In baseball, having a true ace gives teams an important competitive advantage throughout the long season, but especially in a short playoff series. Frontline starters who can give you six, seven, or eight innings of one-run ball are incredibly valuable.
The Cleveland Guardians know this. From Satchel Paige to Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, CC Sabathia, Corey Kluber, and Shane Bieber, among many others, the organization has a long tradition of dominant aces.
According to Bleacher Report, however, their current No. 1 is near the bottom of the league compared to his peers.
“Even after a down year, you could definitely make the case that Tanner Bibee is Stephen Vogt’s ace. Gavin Williams got good enough results last year, though, that he deserves to be mentioned here over Bibee. A first-round pick in 2021 out of East Carolina, Williams posted a 3.06 ERA and threw nearly 100 more innings than the prior season. Williams also pitched six shutout innings against the Detroit Tigers in a Game 1 ALWCS loss, capping off an impressive season,” Tim Kelly wrote, ranking Williams 25th among 30 MLB aces.
Kelly just had Miles Mikolas, Kyle Freeland, Matthew Liberatore, Shane Smith, and Luis Severino below the Guardians’ flamethrower.
Despite the disparity between his 3.06 ERA and 4.39 FIP, Williams had a solid season. He struck out 173 hitters in 167.2 innings, logged 14 quality starts, and, perhaps more importantly, was healthy enough to take the ball 31 times.
That’s the sign of an ace right there: availability. A frontline starter has to be dependable, and Williams was just that for the 2025 Guardians.
It’s important to point out, and Kelly definitely did, that Williams led the league in walks in 2025 with 83. That’s a ‘concerning trend’ according to the writer, one that ‘he’ll have to overcome.’
The walks and the home runs (23, tied for the 20th most in the American League) were the main reasons behind Williams’ mediocre FIP. You could say he was aided by his strong defense.
If he manages to cut the walks, tighten his command to avoid home runs, and find a way to make his fastball fool hitters more consistently, Williams has a chance to soar up the rankings and become a true star.
He is off to a solid start this spring, posting a 3.38 ERA in eight Cactus League innings so far. The best part of his stat line is that he has only walked one hitter, though.
Can he sustain those control gains when the games actually count?
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