Hi friends-
I’m running the 5K during the L.A. Marathon tomorrow to raise money for the Hollywood Food Coalition. I’m so grateful to those of you who have generously contributed. We just passed $3,500!! If you still would like to donate, the link is here. I have to be at Dodger Stadium at 5 AM tomorrow morning, which will mark the first time I’ve ever seen Chavez Ravine at dawn in my life. Probably the closest I’ve come was Game 3 of the 2018 World Series… I’ll take pics of the sunrise and share next week. <3
A reminder that our book club selection for March and April is The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End Of America’s Childhood, by Jane Leavy. I’m four chapters in, and it’s terrific, and a great way for us to start this baseball season.
There will be no Lab tomorrow because of the 5K, but we will be back talking baseball over Zoom from 12 PM PT to 1 PM ET this Sunday. All paid subscribers will be sent the link, and you don’t have to do anything but click on it! We have fun talking about the baseball news of the week and commiserating about what our favorite teams have done (or haven’t done). Our resident Cardinal fan Jeff is fired up about Oliver Marmol’s extension, so Sunday should be feisty!
As a reminder, I’ll be in New York for our first-ever Long Game meet-up on Memorial Day. We’re going to get tickets to see the Dodgers and Mets together. I’ll be asking for a headcount soon, so save the date if you’re interested!
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It never made sense for Dylan Cease to start the season with the going-nowhere White Sox. Not even after Chicago dangled him on the trade market In November and December, did not get what they wanted for him at the winter meetings, then led other teams to believe they were willing to hold on to him until they could get a better haul for his services at this summer’s trade deadline.
Cease is not a superstar, but he’s got four key factors going for him that make him one of the most coveted pitchers in the game:
He’s durable. His 68 games started since the beginning of the 2021 season are the most in the majors. The 9,339 pitches he’s thrown during that span are second only to Gerrit Cole. He has not spent a day on the injured list in five seasons.
While he might not be an ace, he’d be a solid second or third starter on any squad he suited up for this year. His career ERA sits at 3.83, and he strikes out a ton of hitters (792 in 658 career innings). He has shown the ability to be great, too. In 2022 he turned in a career year, with a 2.20 ERA, and finished second in the AL Cy Young voting. He regressed in 2023, however, and his 4.58 ERA was the worst of his career. (Still, his 3.72 FIP suggested he’d thrown better than the results indicated and was the victim of hard luck).
He’s only due to make $8 million this season, and is under his relatively team-friendly contract (via arbitration) through 2025.
I wrote on Wednesday that Cease seemed like a prime target for the Yankees, as a guy to replace an injured Gerrit Cole, because he’s so much cheaper than Blake Snell and will probably post similar numbers. (Both are high-walk, high-strikeout guys—though Snell is better). Snell is said to be looking to earn $30 million in 2024, and if a team like the Yankees were to sign him, they’d have to pay a 110% luxury tax on top of Snell’s salary, bringing his total cost to something like $68 million for the next 12 months.
Cease’s bargain of a salary, plus two years of team control, is why the White Sox were looking for a slew of promising prospects in return, as opposed to the light haul clubs get when they deal star players with only two months remaining on their contracts at the trade deadline.
Cease just turned 28 in December and is in his prime. He theoretically has a better chance of making all his starts this year than if he were on the wrong side of 30 like Snell, Jordan Montgomery and the other top pitchers available via free agency or trade right now. (Though, of course, we all know these guys are all potentially one pitch away from the end of their careers.)
That Cease was moved this week was not surprising. That he was dealt to the Padres was.
After pledging a franchise-record $252 million on player payroll last season and incurring a luxury-tax bill of $39 million, the Padres wound up spending $291 million last season, second only to the Mets. And, like the Mets, they did not make the playoffs.
San Diego’s amazing owner, Peter Seidler, passed away in November, and the Padres embarked on a winter of slashing payroll, first by trading Juan Soto and the $31 million owed to him, then by largely sitting on their hands and watching their division-rival Dodgers add over a billion dollars in player salary to their books. (To be fair, the Dodgers had been somewhat quiet over the past few off-seasons while the Padres signed Manny Machado, Xander Boegarts and Fernando Tatis Jr. to deals worth $970 million combined).
The Padres finished third in NL West last year and lost their best reliever (Josh Hader) and starting pitcher (Snell) to free agency, and perhaps their best overall player (Soto) in a trade. And not only did they watch the Dodgers go out and sign Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto and trade for Tyler Glasnow, but they also witnessed the frickin’ Diamondbacks win the pennant last October, then add to their roster and get better.
I don’t think anyone expected the Padres to be as bad in 2024 as they were in 2023, when they were a special brand of stink. The team somehow scored 104 more runs than they gave up and still managed to go only 82-80. (By comparison, the Brewers outscored their opponents by only 81 runs and went 92-70. The Phillies also went +81 and finished 90-72.) The Friars lost close games late, and their clubhouse culture was more dysfunctional than the communications staff in charge of Princess Kate’s disappearance.
It seems that AJ Preller—who should absolutely be on the hot seat!—did not want to enter the season with a markedly worse roster than the list of guys responsible for last year’s disaster. And I do mean he did not want to play even one (1) game that matters before adding another player who could help them beat the Dodgers.
The Padres open the regular season against the Dodgers in Seoul next week, on March 20. Padres players were about to board a charter bus to take them to the airport to fly to Korea on Wednesday when news broke that Preller had struck a deal for Cease. It came together very quickly, and looked like this:
Padres got: Dylan Cease (RHP)
White Sox got: Jairo Irairte, RHP; Drew Thorpe, RHP; Steven Wilson, RHP; Samuel Zavala, OF
Iriarte, Thorpe and Zavala are prospects. Thorpe was a big part of the haul San Diego got from the Yankees for Soto in December. (So, over the span of three months, the 23-year-old has been traded for both Soto and Cease—which must be wild!)
Steven Wilson is a relief pitcher on the major league roster who was slated to fly to Seoul. Here is what Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune wrote about the scene when the trade went down:
The Padres and their significant others were waiting for the team bus at the picnic tables outside the Padres’ facility when news broke of the deal. Wilson, a bullpen mainstay the last two seasons, was seated with his girlfriend at a table across from King, Joe Musgrove and others when he appeared to notice something on his phone.
Wilson smiled and stood up. He took a phone call around the corner as the volume of the chatter dropped. Wilson pulled his car to the side of the complex and began to move his belongings out of the clubhouse and into his trunk.
Jackson Merrill stood up to hug Wilson on one trip. Trevor Hoffman, in jeans and flip-flops for the coming flight, bear-hugged him on another. King and catcher Kyle Higashioka got in their goodbyes. Wilson was red-eyed by the time he extended a handshake to a reporter still on-site.
That is just… brutal. But also just business.
Though Cease was already in Arizona, training in Glendale with the White Sox, he could not make it to the airport in time to fly to Seoul. I’m guessing it takes a while to clean out a locker and say goodbye to everyone and also track down a passport you didn’t know you’d be needing when you showed up to work that day. Anyway, Cease is scheduled to join his teammates in Korea when REAL BASEBALL (!!) kicks off next week.
As for what the Padres gave up to get Cease, it’s hard to know if any of these prospects will pan out. Most do not. Of course, youngsters AJ Preller trades away have wound up being better than most. Let’s not forget he dealt Trea Turner in a three-team deal for Wil Myers. He also sent C.J. Abrams, James Wood and Mackenzie Gore in a package for Soto and Josh Bell. Abrams broke out last season, and Wood is a fast-rising prospect who tore through the minors last year at age 20 and may debut on the big-league club this summer at 21.
Preller is a gambler, and he probably had to do this deal to keep pace with the Dodgers and D-Backs. The division is going to get even tougher if the Giants wind up signing Snell, though the Astros may now be in the lead for Snell’s services after Jose Urquidy pulled himself from a game earlier today with a sore elbow.
The $8 million the Padres will play Cease still keeps their payroll squarely under the competitive-balance-tax threshold they blew past last season. It also reminds the rest of the baseball world that after an uncharacteristically quiet off-season, this team isn’t going anywhere.
BASEBALL STORIES OF THE WEEK
Gerrit Cole doesn’t need surgery… for now.
ESPN’s Buster Olney says it’s extremely unlikely the Yankees will sign Blake Snell or Jordan Mongomery.
Kodai Senga has a shoulder injury and will be out until at least May.
Shohei Ohtani revealed his wife’s identity on the Dodgers’ flight to Korea. Her name is Mamiko Tanaka and she is a former basketball star. She is beautiful and stands six-feet-tall, and their children are going to take over whatever sports they want.
Someone threw an egg (???) at Dave Roberts when the Dodgers arrived at the airport in Seoul. He doesn’t appear to have been hit or injured.
The Cardinals gave manager Oli Marmol a two-year extension, and Cards fans in my inbox have opinions!
Aaron Judge says the MRI on his abs came back clean and he’s hoping to be ready by Opening Day.
Bruce Bochy says he’s now more optimistic that Corey Seager will be ready for Opening Day.
The Dodgers have renewed Andrew Toles’ contract for the sixth straight season, despite him not playing for them since 2018 due to mental health reasons. Toles lives with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The Dodgers have never commented on this situation, but are thought to be doing it so that Toles might continue to have access to adequate health care.
The Brewers’ star closer, Devin Williams, has two stress fractures in his back and will miss three months.
Darryl Strawberry is recovering from a massive heart attack, and it sounds like he’s lucky to be alive.
Edwin Diaz is back, and he looks absolutely filthy.
Both pitchers the Braves traded to the Mariners for Jarred Kelenic have now had Tommy John surgery.
That’s all for this week! As a reminder, we’ll be chatting live during Opening Day of the Seoul Series, so… mark your calendars for 3 AM PT/6 AM ET on March 20!
I love that the Dodgers have stuck behind Toles all this time.
I too, love that the Dodgers have stuck behind Andrew Toles all this time. Always like him.
On other aspects of Molly's chock-a-block Friday free for all, I just don't think I can commit to a 3 A.M. wakeup call for "Opening Day" in the Land of the Morning Calm.
Also, best wishes for a speedy recovery to the incomparable Darryl Strawberry, a stellar member of that wild, Bonfire of the Vanities Mets team that stole the WS from the Red Sox, a true baseball phenom for sure, a native Angeleno and graduate of Crenshaw High School.