White Sox Blockbuster Trade Takes Another Hit

In March 2024, just a few weeks before the regular season began, the Chicago White Sox made a blockbuster trade with the San Diego Padres that sent right-handed pitcher Dylan Cease to an instant contender.

Cease had finished as the runner-up for the AL Cy Young Award in 2022, going 14–8 with a 2.20 ERA and recording 227 strikeouts over 184 innings. However, 2023 was a bit of a down year. Cease went 7–9 with a 4.58 ERA, putting the White Sox in a pretty difficult spot when it came to handling their talented young ace.

On one hand, Cease was only getting older, and the White Sox were running out of club control as time went on. It became evident that his contract status didn't match up with the White Sox competitive timeline. And despite expressing a public desire to stay put, Chicago wanted to cash in on the asset.

They'd be selling low, though. Had the White Sox traded Cease following his 2022 campaign, buyers would have thought they were getting one of the top five pitchers in baseball. But after seeing his ERA balloon to 4.58, teams had their doubts.

The White Sox ultimately settled on a package from the Padres that included Major League relief pitcher Steven Wilson, along with three prospects: right-handed pitcher Drew Thorpe, outfielder Samuel Zavala, and right-handed pitcher Jairo Iriarte.

That trade has looked both promising and hopeless at times. Its outlook has changed from year to year. But following the 2026 regular season, with minor league free agents exploring new opportunities, the White Sox have taken another hit to the return they received for their former ace.

Wilson spent two seasons in Chicago's bullpen, with his best year coming in 2025 when he posted a 3.42 ERA over 59 appearances. He was traded last offseason, though, to the Tampa Bay Rays in a deal that brought outfielder Everson Pereira and infielder Tanner Murray back to Chicago.

Iriarte debuted for the White Sox in 2024, pitching in six games, but has never made it back to the big leagues since. He elected free agency this week and is now free to sign with a different organization.

There was also a strange situation involving outfielder Samuel Zavala, who initially appeared on the transaction wire as having elected minor league free agency himself. That would have left Drew Thorpe as the only player from the Cease trade still in the White Sox organization.

But the transaction involving Zavala was subsequently removed from the wire, and he remains a member of the White Sox organization.

It was a bit of a scare for White Sox fans, especially considering how quickly the return for Cease has started to dwindle. For a brief period, it appeared Chicago had lost the No. 28 prospect in their farm system without getting much of anything out of him at the Major League level or anything for him.

Fortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Zavala spent the entire 2026 season in Double-A Birmingham, hitting 14 home runs with a .779 OPS. He’s still a young player with plenty of developmental upside, and the White Sox have an opportunity to get value out of him in the years to come.

That leaves Thorpe and Zavala as the two remaining players from the original Dylan Cease trade still in the White Sox organization.

Thorpe made nine starts for the White Sox in 2024 and showed a lot of promise before imploding at the end of the season as he dealt with an injury. Chicago shut him down for the year, and multiple offseason setbacks eventually forced Thorpe to undergo Tommy John surgery in the spring of 2025.

He missed the entire 2025 season but returned in the back half of 2026, rehabbing in the minor leagues. In 10 total rehab appearances, Thorpe went 2–0 with a 2.85 ERA over 41 innings pitched. He looked the part of a big league pitcher again, and it was a bit surprising to see the White Sox choose to keep him in the minor leagues rather than offering him an opportunity to prove himself in Chicago as the big league club labored for innings down the stretch.

Maybe that was just precautionary. Maybe it speaks to how the White Sox feel internally about Thorpe. I know I remain rather bullish about his future individually.

And while Zavala hasn’t reached the Major Leagues just yet, he’s another player with enough upside to make a meaningful impact if his development continues in the right direction.

Either way, there’s no hiding from the fact that the Dylan Cease trade is looking increasingly disappointing for the White Sox. Two of the four players Chicago originally acquired are already out of the organization, and neither Thorpe nor Zavala has established himself as a long-term contributor at the Major League level.

There’s still time for that to change. But the White Sox are running out of opportunities to get the kind of value they envisioned when they traded away one of the best pitchers in baseball.