White Sox reportedly ask Reds for the moon in trade
The Chicago White Sox have been exploring a trade of right-handed pitcher Dylan Cease this offseason. The runner up for the 2022 American League Cy Young Award took a big step backwards in 2023 – though that’s usually what happens for guys like that, it’s difficult to be THAT good every year. Still, Cease saw his ERA more than double, going from 2.20 in 32 starts in 2022 to 4.58 in 33 starts in 2023. The Reds, looking to add a top of the line pitcher, reportedly had conversations with Chicago about a deal. And according to rumors, the White Sox were asking Cincinnati for the moon in return.
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Dylan Cease isn’t a free agent until after the 2025 season, so he’ll be around for at least two years with whatever team he’s with moving forward. But two rumors – one from Bruce Levine of 670 The Score in Chicago that we previously wrote about, and a newer one from Jason Williams of the Cincinnati Enquirer – have the White Sox asking Cincinnati for a combination of Rhett Lowder, Chase Petty, Connor Phillips, Edwin Arroyo, and another unnamed prospect.
Lowder was the #7 overall draft pick in 2023 out of Wake Forest and did not pitch after being drafted by Cincinnati this past summer. Chase Petty was limited in his usage this past season after an elbow injury delayed the start of his season, but he posted a 1.72 ERA in 68.0 innings without allowing a home run and leading the farm system in groundball rate, reaching Double-A by the end of the season as a 20-year-old. Connor Phillips reached the big leagues this season, but spent much of his time in Double-A and Triple-A, and was the top pitching prospect in the organization for much of the year. Edwin Arroyo, one of the shortstops that the Reds acquired from Seattle in 2022, reached Double-A late in the season as a 19-year-told.
Three of those guys were rated as Top 100 prospects in baseball at some point this year. Lowder (#2), Arroyo (#3), Phillips (#4) and Petty (#6) are all among the clubs top prospects.
When the Reds acquired Edwin Arroyo from Seattle it was for Luis Castillo at the 2022 trade deadline. That trade also included Noelvi Marte, Andrew Moore, and Levi Stoudt. Arroyo and Marte were both well regarded, Top 100 prospects. Moore was a relief prospect and Stoudt was a solid, but uninspiring prospect. Two years of team control is more than 1.4 years of team control, but it seems that the ask from the White Sox is a whole lot more than what the Reds asked for, and got, for Luis Castillo. And at the time of that deal he had a 2.86 ERA, not coming off of an ERA of 4.58.
If that’s the price of acquisition then it’s pretty easy to understand why Dylan Cease is still a Chicago White Sox player. Maybe the market has changed in a big way in the last 16 months, but that seems unlikely because no one else has stood and paid that price, either.
