The Guardians have spent the first half of the season doing something almost nobody else in baseball has managed: rolling with the same five starters over and over again.
Through 97 games, Cleveland has leaned on Tanner Bibee, Gavin Williams, Slade Cecconi, Parker Messick and Joey Cantillo. Across the rest of the majors, the other 29 clubs averaged nearly 11 starters over that same stretch. That kind of stability is rare, and it has given the Guardians a rotation identity that stands out even before the season’s second act begins.
That run is about to get a little shakeup, though not a full-blown overhaul. When Cleveland returns from the All-Star break Friday against the Pirates, the order will already be different.
Williams, Cantillo and Bibee are lined up for the three-game set in Pittsburgh, a change from the Opening Day sequence of Bibee, Williams, Cantillo, Cecconi and Messick. The final five starts before the break came from Cecconi, Williams, Messick, Bibee and Cantillo.
“We are definitely going to re-set the rotation,” said manager Stephen Vogt on Sunday before the Guardians completed a three-game sweep of the Marlins to enter the All-Star break.
Messick’s appearance in Tuesday’s All-Star Game in Philadelphia also played into the decision. He worked the second inning, retired the National League in order and did it on 10 pitches.
“There are things we want to set up the best we can coming out of the break,” said Vogt. “It’s kind of mix and match.
It gives us an opportunity to reshuffle the order. We can break up the lefties (Messick and Cantillo) and the righties in Tanner and Gavin.
“We’re going to restructure a little bit.”
The bigger question is whether this group can stay intact all the way through the rest of the season. Probably not, but Cleveland also doesn’t sound eager to rip up what has worked. Vogt made it clear the club will keep an eye on workloads, especially for Messick and Cantillo, who have not gone through a full season as a big-league starter.
“We’re definitely cognizant of the workload,” said Vogt. “I think we saw a little bit of that near the tail end of this (the first half). But he (Messick) finds a way of getting through it.
“We’re aware pf all our guys’ workloads. We’re aware of who has thrown this many innings before and how far they eclipsed it by.”
The first-half numbers help explain why Cleveland has been able to ride this group. Bibee went 3-9 with a 3.90 ERA in 20 starts, while Williams was 10-4 with a 3.81 ERA in 19 starts.
Cantillo posted an 8-4 record and a 3.56 ERA across 20 starts. Cecconi finished 4-6 with a 4.55 ERA in 19 starts, and Messick was 8-5 with a 2.73 ERA in 19 starts.
The workload is the other side of the story. Since turning professional, Bibee’s high-water mark for innings in a season is 182 1/3 in 2025.
Williams has reached 167 2/3 innings in 2025. Cantillo’s most is 116 2/3 in 2025, Cecconi’s is 145 in 2025 and Messick’s is 138 1/3 in 2025.
As a group, the rotation entered the break 33-28 with a 3.69 ERA. It ranked second in the American League in innings pitched at 538 1/3, wins at 33, starts at 97 and pitches thrown at 8,626.
Cleveland is still the outlier in its division, too. The Guardians have used five starters in 2026, while the Twins and Royals have used 10 each, the Tigers 12 and the White Sox 14.
The possibility of a six-man rotation later in the year is not off the table. The Guardians used one last September after rosters expanded on Sept. 1, adding Cantillo to a group that already included Bibee, Williams, Cecconi, Messick and Logan Allen. That move paid off in a big way.
Cleveland went 20-7 in September, won the AL Central on the final day of the season and finished the comeback with Brayan Rocchio’s walk-off homer. The Guardians erased a 15 1/2-game deficit, the biggest comeback in MLB history. The six-man rotation won 13 games and posted a 2.60 ERA in September, good for the second-most wins by any big-league team in any month in the 2025 season and the second-lowest ERA in September behind the Dodgers.
Cantillo was named AL Rookie of the Month after going 2-0 with a 1.55 ERA in five September starts. Messick, who joined the rotation on Aug. 20, went 3-1 with a 2.72 ERA in his first seven big-league starts.
Would Cleveland go that route again this September?
“We’re open to everything,” said Vogt. “We’re not stubborn to anything. We’re going to do the best we can to keep our guys healthy and effective.”
If the Guardians do add a sixth starter again, it almost certainly would wait until Sept. 1 when the rosters expand. Doing it before then would leave Vogt short a bullpen arm, and that seems like a tough ask.
For now, the focus stays on the five-man run and how long it can last. A makeup doubleheader against Detroit on Sept. 4 could make things trickier, but Cecconi said the group has one simple goal.
“We’re trying to make it to the finish line with the same five we started with,” said Cecconi. “It would be really cool to see that happen.”
That would be a franchise milestone. Cleveland’s current rotation has already set a team record with the same five starters making 97 straight starts. The only other five-man group that came close was in 1999, when the same five starters made 79 consecutive starts.
In Other News...
Guardians Pitching Made A Loud All Star Statement On National Stage
Clevelands pitching footprint was all over the 2026 MLB All-Star Game, and it came in the kind of setting that tends to travel well back home. Cade Smith and Parker Messick each handled an inning for the American League in its 4-0 win over the National League, giving Guardians fans a national-stage reminder of how much value the club has found in its arms. Messick worked a perfect second inning, while Smith came through later with a clean sixth that kept the showcase looking easy for the AL.
Smiths turn featured strikeouts of Bryce Harper and Corbin Carroll, the sort of names that make even a short outing feel bigger than the box score. Between the two, the Guardians pitchers delivered two spotless innings and three strikeouts, and for a team that has built so much of its identity around pitching, the All-Star setting only reinforced the point. The more interesting question now is how Cleveland carries that kind of bullpen and rotation momentum into the stretch that matters most. [Read more 🡒]
Parker Messicks All-Star Moment Capped A Guardians Rise Nobody Saw Coming
Parker Messicks rise has been one of the more unexpected developments in a Guardians season that has leaned heavily on stability in the rotation. Cleveland has used only five starters all year, and Messick has become a key part of that group by simply taking the ball and delivering, finishing the first half with a 2.73 ERA over 112 innings and allowing three earned runs or fewer in 16 of his 19 starts.
That consistency carried him all the way to the All-Star Game, where he came out of the American League bullpen first and worked a scoreless inning in the ALs 3-0 win. The moment fit the broader shape of his season: a pitcher whose fastball has been elite by the numbers and whose performance has been steady enough that what once looked like a surprise has started to feel like a real part of Clevelands identity. [Read more 🡒]
More Guardians Prospects Are Suddenly Pushing For 2026 Debuts
The Guardians have already cycled nine prospects into the majors this season, and the next wave may not be far behind. With the organization still looking for answers in spots where depth can matter over a long summer, Austin Peterson, Ralphy Velazquez and Kody Huff have all put themselves in the conversation through their minor league play and the kinds of roles Cleveland tends to reward when the roster starts to stretch.
Angel Genao is also in the mix as a possible call-up, which only adds to the sense that the system is pressing harder toward the finish line. The question now is less about whether more young players will get a look than which ones fit the clubs needs first, and how quickly the Guardians decide to make room for them once the schedule turns past the All-Star break. [Read more 🡒]