A year ago this week came a splashy trade worth celebrating by Padres fans.
It's still worth celebrating, perhaps more so now.
A.J. Preller's much-needed acquisition of Dylan Cease from the White Sox stands as one of Preller's better swaps. Cease played a big role in the 2024 Padres winning 93 games and advancing to the playoffs. Then in recent months, Cease provided additional value without throwing a pitch. As an attractive trade prospect, Cease no doubt enabled Preller to glean hard-to-get intel from potential trade partners before Preller decided to retain him.
Cease, obtained for three young players, provided value that went beyond his 33 starts, 189 1/3 innings, 3.47 ERA and a career-best 4.8 win shares.
The Padres were in win-now mode and desperate for a starting pitcher who could shoulder a heavy workload. Preller couldn't count on Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish to pile up innings, and his top pitching prospects weren't ready to help.
In fact, as the season unfolded, those minor leaguers regressed.
The acquisition of Cease meant the Padres didn't demand too much of Darvish, enabling the master of spin to enter October relatively fresh. Darvish responded with two sharp games against the Dodgers in the Divisional Round. "At times for Yu-San, less is more," Preller said this month. "And I think understanding, hey, the most important thing is what we saw last year when he was pitching in October. Yu Darvish in October is obviously a very talented and capable pitcher."
Cease took some heat off Musgrove, too. But Musgrove's balky elbow finally gave out in the wild-card series against the Braves.
As for the three players Preller dealt for Cease, there's still a lot of proving to do, and it's worth reiterating that, as reported here last May, a non-Padres scout said Preller had "fleeced" the Sox.
The big leaguer among the three players, pitcher Drew Thorpe, had a subpar rookie season with the White Sox, underwent elbow surgery in September and had a cortisone shot in January, sidelining him until batting-practice sessions this week.
Thorpe, 24, had bone chips removed from his elbow. He was the third Padres prospect dealt last year whose 2024 season would end with season-ending surgery. The ex-Yankee's subpar strikeout rate last year was less than half of his career mark in the minors. If he regains his excellent changeup, Thorpe could give the Sox a trade chip this summer.
Pitcher Jairo Iriarte, 22, saw his fastball velocity dip but logged 26 Double-A starts and six big-league innings of relief. Last week, he was returned to the minors. MLB ranks the righty ninth among Sox prospects.
Outfielder Samuel Zavala, 20, posted high walk and strikeout rates in Single-A. Though his .234 batting average on balls in play suggested inordinate bad luck, Zavala batted .187 and MLB.com dropped him from Chicago's Top 30 prospects. Nor did Zavala make Chicago's Top 20 list compiled by Keith Law, a former Blue Jays baseball executive.
Law challenged the player, who signed with the Padres for $1.4 million out of Venezuela. "Scouts have questioned how he acts on the field for two years now, citing low energy and pouting behavior, which really has to stop -- he's 20, not a child, and he's going to mope his way out of baseball," Law wrote in The Athletic.
Cease's one season for the Padres, on an $8 million salary, would've been worth $38.1 million in free agency, estimated FanGraphs.
Guaranteed $13.75 million this season, he boasts a sturdy track record that has him seventh in innings pitched dating to 2021, with the best strikeout rate among those innings-eaters. He's sixth in win shares in those four years, eclipsing Gerrit Cole, Framber Valdez and Zach Gallen.
Even so, I'd advise the Padres and Cease to ease up this year.
One, Cease has thrown the most pitches in MLB over the past four seasons.
Two, Cease lacked good command at the end of last year's grueling run that included a no-hitter, the franchise's second. The Dodgers took advantage of Cease's October imprecision, leading to a pair of Padres defeats in the five-game playoff series.
The response should be to find Cease more rest this season. Preller's recent signing of Nick Pivetta should help there.
The Padres figure to challenge for another playoff spot, and a typical season by Cease, 29, would seemingly line him up for a free-agent contract in the vicinity of $200 million. A compensatory draft pick would add value to a trade that already belongs among Preller's top-5 swaps.
First on that list, of course, is the acquisition of Fernando Tatis Jr., also from the White Sox.