Joey Cantillo re-established himself a spot in the Guardians’ rotation late in 2025 – what should we expect from him for 2026?
In a fairly usual experience for young pitchers, Cantillo did some bouncing
between the bullpen, the rotation and Triple-A in his first full major league season. His year was mostly a tale of two halves – from Opening Day until the end of May, Cantillo had a 3.81 ERA, a 4.37 FIP, and 11.44/4.45 K/BB/9. He then spent June in Columbus, working on controlling the strike zone, and it seemed to work; from July-September, Cantillo had a 2.96 ERA and a 3.21 FIP with a 9.67/3.76 K/BB/9 (including 8.69/1.86 K/BB/9 and 1.55 ERA/2.72 FIP in September).
As you can see, Cantillo sacrificed some whiff in exchange for staying in the zone and allowing hitters to put the ball in play and it worked for him. In his first half, Cantillo threw 41% fastballs, 37% changeups, 14% curveballs, and 8% sliders; in the second half, the mix was 42% fastballs, 28% changeups, 21% curveballs, and 9% sliders. Cantillo’s changeup is his best out-pitch, but it seems that he discovered that a “less is more” philosophy enhances that pitch’s effectiveness. Because Cantillo’s curveball is also very good, he was able to keep hitters guessing by increasing the amount he threw it and decreasing the use of his devastating change.
Cantillo has a lot of variability on his fastball. Sometimes he throws it up to 96 mph, but then he’ll toss it in at 89 mph. Overall, the pitch averaged about 92 mph. Perhaps, with an offseason to build off of the 120 innings he threw in 2025, he’ll be able to gain some ability to sustain a higher velocity with the pitch, which would make a lot of difference in its effectiveness, as well as the effectiveness of the changeup. However, the fastball velocity variance is a reason it may be wise to consider Cantillo still as a 1-2 inning high leverage reliever.
An oddity for Cantillo’s career in the big leagues is that he is a much better pitcher against RHP than LHP. He has a career 5.15 FIP against LHP and a 3.22 FIP against RHP. This variance is entirely due to almost 100 percentage points of additional slugging for lefties off of him, as well as 3.5 more walks per 9. An offseason project should be figuring out how to get in the zone more often against lefties and focusing on keeping their barrels from his pitches. He’s a lefty, so this should be possible, and Cantillo’s 3.22 FIP, 10.28/3.22 K/BB/9 against RHP overall is the line of a #2 starter, which is certainly why he has rightly stuck in the rotation instead of being moved to the pen.
Getting through a whole season healthy was a big win for Cantillo. Helping lead the team to a historic comeback to win a division in September with a series of dominant starts using a revamped pitch mix should also help his confidence going into 2026. He should enter Spring Training with a clear path to win a rotation spot again, with the fallback of having the potential to be an excellent reliever as needed.
