The Red Sox Should Call the Padres Back About Dylan Cease (While Keeping Jarren Duran Locked in a Vault)

I know, I know. I need to stop trying to make fetch happen. But, unlike my previous piece, which was very popular and beloved by all, I'm not advocating for the Red Sox to trade anyone away. Instead, something caught my eye in the comment section on my exploration of Jarren Duran's value, which was a near-unanimous consensus that Dylan Cease, the San Diego Padres starter who was offered in a failed exchange for Duran, just isn't that good—or, at least, that he's been awful this season. I take issue with that assessment, especially since he's a proper fit for what the Red Sox want to do with their starting pitchers.

And before any of you ask, no I haven't changed my stance on trading Duran. I remain steadfast in the belief that he provides more value to other teams than the Red Sox, but if Cease and Ethan Salas weren't enough to get a deal done at this deadline, I can't imagine anything will. So, lock him behind the air-tight seal on Planet Druidia, don't tell anyone the combination is "1, 2, 3, 4, 5", and pray he's still wearing one of those meaningful-yet-hideous yellow "Boston" uniforms on August 1.

Now, turning our attention back to Cease, he's good! Like, No. 2 starter good, and a seamless fit between Brayan Bello and Garrett Crochet at the top of the rotation. His surface stats, which have been the subject of much criticism, aren't pretty; a 4.79 ERA, 1.29 home runs allowed per nine innings, and 1.34 WHIP hardly scream "co-ace". It also doesn't help that he's only accrued six of baseball's most over-cited statistic, quality starts, a number that ties him with Walker Buehler, who hasn't exactly been a world-beater in his first season in Boston.

Oh, and also, he just got shelled in his most recent start against the New York Mets on July 28, surrendering five earned runs and five walks in 4 2/3 innings in a game the Padres miraculously won 7-6. Acknowledging all that, I'm sure the comment section is ready to have a field day with my support of Cease.

However, lest I leave myself defenseless, it's important to point out that the majority of the damage done to Cease came after he was hit in the back of the head by a comebacker off the bat of Francisco Lindor.

And, for what it's worth, his stuff was still downright elite in the outing, as every single one of his pitches graded out as above average on the Stuff+ leaderboards.

That most recent start was really a microcosm of Cease's whole 2025 season. His stuff remains as good as ever, but some bad bounces and pitch counts that get elevated far too quickly have prevented him from delivering the caliber of performance fans expect from someone of his stature.

His xERA (3.53) and FIP (3.64) both grade out on the upper-end of starting pitchers, and his chase (31.3%), whiff (33.8), and strikeout (29.9%) rates are all above the 80th percentile among all qualified MLB pitchers. Each of those numbers far surpasses what Bello and Lucas Giolito have done in Boston this year, and even the mighty Garrett Crochet falls short of Cease's whiff rate. In fact, remove batted ball metrics from the data set, and Crochet's peripherals align almost eerily well with Cease in 2025.

Of course, you can't actually remove batted ball metrics in reality, and that's where Cease's profile looks the rockiest. His average exit velocity allowed ranks as exactly league-average (89.4 mph), but his barrel rate allowed (10.7%) and hard-hit rate allowed (42.3%) ranks in the bottom-third of qualified pitchers. He's also inducing practically no ground balls (37.1% rate, 24th-percentile), though that's an issue that stretches back to even his best years with the Chicago White Sox.

Apologies for the whiplash that I'm putting you through in this piece, but even those poor metrics aren't a death knell to Cease's value. That batted ball data is nearly identical to his 2024 season, when he posted a 3.47 ERA in nearly 190 innings and finished fourth in NL Cy Young voting. So, what's different this time around? Well, a .323 BABIP that's 60 points higher than last year's mark (and 30 points higher than his career number) isn't helping the cause, nor is the Padres' bizarre tinkering with is arsenal.

Since arriving in San Diego, he's added a sweeper and sinker to his pitch mix, the latter of which is getting hammered to the tune of a .500 batting average and .489 wOBA this season. His fastball-slider combo remains as good as ever, though he's throwing those pitches a combined 87% of the time. His search for a viable third pitch remains ongoing, and his knuckle curve certainly hasn't been up to the task, allowing a .304 BA and .426 wOBA. Like above, it should be noted the expected stats on all of his pitches far surpasses the actual performance of them this season, and if you believe in Andrew Bailey and Craig Breslow's pitching model, it's not hard to believe they could be the ones to unlock the full potential of his arsenal. Just a brief look will show you how much he'd benefit from working with a team that emphasizes sliders actually sliding across the horizontal plane.

So, if you can get A.J. Preller to give up on the whole Jarren Duran pursuit, and if you can isolate Cease as a rental starter in a hypothetical deal, he suddenly becomes a lot more attractive for the Red Sox. He alone won't be worth Duran, and it's reasonable to suggest a prospect near or just barely on the consensus Top 100 lists could make for a solid one-for-one swap (or, alternatively, a couple of prospects that rank around the top ten in Boston's farm system). Personally, I think Jhostynxon Garcia assumes that mantle perfectly, though if he's too rich for Breslow's blood, a package centered around James Tibbs and a low-level flyer could be enough to get the deal done. Remember that rental pitchers historically always go for more than rental bats, and the price on those has already been set somewhat high this year (which can certainly be attributed to the lack of surefire sellers on the market). Also, the Padres don't have to trade Cease—you need to give them something better than the compensatory pick they'd receive from letting him sign elsewhere after slapping him with the qualifying offer.

If the Red Sox do fancy themselves as contenders this year, which keeping Duran around through the trade deadline would suggest, then it's absolutely imperative that they bring in a good starting pitcher to round out the rotation. If they'd rather not sell the farm for a player at the peak of his value with a few years of team control remaining (Joe Ryan, Edward Cabrera), then they could make a calculated move by bringing in Cease and hoping they make the right tweaks to align his results with his peripherals.