Is there a reasonable excuse for keeping Cease at AAA at this point? It's only been 3 starts at Charlotte, but I don't see any reason why he should be wasting his innings on lesser talent when his performance has remained pretty consistent over the last 1.5-2 years.  If the whole point of this rebuild is to have a contention window that begins in 2020, shouldn't he be up here taking his lumps now so that the Sox hit the ground running in April next year? The Sox really need to stop wasting innings on vets that are clearly cooked and start seeing what they have in their system.  

5 minutes ago, Dunt said:

Is there a reasonable excuse for keeping Cease at AAA at this point? It's only been 3 starts at Charlotte, but I don't see any reason why he should be wasting his innings on lesser talent when his performance has remained pretty consistent over the last 1.5-2 years.  If the whole point of this rebuild is to have a contention window that begins in 2020, shouldn't he be up here taking his lumps now so that the Sox hit the ground running in April next year? The Sox really need to stop wasting innings on vets that are clearly cooked and start seeing what they have in their system.  

I don't particularly care about player control concerns with him, however, with the ball being the same in AAA I'm fine with him getting a few more starts to work primarily on his offspeed/breaking stuff. When the ball was different, I think working with the mlb ball would be a better case for calling him up.

AAA is such an offensive league now I think it's kinda good practice for him too.

They have him behind as far as ramping up innings etc.  He didn’t pitch much in the Spring and he has yet to surpass 5 innings. You got to let him work his way into mid season form.  Not saying this is the way I would have managed it, but at this point, the earliest I could see him coming up is June 1.

If they called him up now I wouldn't say "oh, no, don't do that" though.

Just now, Timmy U said:

They have him behind as far as ramping up innings etc.  He didn’t pitch much in the Spring and he has yet to surpass 5 innings. You got to let him work his way into mid season form.  Not saying this is the way I would have managed it, but at this point, the earliest I could see him coming up is June 1.

This is a great point.

It's not like Nova is giving you much more than 5 innings a start and Santana isn't giving you that, so I'm not entirely worried about Cease being built up right now.  I think he should be in the majors right now but I ain't winning this argument with service time and what not so here we are.

2 minutes ago, Rowand44 said:

It's not like Nova is giving you much more than 5 innings a start and Santana isn't giving you that, so I'm not entirely worried about Cease being built up right now.  I think he should be in the majors right now but I ain't winning this argument with service time and what not so here we are.

We get 7 years of him at this point, I dont think they should care about service time with him. 

Bringing Cease up means you are bouncing either Nova or Santana from the rotation.   Knowing the Sox way of doing business, that ain't happening. 

 

5 minutes ago, bmags said:

We get 7 years of him at this point, I dont think they should care about service time with him. 

And to piggy back on this, you never know if a pitchers arm could go, if he can handle throwing strikes consistently  you should probably bring him up ASAP 

4 minutes ago, HOFHurt35 said:

Bringing Cease up means you are bouncing either Nova or Santana from the rotation.   Knowing the Sox way of doing business, that ain't happening. 

 

Hey now, cutting really crappy veteran signings one month after learning they are the now some of the worst players in baseball has been a pretty big Hahn era staple.

He'll be up in 4-6 weeks, which is totally fine with me.  

Ozzie Guillen was on the Score this morning and he thought that Cease should be brought up now.

1 hour ago, Timmy U said:

They have him behind as far as ramping up innings etc.  He didn’t pitch much in the Spring and he has yet to surpass 5 innings. You got to let him work his way into mid season form.  Not saying this is the way I would have managed it, but at this point, the earliest I could see him coming up is June 1.

I was under the impression that they were holding back the innings now to avoid having to shut him down early. 

I'd leave him back in AAA for player control unless one of our starting pitchers continues to get constantly bombed

1)Rodon 2)Lopez 3)Giolito 4)Santana 5)Nova

3 minutes ago, Chisox378 said:

I'd leave him back in AAA for player control unless one of our starting pitchers continues to get constantly bombed

1)Rodon 2)Lopez 3)Giolito 4)Santana 5)Nova

There is no gain in "player control" for him until mid-April of 2020.

8 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

There is no gain in "player control" for him until mid-April of 2020.

He's a troll

40 minutes ago, mqr said:

I was under the impression that they were holding back the innings now to avoid having to shut him down early. 

This was my assumption as well. The Sox FA has said in the past they want pitchers to experience some failure and learn from the experience before they call them up. Kopech went through this last season. But that statement was quite some time ago, so who knows how they feel about calling a guy up who has only had one shaky start.

2 hours ago, Dunt said:

Is there a reasonable excuse for keeping Cease at AAA at this point? It's only been 3 starts at Charlotte, but I don't see any reason why he should be wasting his innings on lesser talent when his performance has remained pretty consistent over the last 1.5-2 years.  If the whole point of this rebuild is to have a contention window that begins in 2020, shouldn't he be up here taking his lumps now so that the Sox hit the ground running in April next year? The Sox really need to stop wasting innings on vets that are clearly cooked and start seeing what they have in their system.  

Competing in 2020 seems like a pipedream at this point unless the Sox go crazy and spend a bunch in FA. 2020 is likely another tanking year. 

Cease won't be up till late July/Early August.

14 minutes ago, Charlie Haeger's Knuckles said:

This was my assumption as well. The Sox FA has said in the past they want pitchers to experience some failure and learn from the experience before they call them up. Kopech went through this last season. But that statement was quite some time ago, so who knows how they feel about calling a guy up who has only had one shaky start.

Kopech had mini case of the yips last year.  Hopefully, Cease does not face the adversity that Kopech faced.

2 minutes ago, OneDog847 said:

Competing in 2020 seems like a pipedream at this point unless the Sox go crazy and spend a bunch in FA. 2020 is likely another tanking year. 

Cease won't be up till late July/Early August.

Spending a bunch in the upcoming free agent market is unlikely to be the thing that puts you over the top. JD Martinez might be a difference maker at DH, but that's about it.

I agree with some of the earlier posters that the org should let Cease build up his innings and call him up once he’s going 6IP+ regularly. 

I know the Sox are struggling to rack up quality starts or even decent outings with regularity but that doesn’t mean they should rush a prospect to fill a need at the ML level. 

Perhaps the training staff and coaching is better in Charlotte. Best leave him down there.

11 minutes ago, Hatchetman said:

Perhaps the training staff and coaching is better in Charlotte. Best leave him down there.

The White Sox are dumb, They aren't THAT dumb. 

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

Spending a bunch in the upcoming free agent market is unlikely to be the thing that puts you over the top. JD Martinez might be a difference maker at DH, but that's about it.

That's a bit of an exaggeration.  They aren't all perfect fits, but Grandal, Rendon, Andrus*, Ozuna, Castellanos, Bumgarner, Cole, Porcello, Strasburg* would all be targets that could make an impact in addition to JD.

* Player can opt out of current deal.  Didn't add guys with team options like Starling Marte and Corey Kluber. 

5 minutes ago, turnin' two said:

That's a bit of an exaggeration.  They aren't all perfect fits, but Grandal, Rendon, Andrus*, Ozuna, Castellanos, Bumgarner, Cole, Porcello, Strasburg* would all be targets that could make an impact in addition to JD.

* Player can opt out of current deal.  Didn't add guys with team options like Starling Marte and Corey Kluber. 

Definitely think you can make a winning team out of those guys + what is in house.  

Edit: I don't mean adding *all* of those guys

Edited April 25, 20196 yr by mqr