Pros and Cons: Should Mets trade for Dylan Cease?

David Stearns has made it clear that his priority this offseason is acquiring pitching for the Mets, and it’s almost certainly not all going to be via the free agent market – or at least not the top end of the market.

After all, there’s still some uncertainty as to how committed the Mets will be to pursuing a championship in 2024 after their sell-off at last summer’s trade deadline.

They may well spend big to sign Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Japanese star who is expected to be the Mets’ top target, in part because he’s only 25 years old and fits into their long-term plan of building with a newly reinforced farm system.

But in that case, it’s hard to see Steve Cohen investing in another long-term pitching deal this winter when he’s potentially paying out some $90 million for Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander to pitch elsewhere.

So then the question is whether Stearns, the new president of baseball operations, patches together much-needed depth via bargain-type deals in free agency, taking chances on pitchers like Luis Severino who underperformed last year, or he dips into his surplus of position-player prospects and makes a trade.

In that case, there appear to be some intriguing trade candidates, among them Corbin Burnes, Tyler Glasnow and Shane Bieber, who are all a year away from free agency.

And then there is Dylan Cease, who is expected to be traded by the rebuilding Chicago White Sox and might be the most intriguing in some ways.

He’s the youngest of those trade candidates, turning 28 in December, and offers more value because he’s two years away from free agency, which could make it easier for Stearns to part with prospects. Yet his so-so season in 2023, following his brilliant 2022 performance raises questions about what to expect going forward.

So let’s explore the pros and cons of trading for Cease.

PROS

The right-hander is only a year removed from a dominant season that saw him finish second in the AL Cy Young voting, as he pitched to a 2.20 ERA and mostly overmatched hitters with his 96-mph four-seam fastball and a wipeout slider.

Cease allowed only 126 hits in 184 innings, holding the opposition to a .190 batting average while racking up 227 strikeouts, or 11.1 per nine innings. That dominance allowed him to overcome a league-high 78 walks and added up to an outstanding ERA-plus number of 170.

Last season Cease flashed similar dominance at times but was very inconsistent, pitching to a 4.58 ERA over 177 innings, while the opposition hit .250 against him, or 60 points higher than in 2022. And because walks again were a problem, as he averaged four per nine innings, all the traffic on the bases led to big innings and poor outings.

Scouts point mostly to Cease’s slider as the biggest cause for his drop-off:

“He just didn’t command the slider the way he did the year before,” one scout said. “At times it was still an effective pitch, but he threw too many hangers in the strike zone, where the year before he was consistently putting hitters away with it.”

The numbers largely back up that observation. In 2022 the opposition hit just .127 against Cease’s slider compared to .219 last year with a .341 slugging percentage. There is some thought that he was a bit unlucky, as his batted-balls-in-play (BABIP) number was .335 on his slider, but it’s often an indicator of the quality of the pitches as well.

Yet two scouts agreed that his stuff is still high quality, noting that his fastball velocity was in the same 95-96 mph range as 2022.

“I think he probably lost some confidence as the year went along,” said one scout, “and playing on a team having a bad season can play into that. I don’t know if he’ll ever duplicate what he did in 2022 but I think there’s a solid chance he’ll bounce back and be a quality starter over the next few years.”

CONS

Even the scout who said he expects a bounce-back from Cease admitted that his high walk total from year to year is cause for some concern. In 123 starts in the big leagues, he is averaging four walks per nine innings.

“He has the stuff to overcome the walks, as he did in ’22,” said one scout, “but it just makes the job a lot harder, obviously.”

Then there’s the cost of acquiring Cease. The White Sox will be looking for a strong package, especially since he’s still two years away from free agency.

“They’ll want multiple players and one of the asks will be a top-five prospect from a team’s system,” said a league executive. “I would think there will be teams that believe they can put him in their pitching lab to maximize the plus-stuff that he has, so the price could be high if multiple teams are bidding for him.”

VERDICT

It all depends on the cost. Cease is worth a gamble for the Mets if they can avoid giving up their very best prospects, such as Luisangel Acuna, Jett Williams, etc., but after last year it’s hard to know if he can be a dominant starter again, especially because of his control problems.

If the Mets sign Yamamoto and indicate a willingness to try to win big in 2024, the better bet might be to trade for someone like Burnes, who is more of a sure thing for next season.

The extra year of control that comes with Cease is sure to be tempting to the Mets, but if the cost is high they’d be smarter to trade for Burnes or even Glasnow.