Let’s Start With Joey Cantillo
Joey Cantillo may not have ended his regular season on a high note on Friday night, but the Guardians rookie put together a September to be proud of.
As he walked out of the home bullpen a month earlier at Progressive Field in the top of the 8th of an August 26th tilt against the Kansas City Royals, his ERA in MLB for the season was a dreadful 8.47 in four appearances, all of which were starts. But something about coming out of the bullpen on this late summer night would cause Cantillo to make an adjustment that would see him simplify his game and be more aggressive on the mound. The strategy would pay that night as Cantillo would retire all five batters he faced, keeping the Guardians within one run of the Royals in what could have been an important game coming to the home stretch of the American League Central Division race.
Having made an adjustment, and seen it pay off, Cantillo would return to the starting rotation and take that previous success into his next appearance, and then the next one, and the next one. Before you know it, Cantillo closed his last five appearances, starting with the relief effort against KC, with a 2.08 ERA, 1.23 FIP (suggesting he had actually been unlucky to an extent), 30 strikeouts, six walks and no home runs allowed in 21 2/3 innings. The Guardians would go 3-1 in his four starts.
If nothing else, the strong end to this season seems to bode well for both Cantillo and the future of the Guardians. For the 24-year old left-hander to end his season on solid footing gives both himself and the Guardians’ organization confidence that he can compete at the Major League level and should put him in mind to assume a full-time role in the starting rotation going into Spring Training in 2025.
The Guardians have had to cobble together much of their starting staff for most of this season and they’ve done a great job of being resourceful within the organization as well as via mid-season free agency and the waiver wire. At minimum though, there will be two open spots in the rotation going into next season. Cantillo feels like an incumbent candidate to possess one of those spots.
To the contrary, in my mind, September has gone so well for Cantillo, that this should not necessarily be the end of his season, but we will get to that in a moment.
And Now, For Ben Lively
Ben Lively, making his final start of the year on Saturday against the Astros, has performed yeoman’s work this season for the Guardians. He has made 28 starts, pitched 147 innings and posted a MLB career-best 3.80 ERA. He has done this all after signing a contract for less than $1 million this off-season. Additionally, due to an on-again-again MLB career, Lively remains in only his second year of MLB service, meaning the Guardians have him under team control for 2025 and he does not hit arbitration until 2026. The Guardians potentially have Lively for another four more seasons before he were to hit free agency at 36 years old. These circumstances make Lively potentially one of the best value signings of any team in recent memory.
Bringing it back to this year though, Lively has pitched more than 150 innings in total this season (he started the season with rehab starts in the minors). This is the first time he has pitched this many innings in professional baseball since 2017, and unfortunately, I think he is running out of gas.
Lively has not pitched passed the five-inning mark in a start since August 24th against Texas. In the two starts that followed that six-inning performance, Lively pitched successfully into the 5th and 4th innings, respectively, before allowing crooked numbers. The outcomes were a six-run 5th for the Pittsburgh Pirates and a four-run 4th for the Royals. Since those appearances, manager Stephen Vogt seems to have gone to a quicker hook with Lively. Again, Lively hasn’t pitched into the 6th inning since despite low pitch counts, but he has been much more effective in his last three starts since Vogt made an adjustment in Lively’s usage.
That doesn’t mean Lively couldn’t be a strong performer in October, but it does mean he would likely need to be paired with multiple relievers or someone who can pitch multiple innings in order to get leads to the strong back-end of the Guardians’ bullpen.
Setting the Playoff Stage
For their part, the Guardians have locked themselves in as the 2nd best team in the American League. They will receive a bye from the Wildcard playoffs that start next week and are using this final series of the regular season against Houston to rest their pitching and set their starting rotation for the Division Series that will start (potentially against Houston) a week from Saturday on October 5th.
Cantillo’s final start on Friday was partially the machinations of a normal starting rotation and partially subterfuge. The Guardians have had multiple days off in this final week of the regular season. That has given them a lot of flexibility to manipulate their rotation to avoid throwing likely Game One and Game Two starters Tanner Bibee and Matthew Boyd against Houston a week before potentially facing them in the upcoming ALDS. If it is assumed that Alex Cobb will be off the Injured List in order to start Game Three, then Houston will not see any starting pitcher this weekend that they will possibly see a little over a week from now in the playoffs.
This decision by Vogt could be key. Houston is a squad full of smart, veteran hitters. Getting them as few looks against your playoff pitchers as possible could be a significant technique to not allowing them to pick up release points, spin or pitch sequencing for the pitchers they may see most over the course of next week’s playoff series.
Also, with how the was the ALDS schedule will work, the Guardians will likely only need three starters. During the series, the games will be spread out in such a way that the Game One starter (nearly certain to be Bibee) will be able to start Game Four on regular rest. This is a spot of fortune for a Guardians’ team that, as mentioned, hasn’t been very deep in its rotation. Boyd and Cobb are most likely to follow Bibee, but this sequence does depend on the health of Cobb who has been rock solid when he has pitched but has only made three starts all season. Signs point to him being available for Game Three of the ALDS, but if the blister on his pitching hand flares up again, he could easily be removed as an option.
That would leave Cleveland with choices like Gavin Williams, Lively and Cantillo to pitch in a Game Three, even if Cobb is to remain healthy, the Guardians would be left with similar options to start Game Four in a potential American League Championship Series, if they find themselves advancing to the next round.
What About Gavin Williams?
Williams essentially missed the first half of the season, and at least partially, seems to not have entirely recovered. His season ERA stands at a wobbly 4.86, but at the same time, he hasn’t been entirely bad. Seven innings of one-run ball, six innings of one-run ball and five shutout innings all coming against division rivals and all coming in separate months of the second half of the season were all very positive showings. Williams has been fairly dreadful against stiffer competition though. He didn’t escape the first inning against the Dodgers, for instance. A season-high six earned runs in four innings against Baltimore wasn’t so good either. Nor was five allowed in four innings vs. Milwaukee. All of these are playoff teams that he struggled against. At a minimum, he has been inconsistent. At worst, he has been impotent against powerful lineups- which is exactly what he would be facing in October.
The Guardians are prepping Williams for the post-season by having him pitch after an opener on Sunday. They want to give him a test run coming out of the bullpen, presumably because they plan to use him as a long-man/emergency reliever/possible multi-inning weapon out of the pen in the ALDS.
Why they would not use Lively for this role when he has a history of pitching out of the bullpen (Williams doesn’t) and has shown an inclination towards not pitching deep into ballgames recently is questionable.
The Payoff
However, I would go a step farther and say that not only should Lively be tapped to pitch out of the bullpen but he should be planned to be used in tandem with Cantillo.
In combining Lively and Cantillo, you are pairing a left-handed and right-handed pitcher together, so if the opposing manager sets his lineup heavily in favor of opposite handed hitters they will be at a disadvantage once the pitching change has been made. This would also allow Lively to play to his strengths having pitched out of the bullpen before (in my mind, Cantillo would start, but this is debatable, Cantillo did right himself with a relief appearance) and allowing him to not be depended on to pitch deeper into the game, while also not taxing the middle portion of the Guardians bullpen.
It would also allow the Guardians to pitch a couple of their hot hands in tandem. Like I said before, Cantillo’s ERA since late August is 2.08. Lively’s is a staggering 0.75 in his last three starts where Vogt has limited his workload. Often, post-season baseball is not about who was the best all season. Last year’s Rangers-Diamondbacks World Series match-up is proof of that. It is often about who is hot at the right time. As another local example, Jaret Wright pitched less than 100 regular season innings in his rookie year when he was a major contributor to the Indians’ October success in 1997. Riding the hot hand(s) in the right way at the right time can be just as effective as anything else in a short series.
Lastly, Cantillo has only made eight Major League starts. A lot of teams haven’t seen him before or have only seen him once. This is similar to another page from the playbook the Guardians are using this weekend, not allowing teams to see Bibee, Boyd and Cobb. I like the premise of throwing pitchers in the playoffs that are young and haven’t been seen a lot because it adds both surprise and a lack of familiarity for the opposing team.
Now, this isn’t a foolproof plan by any means. While Lively is going to be counted on as a playoff performer at some point regardless, Cantillo’s inexperience could work against him just as much as it could help. Using him and not going with the more struggling but more expected option of Williams is a gamble. It isn’t the orthodox decision. It is the kind of decision that gets second-guessed. Using Lively and Cantillo together also causes the team to have to hold an extra starting pitcher for a specific occasion that may not be necessary when that roster spot could be useful in some other way.
But in a targeted and very specific situation, I do think what would essentially amount to a pitching platoon of Ben Lively and Joey Cantillo in either an ALDS Game Three where it turns out Cobb isn’t able to pitch, or an ALCS Game Three (where Cobb’s blisters return) or Game Four (we didn’t even really talk about who a 4th starter would be, but I think it should be the Cantillo/Lively tandem instead of Williams or Lively on his own) could be incredibly effective. It is the type of creative thinking that a team like the Guardians should be pursuing. It’s the type of creative thinking that could help get you to a World Series.
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