Dylan Cease’s rebound may minimize Padres’ trade deadline urgency

Eric Cole

Atlanta Braves v San Diego Padres / Denis Poroy/GettyImages

Through his first five starts with the San Diego Padres in 2024, Dylan Cease was looking like an absolute bargain despite the hefty trade package it cost to acquire him. In those five starts, Cease posted a 1.82 ERA with 35 strikeouts in 29.2 innings of work. At that point, some wondered if he could contend for the NL Cy Young in 2024.

However, Cease struggled over the next couple of months. While he would still show flashes of his previous brilliance, his 5.11 ERA over 14 starts didn't inspire the most confidence even though his 3.75 FIP pointed to him being plagued by a run of bad batted ball luck. Whatever the cause, many of the good feelings from Cease's Padres debut had faded quite a bit by early July.

Luckily, Cease has returned to his dominant self over his last two starts and that could take a lot of pressure off of the Padres to force a move at the trade deadline.

Getting Dylan Cease right could be better than any trade deadline move for the Padres

It is probably safe to assume that Cease isn't going to continue to throw one-hitters the rest of the season, although Padres fans certainly wouldn't turn that down. However, it does seem like something has clicked for him over these last two starts and that the All-Star break served him well. Even if Cease comes back to earth a little bit (and he will), that is far better than when he was plagued by the long ball for much of the first half.

Assuming much of what we are seeing out of Cease sticks the rest of the way, the Padres should be in much better shape ahead of the deadline. Matt Waldron has been surprisingly good this season and if San Diego thinks it can get anything out of Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish in the second half, the need to go wild at the trade deadline is lessened quite a bit.

That said, this is AJ Preller we are talking about. The man is going to try and make magic happen regardless of how Cease is pitching with Garrett Crochet clearly at the top of his wishlist. However, what Cease's bounceback may do is prevent the front office from overpaying or getting involved in ill-advised bidding wars out of desperation. We will just have to see what Cease has in store for us during his next start.

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Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.