The White Sox Should Call Up Dylan Cease After Carlos Rodón Requires Season-Ending Surgery

On Monday, it was announced that Chicago White Sox pitcher Carlos Rodón will undergo Tommy John surgery, effectively putting an end to his 2019 campaign.

He is expected to make his return sometime in the second half of the 2020 season, but for now, the White Sox have a serious hole to fill in the rotation.

Enter Dylan Cease.

White Sox fans have been calling for the 23-year old to make his MLB debut all season, and rightfully so. Cease is the White Sox No. 4 overall prospect, and is the No. 5 rated RHP prospect in all of baseball. Through six starts, Cease has posted a 3.54 ERA, with 26 hits through 28 innings, as well as a 33:10 K:BB ratio. He's allowed more than three earned runs in just one start this year.

The White Sox are no strangers to bringing in young talent to make a significant impact on the team. Not only did they call up Eloy Jimenez at the start of the season, they also handed him a lucrative six-year, $43 million contract before he played a single game at the major league level.

The White Sox also have 24-year-old Lucas Giolito and 25-year-old Reynaldo Lopez pitching in the rotation, and things are starting to click for the pair. Cease could see the same success in the big leagues, and it's certainly worth taking a shot on him sooner rather than later, even if the team is tanking.

Currently, the White Sox rotation features Lopez, Giolito, Ivan Nova, Manny Bañuelos and Dylan Covey. Nova, Bañuelos, and Covey all have struggled, as none of the trio have recorded a sub-5.90 ERA this year.

There's absolutely no way that the White Sox organization can make the argument that any of these three are better options than Cease at this moment, but for service time purposes the team may opt to keep the hurler in the minors.

It's understandable that they're hesitant to bring up one of their top prospects. Last year the team promoted Michael Kopech, but the elite prospect ended up sustaining an elbow injury of his own, and underwent the knife for Tommy John surgery. However, they shouldn't let Kopech's injury scare them away from calling up their pitchers when they've proven to be ready.