The Cleveland Guardians had a September to remember in 2025. Their excellent play coincided with the Detroit Tigers’ late-season collapse, and Stephen Vogt and his men were able to steal away the AL Central crown with a 20-7 record in that last month.
The Guardians got some excellent production from multiple hitters in September, but the six-man rotation was probably the primary reason behind the surge. The pitching staff as a whole had a 2.60 ERA in the final month, with Tanner Bibee, Gavin Williams, Slade Cecconi, Logan Allen, Parker Messick, and Joey Cantillo all starring.
The fact that they were all able to stay healthy helped a lot, of course, but it was a smooth ride for the Guards’ pitching staff in September, so much so that many people want to see them run back the experiment.
There are big risks with applying the strategy from the get-go, though, as Cleveland.com’s Paul Hoynes explained.
“If you go with a six-man rotation, you’re working with one less guy in the pen,” Hoynes said. “You’re really putting a lot of strain on that bullpen.”
It wouldn’t make sense to strengthen one unit by weakening another one at the same time. That’s why it is not realistic, at this juncture, to think about a six-man rotation.
Another factor to consider is that the Guardians bullpen is not the most trustworthy unit on the team right now, and using a six-man rotation would take one relief pitcher away from it. Using six starters and seven relievers would, as Hoynes states, put a lot on Hunter Gaddis, Cade Smith, and Erik Sabrowski’s plates.
The team intends to decide on five starting pitchers to open the season in the rotation. Having six talented, reliable options is a blessing, though.
“It’s going to be a really hard decision, whatever we end up doing,” manager Stephen Vogt said a month ago, per MLB.com. “There’s going to be a very heavy competition, and they’re all excited for it. You saw the look on their faces, that they’re ready for it. They’ve had great offseasons, but we view it as a really good problem to have, that we have six really good ones.”
Cantillo, with a 7.84 spring ERA, has been the only one struggling, and it’s hard to call it that way when the sample is just 10.1 innings. Williams has a 3.38 ERA, and Allen is at 3.60. The rest of the pitchers in the group are below 3.00.
Almost everyone is performing well at the moment, and while Messick is the most likely to start the season in the minors because he still has three options, expect to see plenty of him in 2026.
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