Prospect Pad Retrospective: White Sox RHP Dylan Cease

Image credit: Dylan Cease at the 2018 BA Prospect Pad

As we continue our look back at past Prospect Pad interviews, today we look at White Sox RHP Dylan Cease when he joined the 2018 Baseball America Prospect Pad. 

Entering his first full season in the White Sox organization in 2018, Cease began the year at High-A Winston-Salem where he complied a 2.89 ERA along with 10.3 K/9 in 71.2 innings pitched, and earned a mid season promotion to Double-A Birmingham. While at the Prospect Pad, Cease discussed the improvement he saw in his offspeed, particular with command. 

“I’ll have games where I throw 25 changeups and 20 will be for strikes. The slider and curveball at the very least I feel like I’m throwing for strikes, which is a good start. Then you can start bouncing it and doing whatever you have to with that. Obviously, fastball command is the biggest thing out of all that but when you can put fastball command and then offspeed together it’s hard to hit,” Cease said.

Also in his Prospect Pad interview, Cease discussed his pitch grips and the change he made to his curveball grip. 

“I just recently started throwing a knuckle curve. On trackman, it has two or three more inches of depth to it, so that is good,” Cease said.  

Cease has used his new curveball, along with his other three pitches to dominate Double-A Birmingham the rest of the year. He was able to rack up 78 strikeouts in 52.1 innings to go along with a 1.72 ERA. Currently at Triple-A Charlotte, will be looking to show off his four pitch mix in Chicago soon.