Rival NL West Manager Has Hilarious Reaction to Padres Adding Dylan Cease
With San Diego Padres unexpectedly trading for ace pitcher Dylan Cease from the Chicago White Sox last week in exchange for multiple prospects, another key player has joined the National League West division.
The NL West has seen a huge influx of talent this offseason. A lot of this can be attributed to the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose offseason spending was a major talking point across MLB.
The Dodgers landed two of the top free agents in Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, as well as acquired several other talented players like Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernández and James Paxton.
Outside of Cease, the Padres brought in talented relievers such as Yuki Matsui, Woo-Suk Go and Wandy Peralta. Up north, the San Francisco Giants missed out on Ohtani, but added players like Matt Chapman, Jordan Hicks, Jung Hoo Lee and Jorge Soler.
Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo could do without some of these key players joining his top rivals. After the Padres signed Cease, Lovullo's reaction was, “I wish the best players would quit coming to the NL West," via USA Today's Bob Nightengale.
Lovullo is coming off a surprise season in which he led the Diamondbacks to the World Series, where they fell to the Texas Rangers. Trying to repeat that kind of performance will be no easy task with their division rivals getting stronger.
On the Padres end, while they added Cease, they did lose several key players like Juan Soto and Josh Hader. Even while Cease looks to be a strong addition on paper, the Padres are counting on him to rebound from an inconsistent campaign in 2023.
