A Dylan Cease Trade Could Make Sense for the Cubs. But Which Version Would Be Best?

[Matthew Trueblood]

The San Diego Padres are on the horns of a payroll dilemma. They want to contend in 2025, as usual, and they have a significant shopping list—but their proverbial bank account is overdrawn. Can they and the Cubs help each other?

Image courtesy of © David Frerker-Imagn Images

It's not time to break up the Padres just yet. They have a championship-caliber core, and they intend to continue leveraging it, chasing and pressuring the Dodgers. There's a problem, though: they don't have Dodger money, and right now, they have nearly Dodger-level financial commitments on the books. With Joe Musgrove out for the coming season following Tommy John surgery, San Diego needs another starting pitcher. They also need a starting catcher and a left fielder. How much do they have to spend in the pursuit of those needed pieces?

How does -$3 million sound?

From that situation has come a torrent of rumors about how the Padres can solve problems via the trade market, rather than signing players to fill all of the roles listed above. Two names have been mentioned most often, because each is under team control for just one more season and each is likely to make more than $14 million via arbitration: Luis Arraez and Dylan Cease.

Trading Arraez would clear some money for San Diego, but that amount isn't enough to make up for the new hole it would open in their lineup—because Arraez's skill set and lack of defensive value don't leave him with much trade value. In other words, while a team might take on his money for 2025, finding a suitor who would give up one or more useful players or prospects in exchange for him is likely to prove impossible. The Padres need to find enough excess value in a deal to allow themselves to make a second trade, or some younger players they can insert directly into their lineup, as well as clearing money to spend on one key free agent or expensive trade target.

Thus, Cease is drawing more attention, and is more likely to be dealt. He's set to make as much as $15 million in his final season before hitting free agency, after a first season with the Padres in which he was (for the fourth year in a row) a high-strikeout workhorse starter. He bounced back from a quietly weak 2023 with a terrific 2024 campaign, fueled by a much-needed tweak to his slider and the introduction of a sweeper that got him out of his traditionally vertical pitch shape profile. He's as durable as any starter in baseball, and he's learning to pitch more intelligently as he matures. His fastball also hums in at just under 100 miles per hour, even as he nears 30.

Any trade for Cease would involve shedding his salary, but also getting San Diego multiple controllable pieces. The Cubs are perfectly positioned to be that kind of trade partner, depending on what happens with the Kyle Tucker trade rumors still percolating as of Thursday morning. They could send San Diego a big-league-ready bat like Owen Caissie for Cease, or they could gorgeously fill the Padres' need for a left fielder by trading them Seiya Suzuki, solving their own problem of player satisfaction and roles in the process.

There are a couple of problems with each potential deal, though. Firstly, with the Suzuki version, the Cubs would want more back than Cease in exchange for Suzuki, who has two years of team control left instead of one. Suzuki is also going to be more expensive than Cease, so that trade would fill one spot while vacating another, but it wouldn't save San Diego money the way they would want. If San Diego added Wandy Peralta to the deal (rounding out the Cubs' bullpen with a fairly inexpensive and accomplished lefty) and the Cubs agreed to send a bit of money with Suzuki so that the net money in the trade was a savings, would it work for both sides? It's hard to say.

In the other version of the trade, sending the ex-Padres farmhand Caissie back to San Diego in exchange for the ex-Cubs farmhand Cease, the issue would be whether San Diego views Caissie as sufficient compensation for Cease. They probably wouldn't. The Cubs could throw in a controllable, low-cost hurler (Javier Assad? Ben Brown? Jordan Wicks?), but would that tilt the balance too far the other way? It's probably a fair deal if the Cubs give up Assad and Caissie for Cease, but it applies a lot of pressure on the front office. Such a deal would dramatically raise the stakes of winning in 2025, for a team for whom those already feel very high.

Pairing a Cease acquisition with a Tucker deal would be the most appealing way to justify each trade, since both of them feel like they could require slight overpays. The concept is, you let a little extra value go because you're adding these two superstars to the roster for a pivotal season. You're pushing all-in. It's a maneuver as difficult to pull off as it is risky, though, so if the Cubs even consider it, they should also consider simply widening their budget and bulking up via free agency.

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[Bertz]

One thing about this team that is not yet at the level of a concern but is a consideration is 2026 payroll.  As currently structured, Bellinger has a likely opt out, Shota has an unlikely opt out, and no one else is slated to hit free agency.

If the team trades for and extends Tucker, they basically need the rest of this offseason's acquisitions to be 1 year deals, otherwise next winter is going to REAL slow.  Think like the 2019/2020 offseason.  "We can't do anything unless we deal Taillon and Hoerner" will be the new "We can't do anything unless we deal KB".

Adding Cease on top of Tucker accomplishes a few things.  First off, he's straight up the best SP left on the market.  Second, because he is a similar caliber of star on a one-year deal, he can serve as a hedge against Tucker leaving.  Plan A would be to obviously extend Tucker, but if he is of a similar mind to Soto a year ago there's now an ability to pivot and throw ~$200M at locking down Cease instead.  Either way you clear out some of the Iowa prospect depth, make this team downright scary in 2025 (and still looking good heading into '26), and have an extra draft pick heading your way after the season.

Back to the premise of your article and less my tangentially related pontificaing, if you do choose to send Suzuki back to San Diego in a Cease deal it largely undoes everything I said above.  The marginal increase in '26 salary from Suzuki to Cease is likely to be under $10M.  So while I would MUCH prefer the version of a Cease deal built on prospects, there is some merit to the Suzuki path.

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

One thing about this team that is not yet at the level of a concern but is a consideration is 2026 payroll.  As currently structured, Bellinger has a likely opt out, Shota has an unlikely opt out, and no one else is slated to hit free agency.

If the team trades for and extends Tucker, they basically need the rest of this offseason's acquisitions to be 1 year deals, otherwise next winter is going to REAL slow.  Think like the 2019/2020 offseason.  "We can't do anything unless we deal Taillon and Hoerner" will be the new "We can't do anything unless we deal KB".

Adding Cease on top of Tucker accomplishes a few things.  First off, he's straight up the best SP left on the market.  Second, because he is a similar caliber of star on a one-year deal, he can serve as a hedge against Tucker leaving.  Plan A would be to obviously extend Tucker, but if he is of a similar mind to Soto a year ago there's now an ability to pivot and throw ~$200M at locking down Cease instead.  Either way you clear out some of the Iowa prospect depth, make this team downright scary in 2025 (and still looking good heading into '26), and have an extra draft pick heading your way after the season.

Back to the premise of your article and less my tangentially related pontificaing, if you do choose to send Suzuki back to San Diego in a Cease deal it largely undoes everything I said above.  The marginal increase in '26 salary from Suzuki to Cease is likely to be under $10M.  So while I would MUCH prefer the version of a Cease deal built on prospects, there is some merit to the Suzuki path.

I do wonder if that's a bit of the plan post-Tucker, is that next offseason is to move off those two a bit. Or at least, that the Cubs should retain internal options still. Assuming Parades goes and Shaw replaces him internally, perhaps next offseason is the year where Triantos is installed in at 2b or Cam Smith (if not traded) is destined for 3b, moving Shaw to 2b. SP could go to Horton, Birdsell, a transition piece like Brown/Hodge/Pearson from the pen. 

Just spitballing there, though, and trying to replicate a similar 2024 offseason (in the vein of Tucker/Cease).