The Cy Young Award is the ultimate goal for pitchers in the major leagues. It is associated with prestige and dominance and means that, for at least a year, no hurler was better than the winner.
The Cleveland Guardians haven’t had a Cy Young winner since prime Shane Bieber took home the award in the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign. This time, however, they have developed two guys with a real chance to earn the piece of hardware at some point in their careers and probably as soon as 2027.
Gavin Williams
No, a 3.76 ERA isn’t usually associated with Cy Young winners these days. But make no mistake: few pitchers in baseball are more dominant than peak, healthy Gavin Williams.
Williams led the American League in strikeouts with 248 and finished just four shy of the MLB leader, Jacob Misiorowski, who fanned 252. It wasn’t just a regular-season thing, though.
Williams took it up a notch in October, leading the Guardians to the AL Championship Series with a pristine 2.16 ERA and a whopping 33 strikeouts in just 16.2 innings. He was the staff ace and the guy that the team could turn to when they needed to shut down a lineup.
Williams has put up much better ERA finishes in the past. He was at 3.29 in 16 starts in his rookie season in 2023, and at 3.06 last year, over 167.2 innings. If he manages to put together such a low ERA again, combined with a high strikeout tally, watch out.
Parker Messick
As good as Williams was this year, left-hander Parker Messick was even better, at least in the regular season. The spring training rotation hopeful won a spot and became, little by little, a frontline guy in Cleveland capable of shutting down lineups on a weekly basis.
The southpaw finished with a 2.56 ERA and 193 punchouts this year and is a legit AL Rookie of the Year and AL Cy Young Award candidate. He is a long shot for the latter, but should have a solid chance to win the former, depending on what voters think of his main rival, Detroit Tigers’ Kevin McGonigle.
Messick wasn’t always reliable in October, but was amazing in the regular season and should get some Cy Young votes. Next year, however, he might put it all together and take home the award.
The Guardians should consider themselves lucky to have such a nice top-of-the-rotation pair, but the truth is that they drafted and developed them and deserve much of the credit.
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