Braves make a fictitious trade for Dylan Cease

The Braves have already made a very major trade with the White Sox, sending lefty reliever pitcher Aaron Bummer to Chicago along with five players, including Michael Soroka, Nicky Lopez, and Jared Shuster. That is noteworthy since all of the White Sox’s players are supposedly open to trade, and it helps in future discussions to have a general manager you get along with.

This continues a series of mine where I cook up trade hypotheticals for players that are confirmed to be up for sale. The White Sox don’t have a ton more that would interest the Braves, but Dylan Cease would be a dream for a team that is searching every corner to improve their rotation.

If you missed any previous parts to this series, follow the links below.

Braves Dylan Cease Trade Hypothetical

Braves Receive: Dylan Cease

White Sox Receive: AJ Smith-Shawver, Hurston Waldrep, Spencer Schwellenbach and Ian Anderson

Some might think the Braves don’t have the prospect capital to pull off another blockbuster trade for a player like Dylan Cease, but that’s simply not true. They’d just have to be willing to part ways with pretty much what’s remaining of their farm system, including their two top guys in Hurston Waldrep and AJ Smith-Shawver.

Now, there are not many players on this planet that I would be willing to give up both Smith-Shawver and Waldrep for, but Dylan Cease is one of them. From a stuff perspective, he’s up there with the elite pitchers in the game, and he’s under contract for two more seasons at an affordable rate. Plus, he’s a Georgia kid, and I think there’s a fantastic chance the Braves could trade for him and then extend him, much like they did with Matt Olson and Sean Murphy. I would feel much more comfortable handing Dylan Cease a massive contract than Max Fried, and they could probably get him at a lower rate since he still has two years remaining on his contract.

From the White Sox’s perspective, I don’t see them getting much better than this, and if the Braves had to, they could even include someone like Vaughn Grissom to sweeten the deal. However, Smith-Shawver and Waldrep are two arms with frontline starter potential that are very close to being major-league ready. They also get another potential starting arm in Spencer Schwellenbach and a lottery ticket in Ian Anderson

Anderson may not line up with the White Sox timeline, but he’s not what’s going to be what holds up this deal. I would let Chicago pretty much take their pick to get this trade done. The Braves farm system would basically be obsolete after this move, but who cares? Adding Dylan Cease and then extending him would give Atlanta the most dominant one-two punch in baseball for the entirety of their championship window with Cease and Spencer Strider.