It may feel like the launch-angle era has spawned a fresh wave of disdain for strikeouts. But as Kevin Costner reminds us in the 1988 classic “Bull Durham,” baseball’s swing-and-miss problem has been a long-standing target of both aesthetic criticism and, apparently, political suspicion.
“Don’t try to strike everybody out, strikeouts are boring,” catcher Crash Davis, played by Costner, tells his wild young pitcher, Nuke Laloosh (Tim Robbins). “Besides that, they’re fascist.”
But fans of the Boston Red Sox would likely find it rather exciting – not to mention politically palatable – if their team were to make a significant addition to its K-tossing arsenal.
MLB Analyst Predicts Boston to Sign Free Agent Pitcher Dylan Cease
In a Wednesday column predicting landing spots for some of MLB’s top free agents, Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report suggested that the Red Sox are setting up to establish one of the top strikeout duos of the 21st Century. Known to be in the market for a top-notch starter to pair with ace Garrett Crochet, who led all pitchers in 2025 with 255 strikeouts, Boston could sign Dylan Cease to a six-year, $168 million contract, bringing in the pitcher who finished sixth in the league with 215 strikeouts.
“(T)hat could be a ‘Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling with the 2001-02 Arizona Diamondbacks’ type of preposterous combo,” Miller daydreamed.
In just his second season as a starter, Crochet, acquired from the Chicago White Sox last December, has established himself as one of the top strikeout pitchers in baseball. He actually finished with a higher rate of strikeouts per 9 innings last season (12.88), when he got 209 in 146 innings to place seventh in MLB.
But Crochet has a few seasons to go before he’s able to join Cease in a rather select group of flamethrowers. Cease, also a former White Sox pitcher who was traded to San Diego in March of 2024, has topped the 200-strikeout mark in each of the past five seasons, joining Randy Johnson, Pedro Martínez, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Chris Sale, Félix Hernández, Corey Kluber, and Gerrit Cole as the only pitchers in the last 40 years to accomplish that feat over five consecutive full seasons (Cole did it the two seasons before and three seasons after the 2020 pandemic-shortened campaign).
Numbers Suggest Dylan Cease’s 2025 Troubles More About Bad Luck Than Bad Pitching
Despite the high strikeouts, Cease did have a down season in a few other important categories. After going 14-11 with a 3.47 ERA and 1.07 WHIP for the Padres in 2024, the right-hander went 8-12 this year with a 4.55 ERA and 1.33 WHIP.
However, a deeper dive into the numbers suggest that Cease’s 2025 issues were caused more by misfortune than mediocrity.
According to Sports Info Solutions, the Padres’ defense cost Cease 11 runs in 2025, among the worst support in the league. Erase those runs, and his ERA would drop by nearly half a run.
So while Cease was still getting his strikeouts, his teammates weren’t helping him close the door. His Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) mark of 3.56, a stat that removes the influence of the defense behind the pitcher, suggests that Cease’s stuff remained special, even if the scoreboard didn’t always agree.
And for a front office like Boston’s, that distinction matters.
Strikeouts travel; bad luck doesn’t. When a pitcher keeps missing bats at an elite rate, holds his velocity deep into seasons, and posts a FIP more than a run better than his ERA, you’re looking at someone whose true value is hiding in plain sight. And in Cease’s case, the indicators all point toward a pitcher far closer to his 2022–24 peak than his 2025 win-loss line suggests.
Which is why the idea of pairing him with Crochet feels less like a rumor mill indulgence and more like a legitimate blueprint. Add Cease’s proven swing-and-miss resume to a team with a steadier defense and a little more run support, and suddenly those “boring” strikeouts Crash Davis railed against start to look a lot more thrilling.
They might even become the foundation of a Red Sox rotation capable of striking out its way deep into October.
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