Dylan pulls off trade: Three reasons why it would be foolish to stay ahead of White Sox Opening Day

Last week, the Milwaukee Brewers traded veteran Corbin Burns to the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for two young players and a draft pick. It took longer than anticipated, but Burns eventually joined Tyler Glasnow as the second leading starting pitcher trade candidate to be moved this winter. (Glasnow was dealt from the Tampa Bay Rays to the Los Angeles Dodgers in December.)

Burns and Glasnow weren’t the only star right-handers to make the trade candidate list in November. She was often paired with people like Shane Bieber and Dylan Cease. You can understand how Bieber’s injury-filled season complicated his situation, but wait? It is difficult to find out. He is one year removed from finishing second in Cy Young Award voting; He has been an above-average starter, with attractive upside and traits throughout his career; And he is set to enter free agency after the 2025 campaign. At the beginning of winter, it seemed certain he would be transferred.

Yet here we are, getting ever closer to reporting pitchers and catchers, and Cease remains a member of the White Sox. Will this change next week? What about next month? New White Sox boss Chris Gaetz gave a standard answer to that question when asked in January. “It’s constantly evolving in terms of the urgency of other clubs,” he said. “It could happen in the offseason. It could happen at the deadline. It could happen in May. There are a lot of different factors when you’re talking about 29 other clubs.”

Only the universe knows for sure whether Gaetz will get a deal to his liking. For our part, we hope the White Sox make a move before Opening Day. Here are three reasons that influence our thinking.

1. The White Sox are wretched

We can start from here also. The White Sox won 61 games last season. They finished with a minus-200 home run differential, making them one of three clubs to exceed that mark – the others being the Colorado Rockies and the non-trying Oakland Athletics. They’ve made several offseason additions since then, but the bottom line of the roster is more about diversity than anything game-changing.

That’s fine, although it leaves the White Sox in a non-competitive situation. Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs both released their initial batch of projected standings this week. No forecast model sees the White Sox as a real threat in the American League Central. Chicago has won 66 games in the Prospect’s PECOTA, good for last in the division; Meanwhile, FanGraphs has the White Sox wins in the mix at 68, which is also good for last.

The launch systems are faulty. Even the best players miss a few games per team on average. Their output should not be taken as destiny. But look at the White Sox roster and try to argue that while a team is likely to finish with 75 wins, it almost always requires 85-plus to win the division — even as high as the Central. Even a weak team.

If the White Sox were better than 10 to 15 wins on paper, you could argue they should hold on to the truce and take their chances over the summer. They’re not, and so it’s a little easier to get a bird’s eye view of their situation. That is.

2. Trading is the best, if not the only, way forward

That’s not to say these White Sox aren’t likely to contend in 2024. The thing is, he’s unlikely to even compete next season, when the season is even closer to free agency. In our opinion, the White Sox had a good deal at the deadline to land catcher Edgar Cuervo, lefty Jake Eder and righty Nick Nastrini in various deals. Factor in shortstop Colson Montgomery, lefty Noah Schultz and third baseman Brian Ramos, and the farm has more talent than in some time.

Even if everything goes well with the development of those players — and it won’t; Montgomery and Schultz alone missed serious action last year due to injuries – they probably wouldn’t be able to reach and advance to the big league level in time to coincide with Cease’s White Sox tenure.

You may wonder, if the White Sox are so confident in their young players and Gaetz’s ability to draft and develop more, what about extending the truce?

The White Sox are going to have a lot of money coming off the books next winter. They could bail out duo Yoan Moncada and Eloy Jimenez, who will make nearly $40 million in 2024, by declining their club options. It’s probably fair to think Cease will be paying $25 million annually on his next contract. He’ll serve out the first season of that deal at age 30, making it reasonable for him to get more than four years.

For context, the largest contract in White Sox history belongs to Andrew Benintendi on a five-year deal worth $75 million. Ignoring other team-building ideas – even those that come with giving up Moncada and Jimenez – the White Sox can Keep the truce at market prices, but will they want to? Given owner Jerry Reinsdorf’s history, we’re inclined to think not.

If you accept that Cease is unlikely to still be a White Sox member after the 2025 season, the next part also becomes self-explanatory.

3. The trade value of the ceasefire can only decline

An inconvenient truth for the White Sox is that Cease will probably never have more trade value than he does now.

Modern front offices are highly aware of the surplus value concept. In turn, they are far more willing to part with top prospects for two seasons than one and a half. Changes in thinking have taken root over the past decade, sometimes to devastating effect, and that explains why the return on Burns, though decent in our eyes, felt a little light.

Theoretically, the White Sox could hold on to Cease with the hope that he has a dominant first half reminiscent of his almost Cy Young-worthy 2022. It’s fair to wonder, if that were the case, whether its value would improve. However, this is a risky proposition and may backfire.

Most importantly, Cease can be a dynamic pitcher with some positives left, but the 2022 season appears to be the exception rather than the rule for his career. Had he been on track to achieve his typical results before the deadline, it seems unlikely that his performance would have sent his stock soaring. (And in fact, you could argue that it would still be a net negative even though the control time would be shorter.)

Even if you’re optimistic about Cease’s chances for another awards-caliber season, you can’t take his health for granted. After all, he’s a pitcher, and they get hurt — sometimes at inconvenient points.

The decision-making calculus is rarely as simple as saying “This player is at peak value to other teams, let’s move him.” There are human factors to take into account as well as larger business and competitive implications. With this acknowledged and acknowledged, the White Sox appear to be in a situation where everything points towards a trade being closed before the start of the season.

There is no guarantee the White Sox will hold a truce in the coming weeks. It just means that maybe they should.