Dylan Cease (SP, CHW) - Week 15 Waiver Wire Pickups

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OWNED IN: 33% of leagues

ANALYSIS: Between the Chicago White Sox pitchers who are injured and those who have struggled immensely in 2019, the club thought it was about time for highly-touted 23-year old Dylan Cease to make his major league debut. While that July 3rd outing didn't paint him as a prodigy, he certainly inspired plenty of promise while showing his areas of needed improvement with three earned runs and six strikeouts across 5.0 IP, with a detracting four hits and four walks allowed against the Detroit Tigers.

Even with the strength of the White Sox farm system in the category of starting pitchers, Cease has stood out from the crowd from the perspective of scouts with his upper-90s heater and highly deceiving curveball being called possibly one of the best one-two punches of any young arm in the minor leagues. In his five seasons of professional baseball for the Chicago Cubs and White Sox organizations, Cease put up a 3.02 ERA and 1.23 WHIP over the span of 354.1 IP (80 starts, 83 appearances). While he has had persistent issues with command of the strike zone in that time, he has also kept power hitting to a minimum with a meager 0.4 HR/9, while displaying high strikeout-upside with a K/9 figure of 11.4. While the safety of his spot in the south side rotation is more than questionable given his stage in development and the alternative options that exist, Dylan Cease is a guy you can benefit greatly from, even in the learning process (I tried to work in "Ceases to Amaze", but it was not to be).