Chicago White Sox Have Scouted Padres Extensively This Spring, Could a Trade Be Brewing?

This is something to watch...

The Chicago White Sox have been at the center of trade talks all offseason long. And yet, with Opening Day just over two weeks away, Dylan Cease remains in Chicago.

While Cease rumors seemed to calm down over the last few months, this past week, they've greatly picked up.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic recently wrote an in-depth piece about the latest on Cease, which included a mention of the San Diego Padres.

Rosenthal not only said the Padres were interested in Cease, but he said the White Sox have done some extensive scouting on San Diego.

"Multiple members of the White Sox’s front office have scouted the San Diego Padres in similar fashion, sources said."

The Padres' rotation currently is headlined by co-aces Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish, but both finished the 2023 season on the injured list.

After Musgrove and Darvish, there's Michael King — a key piece in the Juan Soto trade — and question marks.

The Padres have lost Seth Lugo, Nick Martinez and Michael Wacha from their 2023 rotation, while Blake Snell remains a free agent and is unlikely to return to San Diego. Thus, they have over 500 innings to replace from their starters in 2024.

The Padres have made it clear that they wanted to shed payroll this offseason, which likely takes them out of the running for Snell or Jordan Montgomery.

However, it only makes a deal for Cease make more sense.

Cease is on the hook for just $8 million in 2024 before entering his final year of arbitration in 2025. His two years of team control would allow the Padres to form one of the best top of the rotations in MLB with Musgrove, Darvish and Cease.

For what it's worth, White Sox manager Pedro Grifol was asked on Tuesday if Cease would be the team's Opening Day starter, and had this to say:

“I don’t know. I mean, how am I supposed to know? I don’t know what’s going to happen out there. I don’t know where other teams are, what their urgency is.”

Cease was also asked about trade rumors by MLB.com's Mark Feinsand on Wednesday:

“It's happened so many times in the past couple months, it really just feels like noise. I definitely see what's being said and people send me stuff, but I feel like if I was really overly focused on that, it would be hard to perform.”

The Padres are getting set to leave for Korea, so any deal they make at this point would likely be to help their team when they get back to the States.