A White Sox Move Just Gave the Padres a Chance to Win the Dylan Cease Trade

Nobody likes a lose-lose trade, but after this offseason, it’s looking like the Padres’ 2024 trade for Dylan Cease with the White Sox has aged poorly for both teams. Here is a reminder of the full trade:

Padres receive
Dylan Cease

White Sox receive
Drew Thorpe
Steven Wilson
Jairo Iriarte
Samual Zavala

As of 2026, Cease has signed with the Blue Jays following a poor 2025 campaign in San Diego, and none of the prospects Chicago received have developed into quality MLB talent.

Iriarte, who was the eighth-ranked prospect in the Padres system at the time of the trade, was placed on waivers yesterday, giving general manager A.J. Preller a chance to do something incredibly ironic.

The Padres’ MLB pitching depth is thin, and their farm system lacks immediate reinforcements, so why not bring Iriarte back as a low-risk move to bolster organizational depth?

His outlook peaked in 2022, when he made his MLB debut with the White Sox and performed well. Across six appearances, Iriarte threw six innings and posted a 1.50 ERA with six strikeouts. His eight walks raised some concerns, but at just 22 years old, there was ample time for improvement.

He opened his age-23 season in Triple-A Charlotte, where things unraveled. In 46 innings, he posted a 7.24 ERA and walked 7.2 batters per nine innings in a disastrous campaign.

That performance was enough for the White Sox to remove him from the 40-man roster, despite it being his first truly poor season as a professional. The Padres, however, saw Iriarte at his best during his time in their system, and he could be an intriguing reclamation project for pitching coach Ruben Niebla.

There are flashes of upside. Iriarte has consistently averaged more than a strikeout per inning, features a fastball that sits above 95 mph and pairs it with a breaking ball around 81 mph, creating a uniquely impressive velocity gap. He also showed during his brief MLB stint in 2022 that he can navigate major league lineups. Niebla’s strong reputation for developing pitchers and preparing them for MLB innings suggests there could be a path back to success.

Reclaiming Iriarte would also allow the Padres to recoup some value from the Cease trade after losing him in free agency. Neither organization feels great about the swap, but with Thorpe struggling in his MLB debut season before undergoing Tommy John surgery, Wilson failing to make an impact in Chicago and Zavala yet to grow his potential, bringing back Iriarte would officially tilt the trade in San Diego’s favor — even if Cease never fully worked out in a Padres uniform.