When you think of the modern ace pitcher, several characteristics come to mind. First and foremost, you need a guy who is going to post year after year. You want a guy who strikes out hitters in buckets and has the wipeout stuff to dominate any major-league lineup on any given night. By those definitions, it would be harder to find a more archetypical example in the modern game than seven-year veteran Dylan Cease.
2025 Statistics: 32 games started, 168 IP, 8-12, 4.55 ERA (94 ERA+), 3.56 FIP, 3.56 xFIP,
29.8% K%, 9.8% BB%, 1.33 WHIP, 3.4 fWAR
2026 FanGraphs Depths Charts Projections: 32 games started, 187 IP, 12-10, 3.61 ERA, 3.59 FIP, 27.6% K%, 9.0% BB%, 1.22 WHIP, 3.8 fWAR
Over the last five seasons, can you name the starting pitchers who have made at least 32 starts and struck out at least 200 batters in each season?
Dylan Cease. That’s it.
Cease burst onto the scene in 2021 when he was made a full-time member of an admittedly insane White Sox starting rotation that also included Carlos Rodón, Lucas Giolito, Lance Lynn, and Dallas Keuchel and a pair of promising homegrown prospects Michael Kopech and Garrett Crochet waiting in the wings. Since then, Cease has been the model of consistency, leading all qualified starting pitchers in starts and strikeouts.
In many respects, Cease is the perfect litmus test for old school vs. new school value in a starting pitcher. He can be as maddening as he can be dazzling, depending on which way the wind was blowing the day of his start. He routinely finishes among the league leaders in strikeouts and whiff rates, placing in the 88th percentile or better in each in four out of the last five seasons. That being said, he’s logged an ERA north of 4.50 in two out of the last three seasons and has walked 10 percent of batters in his career.
In the same mold as Blake Snell, Cease is a nibbler, preferring to give up the walk than the home run. However, there can be games where he outright loses the strike zone early and never finds it. In these outings, he has an unlucky propensity to give up the big hit after putting multiple runners on via the free pass, thus inflating the ERA. This style lends itself to elevated pitch counts and abbreviated outings, which is how Cease barely qualified for the ERA title despite going 32 times — the right averaging right around five-and-a-third innings per start since 2021.
In other games, he’s capable of producing performances like this:
Cease is a Statcast darling and a pitcher who I’m certain pitching coach Matt Blake would love to get his hands on. He throws his four-seamer and slider in equal proportions a combined 80-plus percent of the time. The four-seamer averages 97 mph — sixth-best among qualified starters — and routinely places in the 95th percentile in spin rate and induced vertical break: the prototypical high-spin rising four-seamer of the modern game. His gyro slider is among the league’s best in spin rate, whiff rate, and Statcast Run Value, where it graded out as the single best pitch in baseball in 2022 and 2024. Blake has had success in the past transforming pitchers with high walk rates, but Cease is a different story given his pedigree as an established ace-caliber starter.
There’s a joke in certain baseball circles that Cease is an even-year pitcher. In 2022 and 2024, Cease put up a 3.10 FIP, .260 BABIP, and at least 4.4 fWAR in each season. In 2023 and 2025, he suffered through ERAs above 4.50 and a .325 BABIP while putting up 3.6 and 3.4 fWAR respectively. Make of that what you will, but even in his “down” years Cease is still performing at a high level, clearing the elite thresholds of a 20-percent strikeout-minus-walk rate, 30-percent called-strike-plus-whiff rate, and sub-one home run per nine rate.
The projection systems certainly believe Cease can maintain his level in 2026, projecting him for the most fWAR (3.8) of any free agent pitcher. His ERA should come down a run — and in fairness he owns a sub-3.50 expected ERA as a full time starter — and they even forecast a mild improvement in innings, walks, and batted-ball luck. He mirrors the other top starter free agent on the market, Framber Valdez, in being pretty known quantities: both are super durable, and Cease is going to strike out a ton of guys while Valdez is going to induce a ton of groundballs.
It’s this consistency and projectability that underpin the contract predictions for Cease, FanGraphs’ Crowd Source project predicting a five-year, $130 million pact while The Athletic pegs him for six years and $174 million. Split the difference in AAV and you’re looking at $27 million per year over five or six years, which has been the going rate for pitchers in the same tier as Cease over the last five offseasons. Teams know that pitchers are a lot more than their ERAs and win-loss records and are willing to pay them accordingly.
There is a clear need in the Yankees rotation with both Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón not expected back until May at the earliest as both recover from elbow surgeries while Clarke Schmidt is not guaranteed to pitch at all in 2026 after undergoing Tommy John surgery last summer. As the Dodgers showed in their march to back-to-back titles, you can never have too much starting pitching in October — something the Yankees were made painfully aware of when Max Fried and Rodón got shelled by the Blue Jays in the ALDS.
Despite the fit in terms of ability and roster need, a pursuit of Cease feels unlikely from the Yankees front office. It’s difficult to imagine them handing out a fourth nine-figure contract to a starter on the wrong side of 30, which Cease will turn in late December. Brian Cashman neither confirmed nor denied whether ownership handed down a mandate to suppress payroll below $300 million — something Hal Steinbrenner has repeatedly voiced a desire to do and indeed achieved in 2025 — and the possibility of said artificial cap limits their spending to more pressing areas of the roster like the outfield and bullpen, particularly with Trent Grisham back in town on the qualifying offer.
In a budget-free world, Cease is exactly the type of starter you would expect the Yankees pitching department to target on the free agent market — one with durability, elite tools, and flashes of ace potential who with a few minor tweaks might cement himself among the highest tier of starting pitcher. However, in this era of eschewing the vast majority of stars at the top of the free agent market, it’s unlikely we’ll see Cease pitching in pinstripes in 2026 and beyond.
