The Cleveland Guardians got a rather mediocre outing from starter Slade Cecconi on Monday.
That’s if you only look at the box score, of course.
He surrendered a couple of runs on three hits in 2.2 frames, walking one and striking out four.
For pitchers, spring training is the perfect time to experiment: some of them debut a pitch they have been working on all winter, others change their mechanics and want to repeat it consistently.
Others, like Guardians starter Slade Cecconi, develop a new offering and alter their pitch mix with the hope of unlocking more success.
Analyst Corbin Young noted that Cecconi is throwing his cutter, a pitch he only used 2.7 percent of the time in 2025, more often in 2026.
“I wonder if Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Slade Cecconi might have a pitch classification issue since he threw cutters 31% of the time, a significant percentage against RHH (33%) and LHH (29%) in Monday’s Spring Training outing. For context, Cecconi threw his cutter 2-3% of the time to RHH and LHH. That’s notable because we rarely see cutters elicit a 37.5% swinging-strike rate like Cecconi showed during Monday’s Spring Training outing,” he observed.
I wonder if Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Slade Cecconi might have a pitch classification issue since he threw cutters 31% of the time, a significant percentage against RHH (33%) and LHH (29%) in Monday's Spring Training outing. For context, Cecconi threw his cutter 2-3%… pic.twitter.com/4RwEhcNwzs
— Corbin (@corbin_young21) March 3, 2026
Young also noted that all of Cecconi’s cutter whiffs “were peppered low and inside to left-handed hitters.”
In reality, the cutter is a pitch that Cecconi developed, with the help of the Guardians, ahead of the 2025 season, his first in Cleveland.
He barely threw it last year, though, instead favoring his slower slider.
Part of the adjustments he made for the 2025-26 offseason were mastering a ‘harder, sharper, and tighter cutter and replacing his slurvey slider with a sweeper’, per Tim Stebbins of MLB.com.
Despite the so-so outing on Monday, the cutter was a success, generating six whiffs on 12 swings.
The idea is to give Cecconi another weapon to get swings and misses, and the harder cutter seems to have a lot of promise if he can consistently repeat his mechanics and release point.
The right-hander should get at least a couple of extra starts this spring to tune up his new weapon and get himself ready for the season.
He seems ready to take a step forward and improve his 4.30 ERA from last year.
NEXT: Analyst Names 5 Guardians Players That Can Be All-Stars This Season
