Dylan Cease has said the quiet part out loud. He is happier playing with the San Diego Padres. The right-hander even went as far as to say his final season with the Chicago White Sox “wasn’t enjoyable in really any way.”
The sentiment should come as no surprise. Cease spent the first five seasons of his MLB career on the South Side. But judging by the tone of his comments this spring, it appeared that the Georgia native was eager to get out of Chicago to pitch for a contender.
Cease told reporters in March that White Sox general manager Chris Getz had called him the morning before one of his Cactus League starts on March 12th to warn him that trade rumors would be heating up. The news seemed to motivate Cease, who went out and stuck out eight batters in 3.1 innings.
“It is just something that’s not that big of a deal. It’s out of my control and really I just want to perform like I’ve said. Either way, I just don’t really view it as a negative,” Cease told reporters following what turned out to be his final start in a White Sox uniform.
On Monday Cease returned to Chicago for the first time since the trade and met the media at Wrigley Field ahead of the Padres three-game series with the Cubs. He made it clear he was much happier pitching for the San Diego Padres.
“It’s definitely really exciting coming to the ballpark,” Cease said on Monday. “Again with the White Sox though, I mean, I really felt like we had that talent. We just didn’t put it together.”
In Cease’s final season in Chicago, the White Sox lost 101 games, despite entering the season as the defending AL Central Champs. As the losses continued to mount veterans were shipped out at the trade deadline, front office executives were fired, and reports surfaced that the locker room lacked leadership, rules, and accountability.
Cease also regressed. In 2022 he finished second in the AL Cy Young voting after he set a career-high with 227 strikeouts and posted a 2.20 ERA. That ERA ballooned up to 4.58 in 2023. Cease also led the league in wild pitches that season with 14.
It was a disappointing end to what looked like a promising career in Chicago. The 28-year-old owned a career 11.8 WAR and 3.83 ERA with the White Sox, finishing inside the MLB’s top ten in strikeouts in each of his last three seasons on the South Side.
“I still think that in the minds of a lot of people, we had a really good chance ti compete,” Cease said. “I think we feel like we took a chance to compete and we just didn’t put it together. We had a really bad year and it obviously kind of led to the need to kind of redo everything.”
Cease was traded to the Padres for reliever Steven Wilson, top-100 pitching prospect Drew Thorpe, and a pair of other prospects: right-hander Jairo Iriarte and outfielder Samuel Zavala.
Cease is thriving in San Diego. In his first seven starts for the Friars, he owns a 2.55 ERA, 0.803 WHIP, and is averaging 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings. Meanwhile, his former team is off to the worst start in franchise history. The White Sox 8-27 record is tied for the 10th worst in MLB history.
“Baseball’s one of those games where anything can happen, and funky things can happen,” Cease said when asked about the White Sox. “For all we know, they’ll go on a nice little win streak and kind of even that out. But yeah it’s a little bit surprising.”
Cease’s comments are further proof of the disaster it was hiring Grifool to manage the Sox. But no, after taking a contending team and turning it into a 101 loss team, we retain him instead of sending him packing. I’m glad that Cease escaped Reinsdorf’s clown show and is pitching better again. Last year’s atmosphere in that clubhouse must have been absolutely toxic.