A former Chicago White Sox pitching ace might impact the team's hope to trade its current one

Turns out Chicago White Sox ace pitcher Garrett Crochet might not be the best pitcher available on the trade market.

The San Diego Padres are reportedly willing to trade Dylan Cease this offseason. The Padres just got Cease during spring training in a deal with the Sox that sent pitchers Drew Thorpe and Jairo Iriate to the Southside.

It sounds like with his pending free agency after the 2025 season and the free-agent starting pitcher market going crazy, the Padres are willing to entertain offers. Plus, this is A.J. Preller we are talking about here.

Cease possibly going on the trade market likely impacts Crochet's trade market.

Well, only if you are in the camp of thinking the Boston Red Sox are the ideal trade partner for Crochet.

Morosi did report that Boston is interested in dealing for Cease.

Corbin Burnes also being on the free-agent market is impacting any potential Crochet to Boston deal as it is reported the Red Sox are ready to make an offer after losing out on Max Fried.

Fried signing with the New York Yankees looked like it was going to boost Crochet's trade value as it was one more top-tier pitcher off the free-agent market. Then Morosi had to throw some cold water with his trade speculation.

What gives the speculation legs is the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Kevin Acee following up and confirming that the Padres are willing to explore trade options.

That means the Padres can offer a starting pitcher who has pitched over 165 innings in each of his last four seasons. Cease has had ERAs under four in three of those years. The same goes for his fWAR, as it was over four during that stretch. Cease has struck out 200 or more batters during those four- ears

The only appeal Crochet has over Cease is Garrett will be 25 next season, throws left-handed, and has two years of club control.

This is Cease's last year of arbitration eligibility, so that is why it does make sense for San Diego to kick the tires on a trade. If Max Fried can get eight years, then Cease certainly can. That is why it is likely he will test the free-agent market.

Cease is projected to get around $13.7 million to pitch in 2025 where Crochet projects to earn $2.9 million. So, the cost difference and extra year of control do tilt in Crochet's favor.

Otherwise, you got Cease out there with an already established trade market and body of work that shows he is a reliable, top-notch starting pitcher. Crochet is still working his way toward that.

Maybe that is why a team would likely give up two top-100 prospects like what the Baltimore Orioles gave up to get Corbin Burnes. Whereas teams can still be hesitant to give up that haul for Crochet because he has yet to cross the 160 innings threshold and had to pitch no more than four innings once July started.

The ironic thing is Acee threw out that the Padres could trade Cease and then use the return to get a pitcher like Crochet...

While trading Cease would thin the Padres’ starting pitching depth, they would still have Yu Darvish and Michael King at the top of the rotation and Randy Vásquez and Matt Waldron as their other experienced starters.  and are confident in their ability to add another mid-level starter. A haul for Cease could even enable them to flip prospects and/or young major leaguers for a top-end starter such as White Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet, who would be cheaper than Cease and is under team control for two years versus the one year before Cease hits free agency.

The Padres did it once before by taking Drew Thorpe, who the Padres got from the Juan Soto trade, and sending him to Chicago.

All San Diego Padres team president A.J. Preller is saying regarding the rumors is the normal front office talk.

However, this shakes out, this current speculation is so White Sox.

You have a team in the Sox trying to trade an ace pitcher because they likely do not want to pay to extend him and need to utilize his trade value to add young players because of their inability to develop players. Possibly getting in the way of that deal is a pitcher that the Sox just traded a few months ago because they did not want to extend him and needed to use the asset for young players.