MLB Insider adds three more teams that might trade for Chicago White Sox ace Dylan Cease

The Chicago White Sox are entertaining trade offers for their ace, Dylan Cease.

Cease, who had a down season in 2023 after nearly winning the AL Cy Young in 2022, is rumored to be one of the best starting pitchers available on the trade market.

Cease finished this past season with a 3.72 FIP and a 3.7 fWAR. He is still under team control for two more seasons while still being in his peak performance years.

Interested teams are ignoring his 4.58 ERA because of those three things and he still has an amazing slider. There is also a belief that he just needs to make a few tweaks and he will be back to being a dominant, top-of-the-rotation pitcher.

The Cincinnati Reds, Atlanta Braves, and Baltimore Orioles are three teams that have been consistently linked to wanting to trade for Cease.

Lack of great starting pitching helped the Orioles get swept out of the divisional round despite having the best record in the American League. The Reds did not make the playoffs because of injuries to their rotation and the lack of a dominant arm. The Braves need to keep up with the Dodgers if they want to remain the supreme team in the National League.

The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal recently added three more teams that could call the Chicago White Sox about trading for Cease.

Rosenthal has added the New York Yankees, the San Francisco Giants, and the World Series champions Texas Rangers to the list of teams in search of starting pitching that could pitch an offer.

He also added that Sox general manager Chris Getz is waiting for Japanese star pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto to sign before pulling off a trade. Yamamoto is considered the best free agent on the market now that Shohei Ohtani has signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Once Yamamoto signs, that is going to leave contending teams without many other ace pitchers to choose from on the market. Jordan Montgomery and Tony Snell are still unsigned, but they are older and are not going to be as fiscally inexpensive as Cease will be for two more seasons.

Cease will only cost a team some prospects and finding a salary price through the arbitration process twice. Although Getz’s asking price is rumored to be very high.

Getz needs to have the goal of getting a high return because the Chicago White Sox starting rotation becomes the worst in baseball once Cease is removed from it. You are looking at the possibility of Michael Kopech being the Opening Day starter.

In addition, Cease is the team’s best trade asset after Luis Robert Jr.

Finally, the need for a big return is Getz does not have to trade Cease right now. This might be the offseason where Getz gets the best return for Cease. At the same time, he can still try to trade him before the 2024 in-season deadline and get a good return. There is also the 2025 offseason and in-season deadline.

The key is Cease does eventually need to be traded as the team has not given any indication it will sign Dylan to a long-term extension.

Adding more teams to the bidding war hopefully nets a return that positions this team to contend again. Although that probably will not happen until the end of the decade. That is another reason to move Cease now.