Cleveland Guardians’ Pitching Factory Continues To Keep The Team Afloat

Can a major league team stay in contention with a starting rotation that is 60% rookies? The ever-resourceful Cleveland Guardians are giving it a try. They don’t have much choice, really. Cleveland’s starting rotation has been in a state of flux since the start of the season, due to a run of injuries.

Triston McKenzie, an 11-game winner who last year was in the top 10 in the American League in several pitching categories, including ERA (2.96), innings pitched (191) and WAR for pitchers (4.0), has only started two games this year due to injuries, and is currently on the injured list with an elbow strain.

Cal Quantrill has been on the injured list for nearly a month with shoulder inflammation. Peyton Battenfield has been out since mid-May, also with a shoulder inflammation. Cody Morris has only pitched two innings all year due to a Teres Major Strain, and Aaron Civale missed nearly a month earlier in the season with an oblique strain.

Amazingly, despite all the injuries, the Guardians’ 3.79 ERA is tied for the fifth-best in the American League. A big reason for that is the work of three rookie pitchers who are all pitching in the big leagues for the first time, and are more than holding their own.

Tanner Bibee, Logan Allen, and Gavin Williams have all been summoned from Triple-A Columbus to fill in for the injured pitchers, and all three of the rookie pitchers are excelling. They have made a combined 24 starts and have a combined record of 15-9, with a 3.67 ERA.

Making the work of the rookies even more impressive is that they are excelling at the major league level after minimal experience in the minor leagues. Allen spent just two seasons in the minor leagues, while Bibee and Williams both made it to the big leagues after the equivalent of one minor league season.

Tuesday night in Kansas City Williams, in just his second major league start, made history. In a 2-1 win over the Royals, Williams pitched seven scoreless innings on one hit, with one walk and six strikeouts.

In so doing, Williams became the fifth American League pitcher in this century to pitch seven innings with no more than one hit allowed within his first two career starts. Williams is also only the second Cleveland pitcher to achieve that feat, and the first to do it in 123 years. The other Cleveland was Hall of Famer Addie Joss, on April 26, 1902.

The rapid emergence of Williams, Bibee and Allen could not have come at a better time for the Guardians, who have been plagued by injuries to their starting rotation over the last few years.

The three rookies have stepped into the Cleveland rotation, which has not missed a beat since the injuries to McKenzie, Quantrill, and right-hander Aaron Civale. Civale missed almost two months earlier in the season with an oblique injury, but has rejoined the rotation. Quantrill is scheduled to come off the injured list on Friday.

So after scrambling for options to replace multiple injured pitchers a month ago, the Guardians now have multiple decisions to make on the makeup of the rotation, which will soon have a surplus, not a shortage, of options.

Having a surplus of starting pitching candidates is a “problem” all teams would welcome. In Cleveland’s case, having a surplus of starters could conceivably help the ballclub address what has been a season-long struggle to score runs.

The Guardians have hit just 50 home runs, 20 fewer than any other American League team. Cleveland is also 12^th in the league in runs scored and 13^th in slugging. Seventeen of the Guardians’ 40 losses have been by one run. All the Guardians’ outfielders combined have hit just eight home runs.

Theirs is a lineup desperate for run production, and if they so choose, with a surplus of starting pitching – when everyone is healthy – they would make a good potential pitching-for-hitting trade partner. To that end, the biggest carrot Cleveland could dangle for a team with a shortage of pitching but a surplus of hitting, is Shane Bieber.

The Guardians’ former Cy Young Award winner (2020). A two-time All-Star, and Gold Glove Award winner is, at age 28, in the prime of his career. A team trading for him now would have him for the rest of this season and all of 2024. He will not become a free agent until after the 2024 season.

Ideally, in any trade for Bieber, Cleveland would want a right-handed hitting outfielder with power. Currently, the team’s leading right-handed hitting power hitter is utilityman Gabriel Arias, with four home runs. Center fielder Myles Straw hasn’t hit a home run in almost two years. The Guardians’ second-leading right-handed hitting home run hitter, with three, is catcher Mike Zunino, who was released a week ago.