This story was excerpted from Tim Stebbins’ Guardians Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CLEVELAND -- Starting pitching was the Guardians’ backbone in 2026 amid an exceptional streak of durability.
That durability is one of the reasons why augmenting the staff is one of Cleveland’s primary offseason objectives.
“We’re looking to add starting pitching. We need more,” Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti told reporters, including MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince, this week at the General Managers Meetings in Las Vegas.
“Trade, free agency, if we can add a starter, we want to do that.”
This is a different situation, Antonetti noted, than two years ago. The Guardians entered the 2024-25 offseason concerned about the quality and depth of their starting pitching. Adding rotation help wasn’t just a goal, but a pressing need. Cleveland ultimately traded for Slade Cecconi and Luis Ortiz and re-signed right-hander Shane Bieber.
The Guardians have enough depth to build a rotation next season. But they want to add to their options.
Only eight pitchers made a start for the Guardians this past season in Logan Allen, Tanner Bibee, Joey Cantillo, Cecconi, Daniel Espino (three turns as an opener), Foster Griffin, Parker Messick and Gavin Williams. Cleveland was the lone MLB team with four pitchers who made at least 30 starts.
Before a July 18 doubleheader against the Pirates prompted the Guards to recall Allen from Triple-A Columbus, Cleveland was the lone team to have used just five starters.
That durability is a testament to the pitchers’ preparation and the Guardians’ training staff. But you can’t count on that to again be the case next season.
“We were in a place organizationally [two years ago] where we didn’t know what we had and weren’t sure who was ready to be a capable and dependable Major League pitcher,” Antonetti said. “We’re not at that point. We just need to make sure we’re adding to our options.”
The free-agent market includes a number of options the Guardians could look to beyond top-of-the-market ace Tarik Skubal. Pitchers who could land more in Cleveland’s range include, but are not limited to, right-handers such as Tyler Mahle, Casey Mize, Jack Flaherty and Michael Soroka, and lefties such as Matthew Boyd, Kris Bubic, Griffin and David Peterson.
As it stands, the Guards’ internal options include Allen, Bibee, Cantillo, Cecconi, Messick and Williams. Messick and Williams were anchors this past season and provide a good foundation. The Guardians hope Bibee gets back on track after an up-and-down season in which he fell out of the rotation trust circle during the playoffs.
Cantillo will prepare as a starter this winter after command issues prompted the Guardians to use him in relief behind Espino three times in September. Cecconi will build up his volume after he transitioned to the bullpen following Griffin’s arrival at the Trade Deadline.
The Guardians haven’t determined whether Espino will serve as a starter or reliever. They want to work with him and their training staff on what makes the most sense workload-wise after he missed most of the 2022-25 seasons due to two right shoulder surgeries, before he reached the Majors as a reliever in '26.
All that to say, there's room to add someone to enhance this mix.
Griffin figures to have a healthy market and could be a reunion candidate after he successfully returned to MLB in 2026 after pitching in Japan the previous three seasons. The 31-year-old earned an All-Star selection with the Nationals, with whom he logged a 3.06 ERA in 129 1/3 innings over 22 starts before the Guardians acquired him on Aug. 3.
Griffin had a 5.19 ERA in 43 1/3 innings over nine starts with Cleveland, though that was marred by his Sept. 9 outing against the Orioles (eight earned runs over 2 1/3 innings). In his other seven regular-season starts with the Guards, the lefty had a 3.73 ERA in 41 innings, followed by a 3.48 ERA in 10 1/3 innings over three postseason appearances (including one start).
“There were some times he wasn’t at his best for the first few weeks,” Antonetti said. “There were some things he was working through mechanically. Those improved as the season went on, and I think we saw a really good version of Foster in the postseason and he’s demonstrated capable of being a really effective Major League pitcher.”