Podcast: Chris Getz’s First Big Trade
Record Date: 11/19/2023
Rundown:
- Josh and Jim breakdown Chris Getz’s first big trade of sending Aaron Bummer to Atlanta for five players that might include two starting pitchers and the 2024 starting second baseman.
- [25:51] Dylan Cease trade rumors are picking up again as the Los Angeles Dodgers are now kicking the tires
- [41:50] 63 players were non-tendered, including former Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher Brandon Woodruff. Who of this lot is worthwhile for the White Sox to pursue?
I’m less optimistic a Cease trade will happen. The starting pitching market is saturated, with free agent and trade options in abundance. With so many options, I’m not sure the Sox will get a package to their liking. For the reasons you all already discussed in a previous episode, waiting makes some sense and the market could be richer in July.
I also suspect the veracity of SP free agent rumors will be especially difficult to sort out, since it’s so easy to use one guy as leverage for another.
But, hey, it only takes one team to meet the demands. The O’s involvement still feel critical. The Dodgers may not be interested in bidding against themselves. But a real offer from the O’s gets things cookin’.
The FA SP market next year is significantly better so I see even less chance of getting a better deal done at the deadline. Between high quality rentals and teams waiting for the off season and I could see poor returns for Cease. That’s if he’s even healthy at the deadline which is another huge risk. If there’s a good trade to be made now and that’s what you want to do then do it.
That said, I don’t think it’ll be with the O’s. They seem to be in no mood to part with any of their prospects.
Next year’s FA SP market is why the market is saturated now. The top of that market (Burnes, Glasnow, Bieber) are on teams with incentives to move those players (for varying reasons) and all seem to be on the trade block.
The reason the deadline is perhaps a better option is several teams will need starting pitching for the stretch run and there are no free agents. Other starters get injured, don’t work out, etc. High (and immediate) demand will be there but without the same supply.
There’s a risk for the Sox, of course, to wait. But they shouldn’t pull the trigger without full (or close) value.
I really think they missed the boat at last years deadline, seems like the FA and trade market for SP is very strong which is quite unusual right now. However Cease does have a leg up on the free agents and even the trade candidate like Glasnow because he is still so cheap. A cash strapped team like the O’s may still have to pursue him because of their budget constraints… even Atlanta which has a huge payroll already may need to find a budget option at some point.
There is plenty of buzz about Cease on MLB trade rumors. I think a deal will get done, almost for sure. Cease will be gone in 2 years and the Sox are going to be terrible until he is, there would be no point in keeping him. I think Getz will take the best offer he gets unless it is super low.
Nola re-signing with the Phillies is one less good pitcher on the market. There aren’t many FA pitchers with as much or more upside than Cease, and a team friendly deal as well. I think teams will be bidding over themselves for him. The O’s don’t like to spend FA money, which makes Cease perfect for them.
Without Cease, the White Sox “ace” will be Touki. That’s just a monumental drop off in quality. Even tanking teams have one good starter. I can’t see the White Sox trading Cease unless the haul is superb like getting any of the Jacksons (Holliday or Chourio). If Getz trade Cease, he is gonna need to sign 2 or 3 SP at free agent market price. That’s too expensive. It is way cheaper just to keep Cease.
Like I said below, if we trade Cease, there is no way the White Sox can contend in at least 5 years because we have nobody in the Minors to fill in for Cease. The Luis Robert’s years will be gone to waste. If Getz trade Cease, he might as well trade Robert and call it a tank year. Tank for 2 or 3 years.
There’s “no way” the Sox could contend in 2028 if they trade Cease now? That feels… hasty. When do you expect them to contend if they keep him?
FWIW, Noah Shultz is ahead of same-age Cease in almost every way. Higher draft pick, more IP in year one, quicker to A ball, higher on prospect ranks, better performance in Kanny. I’m not saying Schultz will even be as good as Cease. But as a prospect he’s a better version than Cease was, so I don’t see how you can see there’s “nobody” in the Minors to fill in for Cease. Not to mention there are about 8 ways they could fill in for him before 2028.
It is a lot easier to build a 5 man rotation when you have one pitcher than when you have none. You need 3 good SPs to play playoffs. At least one close to be an ace. If we keep Cease, and he rebounds, I can see the White Sox contending in 2025 or 2026 with the arrival of Colson Montgomery and the shed of salaries such as the one Eloy and Moncada “earn”. Remember, the AL Central is weak. You can contend with not much.
Unless Jerry opens the checkbook (he won’t), Cease won’t be on the team in 2026. If anything, trading Cease raises the chances the Sox will contend in 2026 (and ’27 & ’28) because the return almost certainly includes help for those years.
Keeping Cease just puts so many eggs in the 2025 basket. There are so many “ifs” that need to hit. If he’s good… if he’s healthy… if the rest of the rotation comes together… if the rest of the division is bad… if the Sox offense is good… then, keeping him is probably worth it. But if one of those “ifs” doesn’t hit—only one—then trading him now is the best way to go. Plus, we can’t discount the possibility that the Cease return will include rotation help, and plausibly help even for 2025.
Why get mopey about the idea of trading Cease? Your steadfast denial of where this team is actually at is remarkable. They’ve traded 7 pitchers since July, plus Clevinger. They are already in full rebuild/tank mode. Their 2021 team is gutted. It takes years to go from a near mlb worst roster to a good team, when their farm system isn’t much. They’ve already said they are cutting payroll, which means they are not going to sign free agents of substantial quality. Cease will be gone in 2 years. If they say they aren’t rebuilding or are going to compete before that, they are full of shit and/or in denial, like always.
There is nothing wrong with tanking for a couple years. Both the Astros and Rangers did for several seasons, b/c good teams can’t be built overnight. Who cares how bad the Sox are the next 2 years. The Astros lost more than 320 games over a 3 year stretch. The Rangers had 6 straight losing seasons prior to 2023, and they waited until they had like a 5th ranked farm system and some good young players like Jung and Garcia to sign Semien and Seager the same winter. Unless they had an owner like Cohen, there is no way this team is going to be good before Robert is gone without a lot of help from their farm system. Trading Cease is one of the only things that can help with that. You have it reversed. Trading Cease and getting a good return for him is about the only chance they have of NOT wasting all of Robert’s years here.
I am not mopey. I just think it’s unlikely Getz trades Cease unless the return is monumental.
As far as I can tell, the only buzz is the note from Nightengale about the Dodgers. And as Josh said on the podcast, it sounds like the Dodgers are checking in on several starters. To my point above, the Sox need at least another team (or two) to get his market moving so they can get the return they’re looking for.
I agree the Sox have an incentive to move him now and I hope he gets dealt. But I don’t think they should move him for, say, 70% of his value just to move him.
The O’s fit is perfect, but the O’s seem loathe to part with their prospects. I also wonder why the O’s would change their tune, since apparently the teams discussed a deal at the deadline and the O’s really could have used him for a playoff run. Maybe the Sox significantly dropped their price since then? But if an O’s trade makes sense now, it made way more sense in July but it didn’t get done then.
I never said the Sox should move him for 70 percent of his value, and hope they don’t. They shouldn’t need to. With his cheap contract the next two years, he is a super appealing trade target for any teams looking for pitching, and there are several. There was an mlb trade rumor article a couple days ago listing like 7 teams that would be a good match in a trade for Cease. Cease should be in high demand, and Getz should undoubtedly get calls from multiple teams with serious interest. With less rush than a trade deadline deal, there is a good chance he’ll get at least a couple good offers between now and spring training, and will hopefully take what he thinks is the best one. I love the Outman idea, but that might be too much to hope for.
Right, I wasn’t saying you were saying that. I was saying I fear that’ll be the kind of offers they get, with all the available SP. High supply usually means suppressed cost. If the cost is significantly suppressed for Cease, they should wait it out.
The MLBTR article wasn’t talking about interested teams, only teams that are good fits and what the price could be. As far as I’m aware, there’s no indication any of those teams are actually interested, other than the Dodgers. MLBTR could just as easily write the same piece for Bieber, Burnes, and Glasnow, with all the same teams.
The O’s are the obvious fit, an abundance of prospects a lot of who are blocked, not a ton of payroll flexibility and a huge need for a front line starter, their season ended on back to back losses where their starting pitchers made it a whole 5 outs each… they should of learned their lesson they already blew a good playoff shot in 2023 they shouldnt make the same mistakes moving forward.
Man if he doesn’t get moved until the 2024 deadline, I’m going to be pretty annoyed. Not because I think he MUST be moved now, but because I’ll be left wondering how much more they could have gotten for him at the 2023 deadline, with an entire extra year of team control.
Yes. This is the drum I was beating last July. Of course, we don’t know what the offers were. The reports were they discussed a trade with the O’s. But who knows what that means?
I will say the silver lining is Cease is coming off a down-ish year. If, after working with Katz and Bannister, he can unlock something and look like a CY contender again, the price should be sky-high in July—maybe even higher than last July.
I don’t think his value is/was diminished. Everybody knows what a bad environment this team is, and that Cease had the worst defense imaginable behind him all season. He is very likely to be better anywhere else, esp in a park like the Dodgers. So I don’t think his value in July will likely be any higher, unless he is spectacular again. Teams waiting until then to trade for him would just be getting 1/2 a season less of him. I’m not confident of much about this team but do think they will deal Cease before spring training.
I didn’t say his value is/was diminished. I said his value could be higher with an excellent start to 2024.
As with any player—but perhaps especially so with Cease—I imagine there’s a spectrum of evaluation. That is, there’s a spectrum of how teams think about him. Cease’s spectrum probably runs something like this, from bearish to bullish.
1 – Cease is #3/4 with shaky control but good bet for 30+ starts.
2
3
4
5 – Cease is an ace who you’d want starting game one of a playoff series.
Because of his contract and control, he’s valuable anywhere on this spectrum. Right now, I suspect he’s in the ballpark of 3 (rightly so). But if he can get back to 2022 form, I think he could crank that up to 4.
To be clear, I still think they should move him now if they get fair value. The point I’ve been raising is I wonder if they will.
I like that James Outman trade idea. Having said that, I do not think the White Sox are eager to trade Cease. We don’t have pitching depth. I mean, we have a bunch of 4-5 starters here and there, but without Cease, the rebuilt is definitely official. We won’t contend for years because there is absolutely nobody in the farm that could fill the void Cease would leave behind.
Yes I would like to see a few more trades done before anything is seriously done with Cease. As you say, once he’s traded then there’s no going back and you lose all leverage for anyone else.
Outman would be an incredible return. He’s very good, and possibly even more importantly, makes a Robert Jr. trade much more palatable.
I would take Outman and a couple other prospects for Cease in a heart beat. Lefty bat with some power and obp who is a good defender in CF and could definitely thus handle RF with 5 years of team control…. done and done. Think Outman is underrated a bit because he was a solid but not spectacular prospect think he only had a 40 or 45 FV, but he has out performed the competition at just about every level and had a really good MLB season last year. He is exactly the type of player I would want the sox to target in a Cease trade.
@Jim_Margalus Lately, I am getting errors on Sox Machine. Page is not loading, and I am getting some sort of 404 error, “cookie to large”. I have to restart the browser (Chrome) to refresh.
Just FYI
The error is actually 400 (not 404), and it is happening a lot.
Curiously, if I used the incognito Chrome feature, this issue appears to not happen.
I’m of the belief that a cookie can never be too large.
https://www.namehero.com/blog/how-to-fix-400-bad-request-request-header-or-cookie-too-large/#:~:text=on%20your%20screen.-,Causes%20Behind%20%E2%80%9CRequest%20Header%20Or%20Cookie%20Too%20Large%E2%80%9D%20Error%20message,to%20retrieve%20the%20requested%20page.
Contacted my hosting service, and they made an adjustment to accommodate the new ad platform. Hopefully this is resolved now.
Thank you Jim.
Outman, with a name like and our luck as Sox fans he will probably start honoring his last name as soon as he arrives.
As would anyone coming from the Dodgers to this sinkhole of a franchise.
Bad foot? Goutman.
Boorish behavior? Loutman.
Gains some weight? Stoutman.
Raising too many questions? Doubtman.
Also could be a megaman villain.
I doubt the Dodgers would give up Outman in any Cease deal, but Andy Pages is a guy I would be very much into them targeting (huge power, puts the ball in the air, actual RF’er)
old friend alert:
I didn’t see Lopez getting 3/$30M.
Pun intended?
Well, at least we know where Lucas Giolito is going now and we can cross him off our lists.
Lucas would be a good fit there.
The market for pitching is more expensive than a lot of folks imagined. I think this deal increases the chances Cease is traded.
The White Sox are getting Royalized, and the Braves are getting White Soxized. Maybe Alex Anthopoulus will ask for permission to interview Pedro Grifol for a role suitable to his skills (i.e. not manager).
Reynaldo Lopez getting 3 for 30 from the braves…. that feels INSANE
FWIW, Spotrac had his market value at 3 years, $18m. He’s young for a FA and I suspect he’s the kind of guy competent teams would love to get their hands on.
he’s a middle reliever I never felt that good about him in high leverage
Based on the current roster I think Nicky Lopez is the starting shortstop with many auditioning to be his keystone mate. A lot of winter left to change all that.
The Lopez contract is insane. Thats why the White Sox have to be sold. Current ownership wants to operate more or less like it’s 1980’s baseball. Personally I wish it was 1950’s baseball but it isn’t. Need a different mind set operating this team. Having said that, Reynaldo Lopez for 30 million, no! Wonder how much free agent Lou Gehrig would get? A little more than Reynaldo, I assume.
Had he not succumbed to his eponymous disease, Gehrig would be 120 years old. While I don’t doubt he would still be a step up compared to a lot of the White Sox’s dross, I don’t think he would be commanding $10/m per season.
Kenny always gets his man.
It’s a hot hot stove for the 2023 White Sox pitching staff!
I wonder if he’ll go to ST in shape or if he still thinks at 37 he can carry 40 extra lbs and still pitch effectively.
His wife is on it!
After Lopez, the Braves have now handed out ~$70m to relievers and traded for two more. Did they hire Hahn as vice-GM and I missed it?