Justin Verlander Wins American League Cy Young Award
Justin Verlander has been named the American League’s Cy Young award winner, according to an announcement from the Baseball Writers Association of America. He received all 30 first-place votes.
Like Sandy Alcantara in the National League, Verlander took the award in a clean sweep. The respective dominance of each player has look since taken away much of the intrigue as to who would actually claim the honors, and the unanimous finishes paint a picture of their excellence. Verlander’s elbow blew out during his first start of 2020, eventually leading to a Tommy John surgery that kept him out of action until this year. He returned to the Astros on a $25MM guarantee last winter and, despite being 39 years old, showed no ill effects of such a major procedure.
Verlander returned to make 28 starts, staying healthy until a late-season injured list stint with a calf strain. He tossed 175 innings with an AL-best 1.75 ERA, a mark nearly a half-run lower than that of the next-best finisher. Even with the late-season IL stay, the former MVP placed 16th in the Junior Circuit in innings. He finished seventh among those with 100+ frames in strikeout rate (27.8%) and walk percentage (4.4%) alike.
It’s the third career Cy Young nod for the future Hall of Famer. Verlander becomes the 11th pitcher in big league history to claim the award three times, joining former teammate Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw as the only active players to do so. He earned his ninth All-Star nod midseason and led his league in ERA for the second time.
Verlander’s Cy Young adds to an already illustrious resume, while his stellar season positions him for a fascinating trip to free agency. He’s presently on the open market after declining a player option with Houston for the 2023 campaign. There’s essentially no precedent for a pitcher performing this well hitting free agency heading into his age-40 season. Verlander’s sure to secure one of the loftiest per-year salaries in MLB history, and Houston owner Jim Crane said last night he’s looking to top Scherzer’s three-year, $130MM deal with the Mets from last winter.
The other finalists in the American League were Chicago’s Dylan Cease and Toronto’s Alek Manoah. Cease received 14 second-place votes to earn the runner-up finish after placing second with a 2.20 ERA in 184 innings. Manoah finished just behind him with a 2.24 ERA across 196 2/3 frames, securing seven second-place votes in his own right. Cease and Manoah joined Verlander in appearing on all 30 ballots in some capacity.
Shohei Ohtani finished in fourth place and actually secured more second-place votes (nine) than did Manoah after leading the league in strikeout rate. Innings leader Framber Valdez ended up in fifth. Others who earned at least one vote are Shane McClanahan, Shane Bieber, Nestor Cortes Jr., Gerrit Cole and Kevin Gausman.
Full voting breakdown available here.
The Changing Landscape Of The AL Cy Young Race
Two weeks ago, the Cy Young race in the American League looked like a two-horse race, with both Houston’s Justin Verlander and Tampa Bay’s Shane McClanahan hovering at or below the 2.00 ERA mark and racking up innings atop their teams’ respective rotations. McClanahan has the larger strikeout percentage and subsequently superior marks from fielding-independent metrics that some voters increasingly weigh. Verlander was averaging one extra out recorded per start prior to being lifted early his last time out, and his 16-3 win-loss record might hold some sway with traditionalist voters.
Or, all of that could be rendered moot.
Both Verlander and McClanahan are on the 15-day injured list, and Verlander, who had been improbably leading the Majors in ERA as a 39-year-old in his first season back from Tommy John surgery, sounds as though he’ll miss several weeks rather than just the 15-day minimum. McClanahan, a late scratch from his last start, is already throwing and seems likelier to make a quick return. However, the Rays could very well take a cautious approach and limit his innings after a two-week absence due to a shoulder impingement.
At the very least, the door is now open for further competition in Cy Young voting, ostensibly setting the stage for the closest AL vote we’ve seen since 2019, when Verlander and then-teammate Gerrit Cole finished in the top two positions on the ballot. Last year’s NL Cy Young voting sparked plenty of controversy and debate as well, and as things currently stand, we could get an encore of that scene in the AL this year.
If not Verlander or McClanahan, who are the top names to consider? Let’s dive in.
Dylan Cease, RHP, White Sox
Cease, following a near-no-hitter against the Twins that saw him go 8 2/3 before Luis Arraez cracked a ninth-inning single, may have leapfrogged both Verlander and McClanahan as the odds-on favorite in the American League. He’s sitting on MLB’s third-lowest ERA — sandwiched right between Verlander and McClanahan, no less — and that 2.13 mark is complemented by a 31.4% strikeout rate that ranks as the fourth-highest of any qualified starting pitcher in baseball.
At 5.5 wins above replacement (per Baseball Reference), Cease already leads American League pitchers — even over Verlander and McClanahan. That’d due largely to the fact that Cease is putting up these numbers in front of one of the game’s bottom-10 defenses.
It’s not all roses, as Cease has a 10.4% walk rate that sits dead last among qualified starters. He hasn’t been terribly efficient, either; where both Verlander and McClanahan have averaged comfortably more than six innings per start, Cease has averaged 5.77 innings per appearance this year.
Still, Chicagoans can no doubt see the parallels between Cease’s 2022 showing and the 2016 performance of another Chicago hurler — crosstown righty Jake Arrieta, when he rode a historic summer surge to Cy Young honors. Over his past 15 starts, Cease has tallied 93 innings of 1.45 ERA ball and held opponents to one or zero runs on a dozen occasions. Cease isn’t quite in Arrieta territory (0.86 ERA in his final 147 innings), but he’s not terribly far off, either. If he can sustain anything close to this pace, Cease will finish the season at or near the top of the AL in terms of innings pitched, ERA, total strikeouts and strikeout rate.
Alek Manoah, RHP, Blue Jays
Manoah looked borderline unhittable for the season’s first two months, carrying a 1.67 ERA in that time and allowing just 55 hits and a 0.59 HR/9 mark through June 13 (75 2/3 innings). He had a solid but closer-to-average run for much of the summer but has now yielded just three runs in his past 28 1/3 innings.
At 171 innings of 2.42 ERA ball on the year, the 24-year-old is on the periphery of the race at present. He ranks fourth in American League ERA but trails McClanahan, Cease and especially Verlander in that department. He lacks the gaudy strikeout ratios boasted by both Cease and McClanahan but limits hard contact better than any non-McClanahan pitcher in the AL, evidenced by a 31.3% hard-hit rate. (McClanahan leads qualified AL starters at 30.1%.)
However, Manoah’s 171 are second-most in the American League, and if he continues this hot streak, there’s a chance he could wind up among the league leaders in ERA, innings pitched and other key categories. In terms of wins and losses, everyone’s trailing Verlander’s 16 victories, but Manoah’s 14 are tied with Framber Valdez for second in the league. Speaking of which…
Framber Valdez, LHP, Astros
It’s easy to be overshadowed by the season Verlander is enjoying, but we should all probably be discussing Valdez’s outstanding year more than we are. The 28-year-old southpaw is just one-third of an inning behind Manoah at 170 2/3, and he also sits sixth in ERA (2.64) and ninth in bWAR (3.4).
Valdez has emerged as baseball’s preeminent ground-ball starting pitcher, and it’s not close; he leads all qualified pitchers in ground-ball rate at 66.7%, and Logan Webb‘s 57.5% rate is second-best. Even dropping the minimum to 50 innings as a starter, he still leads Alex Cobb (61.9%) and Andre Pallante (61.4%) by a wide margin.
In an age where starters are yanked from the game earlier than ever before, Valdez is a throwback. He’s worked at least six innings in every one of his starts since April 25, completing seven or more innings on 11 occasions and twice going the distance with a complete game. Over his past five starts, Valdez has 35 2/3 innings of 1.77 ERA ball. It’ll be a challenge for him to drop his ERA into the low 2.00s, and he can’t match Cease or McClanahan in terms of strikeouts, but Valdez will likely be the American League innings leader and finish with a mid-2.00s ERA and MLB-leading ground-ball rate.
Shohei Ohtani, RHP, Angels
When Ohtani pitched to a 3.99 ERA through the first six weeks of the season, it looked as if we were in for an (almost) mortal season out of the two-way phenom. He averaged just over five innings per start, and while the strikeouts were still there in droves, he was also unusually homer-prone. A Cy Young pursuit did not appear to be on the horizon.
In 88 2/3 innings since that time? Ohtani has a 1.83 ERA with fewer homers allowed (six) than in his first 47 1/3 innings (seven). He at one point rattled off six consecutive starts with double-digit strikeout totals, and opponents have batted .199/.249/.301 against him during this stretch.
Ohtani’s 33% strikeout rate on the season leads qualified starting pitchers (though would trail Braves phenom Spencer Strider by a good margin if Strider had a few more innings), and while many fans and Ohtani detractors bristle at the notion, it’s hard not to consider that he does all this while also serving as a middle-of-the-order slugger who ranks among the league’s top power threats.
Ultimately, with just 136 innings pitched this season, it’s hard to imagine that Ohtani will actually garner many (if any) first-place Cy Young votes. Yes, he’s sporting a 2.58 ERA, leading the league with a 33% strikeout rate and sitting second among AL starters with 4.7 bWAR. But Ohtani is ultimately going to be up against multiple starters with better bottom-line run prevention numbers and as many as 40 to 50 additional innings pitched. Corbin Burnes won an NL Cy Young last year with just 167 frames, but the top names in the American League this year have had better seasons.
Kevin Gausman, RHP, Blue Jays
Gausman will be the analytic darling in this year’s field. I debated whether to mention him at all for this breakdown, as he’d need a pretty dominant finish to push his way in among the leaders in more traditional categories, but the right-hander is second in the American League at FanGraphs with 5.2 wins above replacement. fWAR is based on fielding-independent pitching rather than actual runs allowed, and Gausman has been quite good this season — 3.12 ERA in 147 innings — despite being one of the game’s least-fortunate pitchers in terms of balls in play. He’s lugging around an MLB-worst .368 BABIP, and the next-highest mark (Jordan Lyles at .323) isn’t even close.
There’s perhaps some temptation to think that Gausman is then yielding far too much hard contact, but that’s not necessarily the case. He’s not managing contact as well as any of the others profiled here, but his 89 mph average exit velocity and 39% hard-hit rate are barely north of the respective 88.6 mph and 38.3% league averages in those regards.
Gausman has the game’s third-best walk rate (3.8%), the tenth-best strikeout rate (27.9%) and is sixth-best in the differential between those two (24.1 K-BB%). He’s averaging just 5 2/3 innings per start, however, and isn’t particularly helping his cause down the stretch (3.99 ERA over his past five outings… again, with a .370 BABIP).
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A lot can (and will) change between now and season’s end, but since this is all just for debate anyhow, I’ll include a poll to close this out:
Who will win the American League Cy Young Award?
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Justin Verlander 36% (657)
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Dylan Cease 26% (472)
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Alek Manoah 14% (250)
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Shane McClanahan 10% (177)
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Shohei Ohtani 9% (170)
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Framber Valdez 3% (46)
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Other (specify in comments) 2% (31)
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Kevin Gausman 1% (17)
Total votes: 1,820
COVID Notes: 4/16/21
Friday’s coronavirus-related updates from the majors:
- The Astros placed second baseman Jose Altuve, third baseman Alex Bregman, designated hitter Yordan Alvarez, catcher Martin Maldonado and infielder Robel Garcia on the COVID injured list Wednesday. They’re unlikely to return for the team’s five-game road trip, manager Dusty Baker told Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle and other reporters. The Astros begin a three-game series in Seattle on Friday, and they’re scheduled to play in Colorado next Tuesday and Wednesday.
- The White Sox announced that they have reinstated right-hander Dylan Cease from the COVID IL and optioned righty Zack Burdi to their alternate site. Cease was only on the list for two days, but he’s already set to return after “a series of negative tests,” the team stated. He’ll make his third start of the season Saturday against the Red Sox. Cease logged a 3.86 ERA with nine strikeouts and six walks over 9 1/3 innings in his first two appearances.
- Twins manager Rocco Baldelli revealed that he received a false positive test on Thursday, Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press tweets. He isolated in his office and was then cleared after three or four more tests. The Twins aren’t out of the woods yet, though, as Baldelli said (via Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com) that they’ve had “further COVID-related issues in the clubhouse” on Friday. He couldn’t offer further details.
- The Phillies with go without three members of manager Joe Girardi’s staff because of COVID protocols, according to Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. Hitting coach Joe Dillon, third base coach Dusty Wathan and bullpen coach Dave Lundquist are all away from the team. First base coach Paco Figueroa will move across the diamond to third, and coaching assistant Bobby Meacham will take over at first, Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
COVID Notes: 4/14/21
The latest coronavirus-related updates from the game…
- White Sox right-hander Dylan Cease is headed to the injured list, general manager Rick Hahn told Scott Merkin of MLB.com and other reporters. Cease did not test positive for COVID-19, but he is dealing with some symptoms of the virus. The 25-year-old has has made two starts this season and given up four earned runs and nine hits while totaling nine strikeouts against six walks. The White Sox recalled Zack Burdi from their alternate site to take Cease’s roster spot.
Transaction Retrospection: Jose Quintana/Eloy Jimenez Trade
Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of Eloy Jiménez’s MLB debut. With that in mind, it’s an interesting time to look back at the blockbuster crosstown deal that brought the 23-year-old slugger to the South Side.
Jiménez wasn’t the headlining name of that July 2017 swap. That was José Quintana, with good reason. The southpaw had emerged as one of the game’s most consistent, reliable starters. True, he always played second fiddle to Chris Sale, but he was perhaps the game’s preeminent #2. Over the three-plus seasons preceding the deal, Quintana combined for a 3.47 ERA/3.31 FIP with no injury history to speak of. Equally as appealing, the hurler was controlled at well below market rates through 2020 thanks to an early-career extension.
The appeal for the Cubs was apparent. They had a superlative position player core that had carried them to the 2016 World Series. The starting rotation was already a strength, but one with some question marks on the horizon. Jake Arrieta and John Lackey were each approaching free agency, and it was fair to wonder for how much longer Jon Lester could post ace-level production. Locking in a cheap, young rotation stalwart like Quintana made perfect sense for that season and beyond.
It came at a hefty price. Jiménez, Baseball America’s #14 prospect entering that season, centered the package for the White Sox. Alongside him came another top 100 prospect, flamethrowing right-hander Dylan Cease. It was easy to see the South Siders’ thinking, too. Never able to build a competent roster around Sale, Quintana, Adam Eaton and José Abreu, the Sox had already pivoted to a teardown. Abreu stuck around, but the rest of the core was shipped off for future assets. It was a fascinating, if mutually-understandable swap, with the clubs’ crosstown rivalry no doubt adding intrigue. How have things actually played out?
To some extent, as expected. Quintana has remained remarkably durable and taken the ball every fifth day. That’s been especially useful for a team whose concerns about its long-term pitching outlook have generally proven true. Lester, Kyle Hendricks and Quintana have each been dependable, while big ticket free agent Yu Darvish has had some extreme highs and lows.
Despite a deluge of recent early-round picks on college arms, though, the Cubs haven’t established any sort of pitching pipeline from the farm system to supplement that quartet. On the one hand, that lack of cheap, in-house pitching makes acquiring Quintana all the more meaningful. Yet it’s also played some role in keeping the Cubs from reaching the dynastic heights some had anticipated.
Since the deal, the Cubs have been solid, but not quite at the level one could’ve reasonably hoped for. That characterization also applies to Quintana himself. The Colombian lefty has given the Cubs 400+ innings of 4.23 ERA/3.95 FIP ball. That’s about league average production on a rate basis. With his exceptional durability, he’s a valuable pitcher, especially relative to his contract. But he hasn’t pitched at the level he showed on the other side of town. Now 31, Quintana’s entering the final season (assuming there is a season) of the aforementioned extension. He’s a plausible but uncertain candidate for a qualifying offer next winter, which could allow the Cubs to add a draft pick.
Even if Quintana does net a compensatory pick, that player won’t project to be anywhere near the level of Jiménez. (That, of course, is what the Cubs expected, since there was always going to be a high price to pay for a pitcher of Quintana’s caliber). Not only did Jiménez continue to thrive in the White Sox’s system, he’s already found major league success.
Last season, Jiménez hit .267/.315/.513 (116 wRC+) with 31 home runs in 504 plate appearances. He’s not without his flaws; he didn’t rate well in left field and could perhaps stand to be a little more patient at the plate. Yet there’s no questioning Jiménez’s massive power upside, and he certainly looks the part of a potential middle-of-the-order force. Clearly, the White Sox expect him to be just that, having inked him to a $43MM guarantee that could keep him in Chicago through 2026. So continues the long line of early-career extensions the organization has amassed in recent years. Those deals (Quintana’s included) have paid huge dividends on the whole.
Cease, too, has a shot at emerging as a long-term asset. He raised his stock immediately after the trade with a strong season and a half in the minors. That didn’t translate in his first 14 MLB starts last season, but there are things to dream on. Cease posted a solid 24.9% strikeout rate as a rookie while averaging 96.5 MPH on his fastball. His is a higher-variance profile than Jiménez’s, but the Sox surely hope he can emerge as a useful arm in the near future, even if as a reliever.
With the benefit of hindsight, it’s probably fair to say the Cubs wouldn’t make this deal again. It was a perfectly defensible move at the time, and Quintana has capably filled a key need on the roster. It’s not a disaster, as a few of the front office’s free agent moves have been. But Quintana’s slight regression on the North Side, combined with Jiménez’s continued blossoming offensively, looks to have tipped the scales in the White Sox’s favor.
AL Notes: Tigers, Paxton, Cease, Orioles
Although Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire has indicated his desire to return to the club next season, the fate of his coaching staff may yet be up in the air, according to Evan Woodbery of MLive Media Group. With the season coming to a close, general manager Al Avila and company are apparently still faced with decisions regarding the status of the team’s staff, with announcements to come at season’s end. As The Athletic’s Cody Stavenhagen speculates, that certainly makes it seem like changes are coming, though of course any relevant announcements will have to wait. Gardenhire previously expressed his hope that his staff would remain intact for 2020, the final year of his contract. That group includes familiar faces like Rick Anderson and Steve Liddle, as well as Lloyd McClendon and Ramon Santiago. However, after such a dreadful year in all facets of the game, the front office will certainly look critically at the coaching.
From elsewhere around the American League…
- Yankees fans shook their heads in disbelief as starter James Paxton left yesterday’s game after just one inning. However, it seems that the team managed to avoid yet another significant injury; Paxton underwent an MRI this morning that revealed nothing but nerve irritation, per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. His removal from the game was merely a precaution and is not expected to affect his availability in the approaching ALDS. The club has faced questions all year about postseason pitching, and an injury to Paxton—the team’s most reliable starter in the second half—would have sent the New York faithful spiraling.
- White Sox pitcher Dylan Cease has been diagnosed with a Grade 1 hamstring strain, according to James Fegan of The Athletic. He was scratched from his schedule start on Thursday, and of course won’t pitch again this season. While the two-to-four week timeline that comes with the injury is of little significance at this time of year, it’s nonetheless good to hear that the promising rookie will be at full health before too long. He’s had some growing pains as a rookie but has shown some encouraging signs, striking out 81 batters in his first 73 innings as a big-leaguer. With 141 1/3 innings between several levels, he’s also amassed his biggest workload as a pro.
- It’s no secret that Orioles pitching has come up short this year, but first-year pitching coach Doug Brocail expected some struggles when he took the job last winter. As he and a new front office regime attempt to build a pitching staff from the ground-up, Brocail offers some insight into the state of the organization in an interview with Dan Connolly of The Athletic (subscription required). There’s a long way to go for the team, but Brocail is seeing marginal improvements with rookie general manager Mike Elias trying to play catch-up after inheriting last year’s MLB-worst roster. With the emergence of John Means and the continued growth of the organization’s analytics department, there are some positive takeaways from his first year on the Baltimore staff.
Quick Hits: Pillar, Mets, White Sox
Whether the Giants tender outfielder Kevin Pillar a contract during the offseason “will serve as a clear referendum on how married to the metrics Farhan Zaidi’s baseball operations group will be,” Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic writes (subscription required). The Giants’ Zaidi-led front office acquired Pillar from Toronto in April, though the club could move on from him within the next couple months if it decides he’ll be too pricey to keep. Pillar’s making an affordable $5.8MM this year, but he’ll earn an appreciable raise over that sum during his last trip to arbitration because of his counting stats (631 plate appearances, 21 home runs, 86 runs batted in, 81 runs, 13 stolen bases). Those are aesthetically pleasing numbers, which can’t be said of the .257/.284/.430 batting line or the 83 wRC+ Pillar has posted. And while the soon-to-be 31-year-old Pillar has rightly been regarded as a marvelous defender throughout his career, advanced metrics haven’t been that bullish on him the past couple seasons (zero DRS, plus-1.2 UZR between center and right this year).
Pillar realizes the new-school turn that baseball’s front offices have taken could spell doom for his tenure as a Giant. He told Baggarly he wants to stay in San Francisco, but he acknowledged that “my future’s kind of up in the air.” Baggarly’s piece is worth a full read for more quotes from Pillar, a couple of his teammates and manager Bruce Bochy in regards to the high impact they believe he has made as a Giant.
Checking in on a pair of other MLB clubs…
- Mets first baseman/corner outfielder Dominic Smith will attempt to add center field to his list of positions next year, Tim Healey of Newsday relays. Smith, who has already slimmed down since he debuted in the majors in 2017, will spend the offseason getting in even better shape in order to become a viable option at the outfield’s most challenging spot. Whether Smith will play another game for the Mets after this season is in question, though, with Healey noting the 24-year-old could be a trade chip over the winter. NL Rookie of the Year shoo-in Pete Alonso occupies Smith’s primary position, first base, while the Mets count Michael Conforto, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil and J.D. Davis (not to mention the injured Yoenis Cespedes) among their other corner outfield-capable players.
- White Sox right-hander Dylan Cease‘s season came to an early end when the club made him a late scratch from his scheduled start Thursday. Cease is dealing with a hamstring issue, one that will require an MRI on Friday, Scott Merkin of MLB.com tweets. The touted 23-year-old wrapped up his debut campaign with a 5.79 ERA/5.19 FIP, 9.99 K/9 and 4.32 BB/9 in 73 innings.
- Righty Michael Kopech, another of the White Sox‘s coveted young arms, didn’t pitch at all this year after undergoing Tommy John surgery last September. Now, though, the flamethrowing Kopech is anticipating what he hopes will be a normal spring training. “I am as ready I can be right now,” Kopech said (via Bruce Levine of 670 The Score). “I have done everything I can to prepare. It has been a long time coming. I am ready to go for next spring.” Kopech should have a shot to join the returning trio of Cease, breakout star Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez in the White Sox’s season-opening rotation in 2020.
White Sox To Promote Dylan Cease
The White Sox announced that they’ll promote top pitching prospect Dylan Cease to start Game 1 of Wednesday’s doubleheader against the Tigers. The right-hander is already on Chicago’s 40-man roster, so it won’t need to make a corresponding move in that regard.
Cease joined the White Sox in July 2017 in a trade that could make a huge long-term impact for the Pale Hose. They acquired Cease and outfield prospect Eloy Jimenez from the crosstown rival Cubs for left-hander Jose Quintana. Jimenez is already a mainstay in the White Sox’s lineup as a 22-year-old rookie, and Cease could soon join him as a staple on their roster for the foreseeable future. Indeed, manager Rick Renteria told reporters the plan is for Cease to stay in the fold going forward.
The 23-year-old Cease is widely regarded as an elite pitching prospect, with MLB.com rating him the 18th-best farmhand in the game. Cease possesses a dominant fastball/curveball combination, Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com write in their free scouting report.
For the most part, Cease has been a force in the minor leagues, though his numbers have taken some steps back this season in his first Triple-A experience. In 68 1/3 innings and 15 starts with Charlotte, Cease has pitched to a 4.48 ERA/3.77 FIP with 9.61 K/9, 4.21 BB/9 and a 54.9 percent groundball rate.
Should Cease offer similar production in his first taste of the majors, it would be welcome for Chicago, whose rotation has been atrocious this season. The club looks to have found an ace in breakout righty Lucas Giolito, but he has been the lone bright spot among its starters. Carlos Rodon struggled earlier this year before undergoing season-ending Tommy John surgery in May. Likewise, Reynaldo Lopez, Ivan Nova, Manny Banuelos and Dylan Covey have fallen flat in an extensive number of starts, and no one else the Sox have plugged in has helped their cause either.
With Cease, Giolito and prized young righty Michael Kopech, who’s recovering from September 2018 TJ surgery, the club may be laying the foundation for an enviable rotation. Those three could occupy 60 percent of Chicago’s starting staff in a year. For now, though, Cease will try to earn a spot on a team that’s 6 1/2 games back of a playoff spot and still has a glimmer of a chance to make things interesting this season.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
White Sox Notes: Hamilton, Cease
The White Sox already lost injured right-handers Ryan Burr, Jimmy Lambert and Zack Burdi for the season earlier Friday. Add fellow righty Ian Hamilton to the list, according to James Fegan of The Athletic. Hamilton will require multiple surgeries to repair multiple fractures he suffered to his jaw on a line drive earlier this season, Fegan reports.
Now 24, Hamilton joined the White Sox as an 11th-round pick in 2016. He reached the majors for the first time last season, throwing eight innings of four-earned run ball, but pitched solely at the minors’ highest level this year before suffering his injury. Hamilton made 16 appearances with Triple-A Charlotte and allowed more than an earned run per inning (18 in 16 1/3 frames), but he did register 11.02 K/9 against 1.65 BB/9 and post a 51.9 percent groundball rate.
Although Hamilton has struggled to prevent runs this year, he entered 2019 as a well-regarded prospect. MLB.com (No. 13) and FanGraphs (No. 30) currently place him among Chicago’s top 30 farmhands. Hamilton could eventually turn into a major league closer, per MLB.com, but that quest is now on hold. He followed Lambert and Burdi as the third top 30 White Sox prospect to be ruled out for the season Friday.
In better news for the White Sox, one of their premier righty prospects, Dylan Cease, is moving closer to his first big league promotion. The prized 23-year-old is “getting awful close” to joining the White Sox, general manager Rick Hahn said Friday (via Scott Merkin of MLB.com). Hahn noted two-plus weeks ago Cease was working toward a call-up, and it seems he has continued to build a case since then. Cease has put up a 4.62 ERA/3.79 FIP with 9.51 K/9, 4.06 BB/9 and a 54.9 percent grounder rate in 64 1/3 innings during his first Triple-A experience this year.
Rick Hahn: Dylan Cease “Not Too Far Away” From Promotion
White Sox Triple-A right-hander Dylan Cease, one of baseball’s premier prospects, is moving closer to his major league debut. While general manager Rick Hahn said Monday that the White Sox won’t “rush” Cease, the executive revealed the hurler’s “not too far away” from jumping to the bigs (via Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times).
Now 23 years old, Cease joined the White Sox in July 2017 in what they hope will go down as one of the most beneficial trades in franchise history. The club sent quality lefty Jose Quintana to the crosstown rival Cubs for four players, including Cease and outfielder Eloy Jimenez. Those two no doubt have the potential to wind up as long-term cornerstones for the White Sox.
Cease was a top 100 prospect when the teams swung the deal, but his stock has soared even higher since he changed Chicago organizations. Cease now ranks as MLB.com’s 19th-best prospect, with Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo crediting the former Tommy John surgery patient’s fastball- and curveball-led repertoire and projecting he’ll become an “impact” major leaguer.
So far in Charlotte this year, Cease has pitched to a 4.10 ERA/3.65 FIP with 10.08 K/9, 3.76 BB/9 and an excellent 57.7 percent groundball rate in 11 starts and 52 2/3 innings. Although that’s not a lights-out ERA, much of the damage came Sunday during a start in which Cease yielded four earned runs on two hits and three walks in two-thirds of an inning. Hahn called that ugly outing “a really good developmental day for” Cease, whom he expects to learn from it.
Depending on when Cease comes up (assuming he does debut this year), he could potentially have some say in a playoff race. Chicago’s certainly a long shot for the postseason, but at 3 1/2 games out of wild-card position, its hopes aren’t dead at this point. The White Sox would likely have a much better shot if they could’ve found superior complements for budding ace Lucas Giolito in their rotation.
Despite Giolito’s spectacular efforts, the team’s starters rank a lowly 25th in the majors in ERA and 26th in FIP. Reynaldo Lopez, Ivan Nova, Carlos Rodon, Dylan Covey and Manny Banuelos have each posted horrid run prevention numbers across at least seven starts apiece. Worsening matters, Rodon had season-ending Tommy John surgery a month ago and Covey went to the injured list Sunday with shoulder inflammation.
Of course, the White Sox have had to make do all season without one of Cease’s fellow standout pitching prospects, Michael Kopech, who underwent TJ surgery last September. The hope is Cease and Kopech will eventually provide two more superb options alongside Giolito. Cease just may get his first opportunity to emerge as a legit major leaguer sometime this summer.