The Blue Jays may be staring at a roster shakeup after Monday’s trade deadline, but one thing is starting to feel settled: Dylan Cease belongs in the conversation as a long-term pillar.
Toronto has more than $70 million coming off the books this winter, and there’s been plenty of chatter about expiring contracts and the possibility of familiar names moving on. If veterans like George Springer, Daulton Varsho and Kevin Gausman are no longer around, the team will need a fresh core to take shape.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has to be part of that future. So does Cease.
He backed that up again Friday, holding the St. Louis Cardinals to one run over six innings in Toronto’s 3-1 win. It was another clean, forceful outing from the right-hander, who is in the middle of a Cy Young-caliber season and has quickly become the Blue Jays’ most dependable starter.
“He’s right up there with the best I’ve seen or had on a staff,” manager John Schneider said. “It can be pretty special any given night.”
Cease opened the game by marching off the turf in the first inning, chin up, carrying himself like he owned the place. Working under a slightly limited pitch count after a complete game last week, he struck out the first two hitters of the night and finished with seven punchouts overall.
That kind of performance has become the norm for Toronto’s biggest offseason addition. On a club that has spent much of the year searching for consistency, Cease has been the exception. Even if some of his work ends up feeling wasted in a season like this, the Blue Jays at least know he’s under contract for the next six years.
Toronto still has plenty to sort out this winter. Four starters and two regular hitters are headed for free agency, and the depth chart will need serious attention. But if you line up Cease ahead of Trey Yesavage and a rehabbing Cody Ponce, there’s at least the outline of a future rotation.
The numbers keep telling the same story. In five starts during July, Cease gave up just four earned runs.
His ERA sits at 2.41, which ranks fifth in MLB and second in the American League. Since the All-Star break, he and Cam Schlittler of the New York Yankees have traded dominant stretches and turned the American League Cy Young race into a two-man battle.
Cease hasn’t been perfect, and Friday showed that. He walked three and allowed three hits. Still, he kept working, kept missing bats, and still came away with six strong innings.
That’s what reliability looks like.
“It’s nice to have a guy that can do that when he’s not perfect,” Schneider said. “I think he’s evolved as a pitcher. I think he’s in a pretty good groove right now in terms of what he wants to do and where he wants to put the ball.”
The Blue Jays know how rare that kind of presence is. Teams can patch together depth and find role players, but true carry-the-rotation arms are much harder to come by.
Guerrero will need to get back to his best if Toronto is going to thrive in whatever comes next, but Cease only has to keep being himself. Along with Alejandro Kirk, who is under contract through 2030, they form the foundation of the club.
When Cease is on, he gives the Blue Jays something they can build a week around. He’s the guy at the top of the rotation, the one everyone else slots behind.
Toronto has had versions of that before, from Robbie Ray to Alek Manoah to the bulk of Kevin Gausman’s five-year run. Right now, though, Cease is the one doing the heavy lifting.
That matters because the 30-year-old has not always been easy to pin down from one season to the next. He nearly won the Cy Young in 2022, then followed it with a 4.58 ERA.
He finished fourth in the voting in 2024, then landed in the mid-fours again the next year. This season, he has answered a lot of the doubts.
The bigger test will come next year: whether he can finally break the pattern and keep it going.
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