theathleticuk
Dylan Cease's bushy moustache framed a widening smile as he stood in the visiting clubhouse at Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays. The Toronto Blue Jays right-hander was contemplating a tantalizing possibility: striking out 300 batters in a single season.
"It seems like an insurmountable thing," Cease said during the final stretch of a campaign in which he would finish as the runner-up for the American League Cy Young Award. "Three hundred strikeouts is crazy. But that would be an accomplishment that I'd cherish as much as anything."
In his eight major-league seasons, Cease has never come close to that mark. Only 19 pitchers in the modern era have achieved it. Yet his eagerness to pursue it reflects the success of his first year with Toronto.
On that August day in Tampa Bay, Cease was locked in a Cy Young race with eventual winner Cam Schlittler, on pace for a career high in strikeouts, and—thanks to a few tweaks to his pitching arsenal—delivering on the potential the Blue Jays envisioned when they signed him to a $210 million contract nine months earlier.
Ultimately, the right-hander fell 61 strikeouts short in 2026. His season did not end with an award, as shoulder inflammation sapped his velocity down the stretch. He finished the year on the injured list and a distant second to Schlittler in the AL Cy Young balloting, announced Wednesday evening.
But given the progress Cease made in 2026, the 300-strikeout threshold could someday be attainable. Only five starters have surpassed 300 strikeouts in a season since 2002: Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, Chris Sale, Gerrit Cole, and Cease's 2026 teammate Max Scherzer.
Early in Scherzer's career, after regularly exceeding 200 strikeouts, the likely future Hall of Famer set his sights higher. The fiery competitor texted friends around the league, asserting that 20 strikeouts in a game and 300 in a season were within reach. He then went out and accomplished both.
For Scherzer, achieving the feat is not a matter of pitching mechanics but simple arithmetic. "You're looking at 33 starts; you've got to punch out nine a game," Scherzer said. "Nine a game gets you to 297. Then you need three starts over. It doesn't sound too hard when you break it down like that."
Strikeout rate is not an issue for Cease. He struck out nine or more batters 13 times this year and has led his league in strikeouts per nine innings three times in his career, including 2026. Cease even improved his chances of accumulating strikeouts in 2026 by pitching deeper into games than ever before. His 5.83 innings per outing were the highest of his career.
The 30-year-old incorporated a changeup to better combat lineups multiple times through the order, refined his command of his fastball, and expanded his repertoire, using secondary pitches as setup offerings to maximize his primary strikeout weapons: the slider and fastball. By the first week of September, he had surpassed his previous career high in strikeouts.
"I think the surprising thing more is I'm not having to labour for the strikeout," Cease said in August. "I feel like, in the past when I would get strikeouts—it was like four-seamers and sliders, and they'd foul off five and then I'd bounce a slider. Now, it's a lot less stressful way to get strikeouts."
Cease largely erased the short-start issue that had prevented him from reliably being one of the game's best starters, but he also encountered a new obstacle: injuries. The righty went on the injured list once for a hamstring strain and again for the aforementioned shoulder issue. They were his first IL stints since his third MLB season in 2021.
Cease's average fastball velocity dropped from 97.4 mph in June to 95.8 mph in August, and ultimately 94.9 mph before he was shut down in September. He told The Athletic his offseason priorities were taking care of his shoulder and building a stronger physical base to handle a larger workload in 2027, regardless of how many games teams will play next season.
"It's hard, because when you're feeling good, you never want to give up the ball," Cease said at the end of the season. "I think I could have just managed it much better. I've never lost feel, even when I got tired, so I just assumed I was always going to be able to do that. I just need to be smart."
Inconsistent health is an issue for pitchers throughout the majors. It's why only three starters surpassed 200 innings this year. Twenty years ago, 45 did. With pitchers throwing harder and putting more spin on the ball than ever, pitching injuries have become rampant. Couple that with teams' more aggressive use of bullpens, and you get starters emptying the tank for five innings instead of pacing themselves across eight or nine.
That's why Cease's dream of 300 strikeouts could hit a snag. In 2026, the Blue Jays often allowed him to pitch deep into games. He was one of just 21 starters to throw a complete game. He had the two longest outings in the sport this year at 120 and 118 pitches. But he also ended the year injured, and if the Blue Jays had snuck into the postseason, he wouldn't have been nearly as effective as the club required.
Perhaps Toronto will not let its ace stay in games quite as long next year in hopes of keeping him fresh down the stretch. Maybe the Blue Jays will be more conservative in the opening months. But one of the top reasons they signed Cease was for his virtually unparalleled record of durability: no pitcher has made more starts than Cease since 2020, even with the outings lost this year.
Cease, more than most, appears to have the swing-and-miss stuff, the endurance, and the deep arsenal that should give a pitcher a shot at 300 strikeouts. Now, it's just simple math.
"I could do it," Cease said. "But it would be crazy. I would put that in the Cy Young category."
Originally reported by theathleticuk.