Crosstown cross to bear: Cease is one that got away for Cubs originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

When armchair baseball historians look back years from now and rip the Cubs’ 2017 trade for Jose Quintana (looking at you, @thekapman), it won’t be Eloy Jimenez held up as the reason the Cubs lost the trade.

It’ll be the A-ball pitcher the Cubs thought might one day turn into a decent reliever that’ll be what the Cubs are more likely to rue giving up in the deal.

The A-ball pitcher thrown into the deal who right now is the best pitcher on either side of town as the Cubs and Sox open a two-game series at Wrigley Field on Tuesday: Dylan Cease.

He’s one that got away like nobody else the Cubs gave up in the handful of Cubs-Sox trades over the years.

He already has the look of the Cubs’ version of the Sox trading a young Sammy Sosa to the Cubs in 1992, if only because his development into a high-impact starting pitcher who debuted in 2019 is the unicorn that has eluded the Cubs’ farm system since Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer took over the Cubs more than a decade ago.

What kind of look is that?

When last seen, Cease was striking out Mike Trout three times in the best start of the right-hander’s career Monday.

“I don’t think about it that much,” Cease said during a conversation with NBC Sports Chicago ahead of that start. “I’m still very early in my career, so I try not to jinx it and think super long-term like that. But if it ended up playing like that, it means I had a good career.”

It also would mean the Cubs’ miscalculation in Cease’s ceiling might have been as costly as any miss the front office made during its post-2016 chase of another championship.

What would a young, powerful starter have meant to bolster the pitching staff late in the 2019 push toward the playoffs that fell a few games short? What might a young, cheap, homegrown starting pitcher have meant during ownership’s pandemic panic that led to deep payroll slashing over “biblical” losses?

What might Cease mean to a Cubs’ rotation today that has big depth problems, the fourth-worst ERA (5.14) in the majors and is tied for the second-worst rotation WAR (0.2)?

“What did they see? Did they see a reliever? Did they see a high-end pitcher?” Cease said. “That would have been interesting [to know].

“It’s definitely easy to look back and in hindsight [say] it’s very easy to not pull the trigger on things,” he said. “But I guess they figured in that moment that’s what they needed. So I can’t fault them for that. That’s part of the game.”

This is not to rip the Quintana trade (talking to you, again, @thekapman). Two apparently disparate things can be true at once.

The Cubs needed a veteran starting pitcher for the stretch run of their title-defense season, and Quintana not only was a recent All-Star with a track record of durability but he also was under club control for years on a team-friendly contract. He simply underperformed projections — including, by the way, the Sox’s expectations.

But the what-if game becomes tempting to play when wondering what the Cubs might have been able to add instead of Cease to Jimenez in a deal — or if they closed their eyes, crossed their fingers and rolled the big-money dice on trading for a 30-something Justin Verlander they feared was on a career-fade trajectory or hurt.

Quintana certainly helped the Cubs reach the playoffs in 2017; it’s safe to say they don’t make it without him.

But just as certain is the fact that Cease is already the bigger value lost to the Cubs in that trade. As talented as Jimenez is, the Cubs were skeptical of his ability to stay on the field long-term, and he’s yet to prove he can stay healthy three-plus seasons into a six-year, $43 million deal (currently sidelined with a long-term hamstring injury).

Cease already has been a savior for the beat-up Sox rotation, the biggest reason in the early going the league-favorite Sox aren’t buried to their necks in the least imposing division in the AL.

What he might have meant to the Cubs during those last few competitive years if he’d become for the Cubs what he became for the Sox? What he might mean for the big-market, small-thinking Cubs right now?

On the bright side: Maybe we can stop talking about that Jon Garland-for-Matt Karchner trade.

Star-crossed Crosstown

The White Sox couldn’t be showing up on the schedule at a better time for the Cubs.

And, unfortunately for the Cubs, vice-versa.

It’s been eight years since both teams carried losing records into a Crosstown Series, and the press box wag-a-lytics department didn’t have enough fingers to count how long it’s been since each entered the series on this bad a stretch.

Despite each winning its last game, the Cubs have lost nine of 12 coming into the series; the Sox 11 of 14. Both have 8-13 records.

Something’s got to give, right?

Or give out?

All-Star-crossed love?

After the Cubs’ game in Milwaukee on Sunday, a group of Japanese reporters waited out Suzuki’s lengthy postgame workout to ask him, among other things, his thoughts on Mike Trout’s praise of his play and desire to meet the former Japanese star, from Friday’s NBC Sports Chicago story.

Suzuki, who on Monday was named NL Rookie of the Month for April, told the reporters how much he appreciated what Trout said and very much looks forward to meeting the Angels superstar.

The teams don’t play each other this season, but the smart money is on that meeting happening in Los Angeles in July, during All-Star festivities.

Oh, and, yes, Suzuki reportedly still loves Trout.

Seeing the tank half full?

Caleb Kilian, the 2021 Arizona Fall League star acquired from the Giants in the Kris Bryant trade last summer, is off to the kind of start at Triple-A Iowa that inspires visions of a 2022 big-league debut.

Through four starts he has a 1.72 ERA and 17 strikeouts (six walks) in 15 2/3 innings.

So much for bowing to the pressure or scrutiny of getting traded for a franchise icon.

“Maybe if you let it get to your head, maybe so,” Kilian said during a conversation with NBC Sports Chicago during spring training.

“But, I mean, it was two of us. Canario was part of the trade, too.”

Oh, yeah, that guy. The other prospect the Cubs got from the Giants.

Outfielder Alexander Canario.

The guy who on Monday was named Midwest League Player of the Week after a 13-for-26 week that included four homers and nine RBIs for High-A South Bend.

Hard to imagine, much less assume, that the Cubs are going to be considered winners for trading away their best homegrown player since Greg Maddux during a financially-driven, year-long roster purge.

But, then, again, “I sure hope so,” Kilian said. “That’s the goal.”

Take the poll

The Cubs-Sox Crosstown Series thrills and agonies go back 116 years to the day the Sox clobbered Mordecai Three-Finger Brown for seven runs in the first two innings of Game 6 of the 1906 World Series to clinch their only World Series match up.

Since then, Michael Jordan tagged Cubs pitcher Chuck Crim with a couple run-scoring hits in 1994 at Wrigley Field as a Sox minor-leaguer in the annual crosstown exhibition; a sore-necked Derrek Lee came off the bench to deliver a grand slam to help beat the Sox in 2007 at Wrigley; and, of course, the year before that Michael Barrett punched A.J. Pierzynski in the face after a collision at the plate.

And that doesn’t even count anything that had to do with Carlos Zambrano, Milton Bradley, Ozzie Guillen or Geovany Soto’s mask.

As the teams take the field again for this week’s two-gamer, what’s the most shocking Crosstown event for Cubs fans?

GDubGrub

Shoutout to a Wrigleyville classic in honor of Cubs-Sox on the North Side this year: Wrigleysville Dogs.

That’s the Sdralis-family-owned business of more than three decades just a couple blocks north of the ballpark on Clark. They’re open late, serving fare that is often the perfect nightcap after three hours of beer.

And don’t forget they have a diverse menu that also includes hamburgers and gyros.

And definitely don’t forget the “s” in the name. (Unless you want to hear about it on Twitter).

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