Dylan Cease Signs with Blue Jays

SP Dylan Cease has a new team, and it’s not the Houston Astros.

As first reported by Jon Heyman of the New York Post, Cease has agreed to a 7-year, $210M deal with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Cease, soon to be 30, finished last season 8-12 with a 4.55 ERA. He struck out 215 batters in 168 IP. he also walked 71 batters in the same time frame. Cease has twice finished top-4 in Cy Young voting.

Over the last 5 seasons, Cease has made at least 32 starts and struck out at least 214 batters in each season. He ranks 4th in WAR among pitchers over that time, behind Tarik Skubal, Max Fried and Framber Valdez. Cease leads MLB in strikeouts over the last 5 years (1,106), but also leads MLB in that time in walks (361) and wild pitches (51).

While often pointed out as a “perfect fit” for the Houston Astros, his match with the Astros always seemed dubious because of what his anticipated contract demands would be and the Astros long-standing position on not handing out long-term deals.

History has shown that 7-year deals for players 30 and up almost always leave a team with serious regrets. Recent examples include Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Anthony Rendon, Stephen Strasberg, Chris Davis, Robinson Cano, Jayson Werth, David Price and Xander Bogaerts to name a few.

While the Astros steadfast position of not signing long term deals can be frustrating to fans as it limits the team’s ability to sign and/or keep star players, it has also kept the team out of problematic contracts that could hamstring their financial flexibility. Injuries and declining performance in advancing ages seem to be a given in any long term deal (see Gerrit Cole, Mike Trout, Giancarlo Stanton et al), and Crane’s policy has kept the Astros away from such problem deals.

The Astros have been willing to take risks on shorter term deals, with some (Justin Verlander) working out and some (Jose Abreu) not so much.

Value was always going to be the word of the day for the Astros as they try to reconstruct their rotation following the expected loss of Framber Valdez to free agency and the plethora of injuries to the rotation over the past several years.

Valdez, another workhorse starter, could be looking at a similar contract to Cease and the one signed by Max Fried a year ago.

In the meantime, cross one more name off the Astros’ wish list.