The postseason is around the corner, as all MLB teams are playing the final week of the regular season. After Sunday, however, only the best will remain in contention for the World Series title.
Some squads have already punched their ticket to October, while others remain either in a race to win their division or for one of the Wild Card spots in each league. Heading into Tuesday, the Cleveland Guardians are 81-75 and have a one-game lead over the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central.
ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel ranked the rotations of every postseason team: those that have already qualified and those that are still in a race. One of the Guardians’ strongest units is the rotation, and the analyst agrees.
He ranked Cleveland’s starting pitching unit eighth among the 15 teams he analyzed, in the second tier. It might seem like a mediocre place for such a talented unit, but he sang their praises and suggested that a lack of star power behind the top two guys prevents a higher ranking.
“(Parker) Messick (building on a strong big league debut late in 2025) and (Gavin) Williams (strikeout rate spike in 2026) have taken steps forward to become one of the better rotation duos in the majors. (Tanner) Bibee was in that tier in his first few seasons, but his velo and strikeout rate have slipped into more of an innings-eater role. I would lean toward (Joey) Cantillo over (Foster) Griffin for the fourth spot, but they are of similar quality,” McDaniel wrote.
Williams leads the American League and is second in MLB with 244 strikeouts heading into the final week of the season, and Messick is a legit AL Cy Young candidate with a 2.57 ERA. Together, they represent the strength of the Guardians’ rotation and the hope to navigate tough postseason series.
After those two, however, things get a bit murky. Bibee has regressed and boasts a 4.35 ERA, and the two other options on the team, Griffin and Cantillo, might be better than him at this point. The latter, however, needs an opener in front of him, or at least that has been the case in the last couple of turns.
The unit as a whole, however, is strong. You could even argue that it should be higher than some of the options listed higher by McDaniel, such as the Boston Red Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays. After all, Cleveland ranks fourth among AL teams with a 3.94 ERA from its starters.
NEXT: Guardians Among Biggest Movers In Latest Power Rankings
