The Guardians list left-hander Parker Messick as the probable starter for tomorrow’s series finale in Arizona. He’ll go opposite Brandon Pfaadt in his major league debut. Cleveland has an opening on the 40-man roster after outrighting reliever Trevor Stephan last week. They’ll only need to make an active roster transaction tomorrow.
Messick, 24, was a second-round pick out of Florida State in 2022. The 6’0″ southpaw has never blown evaluators away with his velocity, but he has carved through minor league hitters behind an excellent changeup. Messick has only used the changeup around a quarter of the time in Triple-A this year. He has gone to his four-seam fastball, which sits between 92 and 93 MPH, half the time. He has both a slider and curveball, neither of which get more than fringe-average grades from scouts, and infrequently uses a sinker.
It has seemingly left evaluators split on his value. Baseball America and MLB Pipeline each rank him between 12th and 15th in the Cleveland farm system, projecting him as a stable back-end arm. Eric Longenhagen at FanGraphs has him much higher, slotting him fourth among Guardians prospects and among the top 50 prospects in the sport. Longenhagen projects Messick as a league average starter and grades the changeup as a potential plus-plus offering. While it doesn’t seem there’s a huge gap in his perceived upside, FanGraphs appears to place a higher value than do the other outlets on Messick’s big league proximity and minor league success.
That’s all the more true now that Messick has shown it at the top minor league level. After recording 165 strikeouts between High-A and Double-A a year ago, he has spent this whole season at Triple-A Columbus. Messick has turned in a 3.47 earned run average across 20 starts, striking out 29% of batters faced. He has issued walks at a career-high 10.3% clip while averaging fewer than five innings per start, but he has worked at least into the sixth inning in six of his past seven appearances.
Messick last pitched on Thursday, so he’ll be operating with an extra day of rest. The Guardians optioned Joey Cantillo over the weekend, giving Messick a good chance to hold a rotation spot for the rest of the season. John Means could be a late-season factor as he works back from elbow surgery, though that could also come in long relief. For now, Messick slots behind Gavin Williams, Tanner Bibee, Slade Cecconi and Logan Allen in Stephen Vogt’s starting five. The Guardians have fallen three games back in the Wild Card picture after being swept by Atlanta over the weekend.
Messick, youssick, weallssick
You go on stage at 900 pm. Dont be late goof!
So long as you’re not so quick with the cane, stage left. At least give the song and dance some room to breathe before doing the old heave, ho. So much pressure!
As playoff hopes dwindle it is reasonable to see what they have for rotation options going in to the winter. The rotation was a weakness this season. Messick and maybe Stephan from the Jays need a look.
Two-pitch pitchers can’t get by with even a plus-plus changeup if the fastball is underwhelming. He was always old for his level, so his dominance in the lower minors should be taken with a grain of salt. A soft-tosser may have back-of-the-rotation value as an innings eater, but he doesn’t work deep into games either. He has to work off the plate to get by without overpowering stuff, but he won’t get enough offerings off the plate to have much Major League success. I hope he proves me wrong! Cole Hamels had a great career with two pitches. But this guy isn’t Cole Hamels.