What to expect from Guardians' Gavin Williams in the Majors

Another arm is coming. And this one might be Cleveland’s best arrival yet in 2023.

The Guardians are bringing up No. 16 overall prospect Gavin Williams to make his Major League debut Wednesday at home against the Athletics. Williams joins former Top 100 talent Tanner Bibee and lefty Logan Allen among rookies to debut in the Cleveland rotation this season, but neither of those two hurlers reached the heights Williams has in prospect rankings.

The 23-year-old right-hander heads to The Show after posting a 2.93 ERA and 1.09 WHIP with 61 strikeouts in 46 innings with Triple-A Columbus. He was even more dominant at Double-A Akron, where he opened the 2023 season and allowed just one earned run while fanning 20 in 14 1/3 frames.

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The 6-foot-6 hurler’s stuff backs up the results, and that’s what Cleveland brass is banking on with Wednesday’s move.

Williams has touched 101.1 mph with his four-seam fastball this spring, giving him the fastest pitch thrown by an International League starting pitcher in 2023 as measured by Statcast. That same heater has averaged 96.9 mph over his nine Triple-A starts. Emmanuel Clase (97.7) is the only Cleveland pitcher to average a higher velo in the Majors this season on a four-seamer, and the closest starter is Bibee (95.2). Seventy-three of Williams’ 119 whiffs with Columbus (61.3 percent) have come on the four-seam alone.

While Williams has generated the most swings-and-misses on his fastball, his mid-80s slider and upper-70s curveball have arguably been just as instrumental in holding batters at bay in the Minors.

The slider is his best secondary weapon against fellow righties with tight two-plane break that keeps them off balance (and off the fastball) while the curve drops in nicely against lefties. Notably, Williams didn’t allow an extra-base hit off his deuce in Triple-A, and while he used his fading upper-80s changeup more sparingly than his other offspeed offerings, he held left-handed batters to a .181/.326/.250 line in Triple-A – quite comparable to the .190/.247/.393 one sported by righties against him at the same level.

Using that whole arsenal, Williams earned swinging strikes on 15.4 percent of his pitches thrown with Columbus, the highest rate among Triple-A pitchers (min. 40 IP) this season. For comparison, Spencer Strider (19.6 percent), Luis Castillo (15.6) and Shane McClanahan (15.6) are the only Major League starters with higher swinging-strike rates in 2023.

That said, Cleveland has become notorious in recent years for taking college pitchers with stellar control and improving their stuff (particularly their fastball velocities) in pro ball. Williams doesn’t quite fit that narrative.

The former East Carolina star has thrown hard dating back to his high school days but walked around four batters per nine innings in his first two seasons on campus in 2018 and 2019. It wasn’t until 2021 that he truly popped with improved strike-throwing ability, posting a 1.88 ERA with 130 strikeouts and only 21 walks in 115 innings. The Guardians selected him 23rd overall that July, but even in the two years since, he's been more about blowing hitters away with K’s than keeping them off the basepaths with free passes. Williams’ 33.3 percent K rate ranks second in Triple-A, while his 11.5 percent walk rate places 68th among 103 pitchers at that level with at least 40 innings.

Those control woes could be the only things that hold Williams back from flying out of the gate in Cleveland. Bibee (4.05 ERA) and Allen (3.95 ERA) have both been solid rookie contributors through the season’s first three months, but both lack Williams’ swing-and-miss ceiling. With a downtrodden AL Central very much within the Guardians’ grasp, Williams could become the club’s No. 2 starter behind Shane Bieber beginning Wednesday and heading into the second half.