Blue Jays' Dylan Cease shares why he will be a better overall pitcher in Toronto
Photo credit: Foul Territory Podcast - x.com
Toronto Blue Jays newest acquisition Dylan Cease shares why he thinks he will improve under the tutelage of his new pitching staff.
A year removed from a fourth-place finish in NL Cy Young voting, just a handful of votes behind third-place finisher Paul Skenes, and earning down-ballot MVP votes, Cease saw his ERA inflate by a full run, from 3.47 in 2024 to 4.55 in 2025.
While many fans feel that Toronto overpaid when the Blue Jays signed Cease to a seven-year $210 million dollar contract, the reality is they are paying him for his potential not what his ERA suggests.
Seventy different pitchers threw at least 150 innings last season, and only 15 had a higher ERA than Cease.
We know that ERA isn't the end-all be-all that it once was, otherwise Cease wouldn't have headlined this year's class of free agent starting pitchers, nor would he have received a nine-figure deal from the Blue Jays.
But it is still a barometer, and a 4.55 ERA equated to a 94 ERA+, or 6 percent below league average. That's certainly not indicative of an ace-caliber pitcher.
Some serious swing-and-miss stuff is headed to Toronto. Since 2021, Dylan Cease has struck out 1,106 batters - the most in MLB!
As one NL executive mentioned, Cease is «better than his 2025 ERA.» Statcast's Expected ERA (xERA) certainly agrees.
By xERA - which attempts to credit the pitcher for the moment of contact, stripping the effects of ballpark, defense and luck, Cease resembled a front-of-the-rotation starter.
Cease's xERA in 2025 was in the 74th percentile, mirroring his 78th-percentile xERA from '24.
If you're counting, that's a 1.12-run gap between Cease's 4.55 ERA and 3.43 expected ERA, one of the largest among qualified pitchers.
Bad luck and poor defense contributed to Cease's ERA in 2025
The ERA discrepancy stems from a blend of poor luck and poor defense. Between the Blue Jays gold glove caliber defense, and the tutelage of their pitching staff, Cease's peripherals will likely improve dramatically.
In an interview on the Foul Territory Podcast at the Winter Meetings, Cease indicated how the Blue Jays pitching staff will help him improve his margins, try to maximize, and be more consistent with his stuff in Toronto.
"I've got a staff behind me that's going to help my biomechanics and all that. They take a lot of the thinking out of it to where I can go out and perform."
"I'm telling you from my experience, there are times when I'm clicking mechanically, and my 96 blows guys away, and there is times when I'm not in my mechanics and I'm throwing 99 and they can see it out of my hand. I don't know how to explain it other than that, so I guess I will get with the guys in Toronto and see what they have for me."
There is still something to taking the ball every fifth day, which Cease does better than anyone.
He has made at least 32 starts in five consecutive seasons, and may very well have added to that stretch in 2020, when he made 12 starts in the 60-game season.
Only three other pitchers, José Berrios, Patrick Corbin, and Kevin Gausman, have made at least 30 starts in each of the past five seasons.
No one has matched Cease, whose durability stands out in an era where making every start is a lost art.
| POLL | ||
DECEMBRE 14 | 112 ANSWERS Blue Jays' Dylan Cease shares why he will be a better overall pitcher in Toronto Do you think Dylan Cease's statistics will improve under the tutelage of the Blue Jays pitching staff? | ||
| Yes | 99 | 88.4 % |
| No | 1 | 0.9 % |
| Too early to tell | 12 | 10.7 % |
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