The Chicago White Sox are sticking to their asking price for ace pitcher Dylan Cease, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today. If the price isn’t fulfilled, Nightengale says the team will keep him around.
Despite the flurry of trade rumors, MLB Insider Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the Chicago White Sox may be willing to hang onto their ace pitcher, Dylan Cease.
According to Nightengale:
The White Sox are not close to trading ace Dylan Cease, despite having recently spoken with the Yankees, Orioles, and Dodgers. They continue to demand two elite prospects and two more in exchange. The White Sox will hang onto him till they get their way if they don’t get their way.
First of all, it seems sense that Cease would be desired by all of those teams. Each of them could use an additional arm to help them reach their goal of competing in the World Series.
The Dodgers, on the other hand, are full of youthful arms and questions, but they do have Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow. Bobby Miller will play in his first complete season as Walker Buehler is recovering from Tommy John surgery. Due to their extensive injury rehabilitation, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin will not be available.
Gerrit Cole, Nestor Cortes, and Carlos Rodon are the Yankees’ current position players; nevertheless, they still need an arm to support their recent acquisition of Juan Soto. They just lost Luis Severino to free agency and dealt away Michael King.
The Orioles, on the other hand, won 101 games last season, mostly thanks to their position player group and bullpen. This offseason, Jack Flaherty and Kyle Gibson left an already dubious rotation.
Like the White Sox in 2023, 27-year-old Cease struggled. He had a 4.58 ERA while going 7-9. Still a master strikeout operator, he has struck out 214 batters in 177.0 innings. He is 43-35 with a 4.58 ERA in his career. In the 2022 American League Cy Young voting, he came in second.
Although teams are often reluctant to give up more when a player has less team control, the White Sox have him under team control for two more years, so if they don’t get what they want now, they can always wait until the trade deadline or the next summer.