What once looked like a clear loss is starting to flip, as Samuel Zavala’s breakout at Double-A, Drew Thorpe’s expected return from injury, and the value recouped from flipping Steven Wilson begin to give the White Sox real long-term pieces from the Dylan Cease trade.
Just before the start of the 2024 season, the Chicago White Sox traded starting pitcher Dylan Cease to the San Diego Padres for a package of four players. And just before the 2026 season, two full years after the deal was made, it looked like one of the worst moves that Chris Getz has made as White Sox GM.
Coming back in the deal for Cease was right-handed pitcher Steven Wilson, an MLB reliever who had pitched in 102 games for San Diego over the prior two seasons, along with right-handed pitchers Jairo Iriarte and Drew Thorpe, and outfielder Samuel Zavala.
Wilson, as I mentioned, was an MLB piece for the White Sox bullpen, but he posted a 5.71 ERA in 2024 and was designated for assignment after one year with the team.
Drew Thorpe was probably the biggest prize in the trade. He was a top 100 prospect who showed a ton of promise, starting off his minor league career with a 21-3 record and a 2.17 ERA before the White Sox called him up to make his MLB debut in June of 2024.
Thorpe got off to a strong start, posting a 3.03 ERA through his first seven career starts. He then got shelled for 14 runs over his final two starts of the 2024 season before being placed on the injured list with a season-ending injury. Thorpe would go on to undergo Tommy John surgery and miss all of 2025, and he remains on the IL today.
Iriarte had a strong first season in the White Sox organization as a starting pitcher. He even got some MLB time at the end of 2024 and posted a 1.50 ERA in six appearances out of the bullpen, giving Chicago a lot to work with moving forward. But after recording a 7.13 ERA in the minor leagues in 2025, he was even worse in the Venezuelan Winter League and was designated for assignment by the White Sox in February of 2026.
Then there’s Samuel Zavala, an outfielder who was just 19 years old at the time of the trade and had been successful at every stop of his professional career to that point. However, Zavala batted just .187 in his first year with the White Sox organization and posted a .641 OPS in Winston-Salem. He remained at High-A Winston-Salem for the entire 2025 season and was only marginally better, with a .254 batting average and a .731 OPS.
There wasn’t enough there to make you feel like Zavala would turn into anything of real value for the White Sox at the MLB level.
All in all, it was a trade that was trending toward being a train wreck for the White Sox, and not necessarily because Dylan Cease was incredible with the Padres, but more because the White Sox had a legitimate asset that was highly coveted on the trade market, and it seemed like they flipped him without getting a single meaningful piece of their future in return.
But in 2026, things have turned around in a big way, and it now looks as if the White Sox might have actually turned the Dylan Cease trade into a win for the organization.
Steven Wilson stuck in the White Sox organization after being DFA’d. He was called up to join the big league club in April of 2025 and ended up putting together a solid season, posting a 3.42 ERA over 59 bullpen appearances. The White Sox then flipped him in an offseason trade that brought outfielder Everson Pereira and utility man Tanner Murray to the South Side.
Pereira has put together a solid 16-game stretch to start the 2026 season with a .838 OPS and is at least looking like a potential future piece for the White Sox at a position of need. Being able to turn Steven Wilson into a potential long-term asset is a positive development.
Thorpe is still on the mend from the Tommy John surgery he underwent in March of 2025, but he should be able to rejoin the White Sox at some point in 2026, and there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic about what he’ll bring to the team. Thorpe is still just 25 years old and showed all the potential of a quality MLB starting pitcher before going down with an injury.
If he returns to that form once he’s healthy, he’ll be penciled into the starting rotation for years to come.
Things still aren’t great for Jairo Iriarte. He’s back in Double-A Birmingham, pitching as a multi-inning relief arm for the Barons. But he’s slowly starting to rediscover himself, posting a 3.09 ERA with 16 strikeouts in 11.2 innings pitched so far this year. The door isn’t completely closed on Iriarte, who is still just 24 years old, being a bullpen piece for the White Sox in the future, though he still has a long way to go.
The real prize here, though, might be Samuel Zavala. And it officially feels like Zavala’s breakout season is upon us.
The White Sox assigned the 21-year-old outfielder to Birmingham to begin the 2026 season, and in 20 games, he’s batting .293 with a .964 OPS, five home runs, and an impressive 16 walks. We’re finally seeing Zavala tap into the power that the White Sox hoped would show up when they traded for him. And even at a more advanced level this season, he looks like a far more polished hitter who is getting on base at a comfortable clip while playing quality defense in the outfield.
Zavala dropped all the way off the top 30 prospects list for the White Sox organization before the 2026 season, but he now looks like one of their higher-upside pieces from a position player standpoint. Now more than ever, it’s feeling like Samuel Zavala will not only reach the big leagues with the White Sox, but be an impactful player once he gets to Chicago.
When you package that with the Steven Wilson trade return, the eventual return of Drew Thorpe from injury, and whatever you’re able to get out of Iriarte, there’s a lot more value in this trade for the White Sox than we initially thought.
If the upside on someone like Thorpe or Zavala hits, this could actually go down as a big win for the White Sox organization.