Dylan Cease spent the winter of 2025 hearing the same thing over and over: the Blue Jays had gone too far. Toronto handed him a seven-year, $210 million deal, one of the biggest free-agent contracts in franchise history, and plenty of people immediately treated it like a mistake. One season later, the conversation looks a lot different.
Cease’s first year in Toronto ended with a runner-up finish in American League Cy Young voting on Wednesday, behind only Yankees ace Cam Schlittler. That result gave the Blue Jays exactly the kind of payoff they were betting on when they made the deal.
The skepticism came fast. In February, Jayson Stark’s anonymous Athletic survey of baseball executives asked for the worst signing of the offseason, and Cease drew 13 votes - more than any other player, with Kyle Tucker the next closest.
The concern was familiar: command, volatility and the danger that comes with paying top dollar for a pitcher who had already led his league in walks and wild pitches twice. Stark pointed out that the $210 million was a record for a pitcher with that kind of profile, and one voter put it bluntly: “If he walks less guys than the dollars that he’s paid,” one voter quipped, “he’s got a chance.”
Cease had also just come off a rough 2025 season with San Diego, when he posted a 4.55 ERA and walked almost 10 percent of the batters he faced. But the version Toronto got was the one that can dominate a league.
He finished 11-6 with a 2.40 ERA, 239 strikeouts in 169 innings over 29 starts, a 1.10 WHIP and a .180 opponents’ batting average. He led the AL in strikeouts per nine innings at 12.7, hits per nine at 5.8 and home runs per nine at 0.6. He also tied Schlittler for the league lead in FIP at 2.56, made his first All-Star team and posted 5.5 WAR, the second-best total of his career.
Those 239 strikeouts were the fourth-most in Blue Jays history, trailing only Roger Clemens and Robbie Ray, both Cy Young winners. Manager John Schneider also handed Cease the ball to start the All-Star Game for the American League.
For a stretch in June, July and August, he looked like the most overpowering pitcher in baseball. He carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning against the Giants in July, then followed that later in the month by striking out 12 Red Sox in a one-hit complete-game shutout. At that point, the AL Cy Young race had the feel of a two-man battle between two AL East aces.
The final vote reflected how the season finished. Cease picked up 22 of 30 second-place votes and 110 points, finishing ahead of Guardians rookie Parker Messick, who had 84. Schlittler swept all 30 first-place votes.
The gap came down to the late-season numbers and the usual counting stats. Both pitchers struck out 239 batters, but Schlittler finished with a 1.95 ERA to Cease’s 2.40, and he threw 193.2 innings to Cease’s 169. Schlittler also finished with a 7.0 WAR, ahead of Cease’s 5.5.
Cease’s season started to change after that July 25 start against the Red Sox, when he first felt shoulder discomfort. His fastball dipped into the mid-90s, and on Sept. 23 he went on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation.
That doesn’t erase what he did before the injury. It does help explain why the race wasn’t tighter in the end. Schlittler’s 215 ERA+ set a Yankees franchise record, and New York went 21-12 in his starts.
So the question from February has a much different feel now. The Blue Jays asked whether Cease could handle the pressure and the workload in Toronto. In year one, he answered it.
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