Chicago White Sox scouting report on Dylan Cease

Size/Delivery/Control

Size/Build – Dylan is listed at 6’2″ and 190 pounds. He is built athletically and appears very near those marks.

Delivery – Cease has simplified his delivery significantly as the Chicago White Sox have worked with him. He starts with a small step back to line himself up with the plate, then comes chest high with his knee, keeping tall in his delivery.

Cease has a slight delay as he points his toe toward home plate and before landing his leg to “launch” toward home plate. His throws from a high 3/4 slot that he does well repeating.

Control (50) – Cease has had multiple delays and twists in his delivery at times. The current pause seems to be much better than all the previous ones, and it can keep hitters more honest. He is still working to build his control, especially with his curve, but he has seen tremendous progress over his three seasons so far. His present pause seems to be to line him toward home plate, which isn’t exactly a bad thing, as long as it doesn’t throw off his landing spot, which it can.

With his command, Cease has made more strides than the raw control numbers will show, as he drills the glove consistently with everything but his curve.

From the windup, Cease worked a lot this season to clean things up. He’s more direct to the plate without a twist that he once had, and he has lowered his leg lift from a high lift to more moderate. He has the same pause as he points his toe toward the plate, which does leave him vulnerable to the stolen base, but he’s found this to be a consistent stretch delivery that he can repeat.

Pitches

Fastball (70) – Cease’s fastball is incredibly impressive. From my views, I’ve not noted a difference in velocity or movement to suggest that he throws anything but a 4-seam fastball. The movement on the pitch would make sense, as Cease gets excellent spin up in the zone on the pitch, some sharp sink low in the zone with a bit of late tail as well.

While he can sit 94-97 with the pitch through most of a 5-inning start and touch triple digits on the top end, when the fastball is in the middle of the zone, it’s a very “flat” pitch, without a lot of wiggle to make hitters miss, so hitting his spots is vital along with his ability to command to the top and bottom of the zone.

Change Up (50) – With a dominant pair of pitches, the change has been a definite third pitch for Cease, but with the emphasis the Chicago White Sox put on a developed changeup, it’s no surprise that Cease saw big growth in this pitch in 2018. He tends to throw mid-80s with the pitch, and as the season wore on, he showed excellent late sink that could bump this grade up significantly if he can repeat that movement consistently with the pitch.

Curve Ball (70) – For Cease, this is the money pitch. He throws a looping, mid-70s curve that simply leaves hitters shaking their heads. He gets tremendous 12-6 break on the pitch, either getting weak contact, flailing swing and miss, or stunned frozen responses from hitters. Because of the big break, Cease does struggle to always land the pitch for a strike, but he did show excellent progress in season with that, though it seemed he sacrificed a bit of loop for location, which meant he generated much more weak contact and frozen hitters than swing and miss with the pitch.

Slider (45) – Cease’s slider is developing, and while I put a fringe-average grade on it, he’s got some definite ceiling on the pitch. He flashed plus sliders, but he also had some that hung or completely got away from him. His best sliders work in the mid-80s with a sharp break.

MLB Player Comp

The action of their fastballs are different, but the curveballs are very similar, and the physical attributes are near identical, so the Chicago White Sox could simply hope that Dylan Cease can develop into Aaron Nola, who he has plenty of similarity to.

Nola’s fastball works more in the low-90s with a ton of sink, but he works with the same looping curve that leaves hitters dumbfounded, and the development of his change has been a huge part of his development. With Nola, he works with both a four-seam and two-seam fastball, and he’s worked well in the upper part of the zone with the four-seamer.

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While Cease’s fastball is not a sinker the way Nola’s is, their similar build and use of their curve to complement a tremendous fastball will be the defining line for Cease’s future role.

Future role

Like Nola at the same stage, the current projection for Cease is a mid-rotation starter or a bullpen ace with his current repertoire. Nola developed his change and really focused on using his four-seamer up in the zone to take that step up to an ace, and Cease certainly has a path there.

With minimal movement in the middle of the zone for Cease’s fastball, it could be advantageous for Cease to add a fastball variant to his pitches, whether that’s a cutter, splitter, or another variation, having a fastball with intentional movement could be a thing that sends Cease into that ace stratosphere.

The Chicago White Sox will continue to ease innings onto Dylan Cease’s arm, but even with an eased schedule, he should see 150 innings this season, allowing him to possibly work his way up to AAA and even spend some time in the major leagues in 2019.