is largely fine and keeps the window open for a couple more years (I still don't dislike the trade, just not accounting for the acquisition cost of Soto to what he actually did for the Padres), Preller is playing to his proverbial "wincon" here. I think Preller does a good job at making deals happen and a ton of credit is due to him and his scouting/development folks for helping to replenish the farm (at least on this one cycle, we will have to see if that's sustainable or not), it's exciting, but like we're entering season 10 and I don't think anyone really thinks SD will contend for the division this year and will need one of those wild card + hot streak runs to make it to the WS despite spending 200m+, I guess I'm not terribly impressed by it all. I'd say the same thing if Craig Breslow jettisoned out an equivalent package for Cease.
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I think you’re both right, it’s (presumably) fun to be a fan of a team that operates like that and Preller has made a lot of mistakes doing it. The thing is that if you can keep reloading the pipeline successfully (as SD has), you can just keep taking swings with that approach (also as SD has).
Certainly seems like it based on the rumors of numerous elite prospects that were floated all offseason. I think its a pretty reasonable return all things considering though(team control, Boras client etc.). White Sox chose a bit more quantity over quality, though as mentioned a few times, some potentially intriguing arms and lottery ticket(s) going back.
There is also one other little thing here though...which Dylan Cease is San Diego getting? Gonna put up a few stat lines -
2023 Dylan Cease: 4.38 ERA, 1.42 WHIP 33 GS, 177 IP, 10.9 K/9, 2.4 bWAR
Mystery Player #1: 4.56 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 33 GS, 179.2 IP, 8.8 K/9, 2.6 bWAR
Mystery Player #2: 4.04 ERA, 38 G / 16 GS, 142.2 IP, 11.5 K/9, 2.4 bWAR
In case you don't know just by the lines, the mystery players were described by people here with the following terms - during the years in which those numbers were accumulated
"I think he kind of sucks"
"I think he'd be a quality 5"
"Guys like him are all over the league"
"A consistent record of mediocrity"
"He's pretty awful"
"A JAG"
"Below average"
"[His] best quality is is ability to take the ball every 5th day"
And yes, Dylan Cease is a better - possibly much better - player than the mystery player is if you assume 2023 was a "floor" type of year for him.
2023 Dylan Cease was valuable for the innings he ate up, but that return doesn't really move the needle for San Diego and I suspect could be acquired a lot cheaper than three legitimate, high end prospects. I think the mystery players set a fairly reasonable value to what that is to a team. SD is betting on 2023 being a fluke and 2022 Dylan Cease showing up, with the potential reality being something more like 2021 Dylan Cease - as we don't know whether 2022, 2023, or both are outliers to the Dylan Cease experience. There is still an increasingly high amount of value for a guy who can pitch 175+ IP and not be a disaster even if he's not great, I don't blame Preller for the deal at all, but I think you need a Cease closer to 2022 than 2023 to justify the haul he sent away.
2023 Dylan Cease: 4.38 ERA, 1.42 WHIP 33 GS, 177 IP, 10.9 K/9, 2.4 bWAR
Mystery Player #1: 4.56 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 33 GS, 179.2 IP, 8.8 K/9, 2.6 bWAR
Mystery Player #2: 4.04 ERA, 38 G / 16 GS, 142.2 IP, 11.5 K/9, 2.4 bWAR
In case you don't know just by the lines, the mystery players were described by people here with the following terms - during the years in which those numbers were accumulated
"I think he kind of sucks"
"I think he'd be a quality 5"
"Guys like him are all over the league"
"A consistent record of mediocrity"
"He's pretty awful"
"A JAG"
"Below average"
"[His] best quality is is ability to take the ball every 5th day"
#1 is 2022 Nick Pivetta, #2 is 2023 Nick Pivetta
And yes, Dylan Cease is a better - possibly much better - player than the mystery player is if you assume 2023 was a "floor" type of year for him.
2023 Dylan Cease was valuable for the innings he ate up, but that return doesn't really move the needle for San Diego and I suspect could be acquired a lot cheaper than three legitimate, high end prospects. I think the mystery players set a fairly reasonable value to what that is to a team. SD is betting on 2023 being a fluke and 2022 Dylan Cease showing up, with the potential reality being something more like 2021 Dylan Cease - as we don't know whether 2022, 2023, or both are outliers to the Dylan Cease experience. There is still an increasingly high amount of value for a guy who can pitch 175+ IP and not be a disaster even if he's not great, I don't blame Preller for the deal at all, but I think you need a Cease closer to 2022 than 2023 to justify the haul he sent away.