San Diego Padres pitcher Dylan Cease may or may not be a legitimate trade candidate depending on who you ask. Jon Heyman of the New York Post spoke with multiple executives around baseball and there appears to be no clear consensus.
“One American League executive said he hears Dylan Cease, the star Padres right-hander, isn’t going anywhere in trade,” Heyman wrote on Saturday.
“Yet another says he hears it’s ’50-50,’” he continued.
There’s no question that teams are interested in Cease. Heyman reported last week that nine teams have reached out to the Padres for his services including all five American League East teams.
That includes the New York Yankees, who might be the most desperate of all for starting pitching help. Yes, they signed Max Fried to an eight-year deal in the offseason, but Gerrit Cole and Luis Gil have already gone down with significant injuries this spring. Cole will miss the entire season.
Meanwhile Cease will be a free agent at the end of the year and the Padres could look to deal him knowing it’s unlikely they will be able to retain him once he hits the open market. The question is whether they want to risk losing him for nothing and make one more run at the World Series with him on the roster.
The Yankees may look closer at Dylan Cease amid Clarke Schmidt injury
Cole needs Tommy John surgery so there’s no use holding out hope for him in 2025. Gil will miss around three months with a lat strain. Knowing that, the Yankees were still not seen as likely to trade for Cease.
“The expectation in the industry over the last 24 hours is that Dylan Cease is not going to be traded to the Yankees to save their rotation in light of the Gerrit Cole injury,” MLB Network’s JP Morosi said last week, adding the team is “reluctant, somewhat, to add payroll right now.”
With another starting pitcher, Clarke Schmidt, scratched from his start on Monday and slugger Paul Goldschmidt leaving the game early with a sore back, it’s possible that has changed. Goldschmidt immediately assured reporters that he would be available for Opening Day, but Schmidt may be more of a concern. He’s experiencing shoulder soreness and will try throwing from a bullpen mound in Tampa rather than starting the game.
“With some of the attrition we’ve had, it’s not something we want to push,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone told the media. “He’s just not bouncing back as well as he wanted to.”
All the while, Cease remains available and given the value he provides, he could be a relative bargain.
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