BIRMINGHAM, AL - AUGUST 04: Birmingham Barons and top Chicago White Sox pitching prospect Dylan Cease pitches against the Mobile BayBears. Mobile defeated Birmingham 1-0 at Regions Field on August, 04, 2018 in Birmingham, Alabama. (Photo by Michael Wade/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
BIRMINGHAM, AL – AUGUST 04: Birmingham Barons and top Chicago White Sox pitching prospect Dylan Cease pitches against the Mobile BayBears. Mobile defeated Birmingham 1-0 at Regions Field on August, 04, 2018 in Birmingham, Alabama. (Photo by Michael Wade/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
Building up his innings has worked the young fireballer into the Chicago White Sox future plans, perhaps as soon as 2019
With each of our top 10 prospect lists this offseason, we will have a scouting report on one player from that organization’s top 10 list. With our recent review of the Chicago White Sox, we will take a look at right-hander Dylan Cease, the White Sox #2 prospect.
Player profile
The Chicago Cubs used the top of the 2014 draft to go college-heavy and save money in order to pursue big arms in the early part of day 2 of the draft. Of the three big-armed high school picks from the 4th through 6th picks, Dylan Cease has been the one who has shown to be an elite arm after being selected in the 6th round out of high school in Georgia.
Cease only fell to the 6th round due to needing Tommy John surgery, and he didn’t make his pro debut until over a year after being drafted. He threw well in the Arizona Rookie League, posting a 2.63 ERA and 1.17 WHIP with a 15.8% walk rate and a 24.8% strikeout rate over 24 innings.
In 2016, Cease moved up to short-season A-ball Eugene in the Northwest League. Cease made 12 starts, tossing 44 2/3 innings, posting a 2.22 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, a 13.7% walk rate, and an impressive 36.3% strikeout rate. That performance got Cease ranked among the top prospects in baseball, rating #97 with Baseball America’s top 100 and #77 with MLB Pipeline’s top 100.
During the 2017 season, the Chicago Cubs made a trade with the Chicago White Sox for Jose Quintana, and Dylan Cease was the second piece of the deal to acquire him along with Eloy Jimenez. Cease spent the 2017 season building up innings in low-A ball between South Bend and Kannapolis. He made 22 starts, tossing 93 1/3 innings, allowing a 3.28 ERA and a 1.26 WHIP, posting a 11.3% walk rate and 32.5% strikeout rate. His big strikeout rate led to Cease being ranked #61 overall by MLB Pipeline and #47 by Baseball Prospectus in their annual offseason lists.
This season, Cease opened the year in high-A Winston-Salem, but it was apparent that he was ready for a move up. While his innings were brought back in AA, he showed very well at the level, with absolutely dominant stuff and even better numbers. Overall, he made 23 starts, tossing 124 innings, with a 2.40 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, a 10.2% walk rate, and a 32.5% strikeout rate.
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.
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.
Next. White Sox 2019 top 10 prospects. dark
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.
