The Guardians will call upon left-handed starting pitcher Parker Messick to start today’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. What should Guardians’ fans expect?
Messick is a 6-foot, 225 lb southpaw drafted 54th overall in 2022 out of Florida State and raised in Plant City, Florida. Overall, in affiliated ball, Messick has a 3.52 FIP and 10.68/3.18 K/BB/9. In Triple-A this season, he has a 3.47 ERA and 10.85/3.83 K/BB/9.
The prospect evaluators generally like Messick, with Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs
ranking him 49th in his midseason top 100 prospects list. Longenhagen’s preseason report on Messick included the following notes:
“Messick’s 92 mph fastball doesn’t have a ton of carry to it, but it does run uphill and can garner whiffs via its angle. His changeup is at least plus, and the loose, whippy nature of Messick’s arm action helps sell it to hitters like a podcaster hawking dietary supplements. It has sharp, late dive and at times moves to Messick’s gloveside like a slider. His two breaking balls — a mid-70s curveball and mid-80s slider — combined give him 45-grade breaking balls that he mostly uses to garner strike one. Pitchers with plus command and plus changeups tend to overachieve, and the ultra-competitive, sneaky athletic Messick (who has shed a good bit of weight since college) is in that vein. He’s tracking like a contender’s fourth starter.“
Keith Law of the Athletic wrote on Messick this spring: “Messick is a stout-bodied lefty with fringy stuff and a lot of deception, working with a 55 changeup and average velocity” ranking him 11th in the Guardians’ system and projecting him as a fourth starter.
MLB Pipeline has Messick 12th in the Guardians system, saying:
“Messick’s great equalizer is his tumbling low-80s changeup, which elicits plenty of chase and swings and misses, along with well-above-average grades from some evaluators. It helps him miss bats with his low-90s fastball, which also benefits from a flat approach angle and good carry up in the zone. He has mostly scrapped his upper-70s curveball and turned what had been an upper-70s slider into a more cutterish mid-80s version that played as an average offering last year.“
Kiley McDaniel of ESPN also moved Messick up to 6th in the Guardians’ system in his midseason prospect rankings update.
Among Guardians’ starters in Columbus, Messick was first in whiff rate (30.4%) and his average fastball was 92.6 mph. He threw his changeup the highest percentage among Columbus starters (21.5% of the time) and hitters had only a .182 xwOBA on the pitch. Messick allowed a .348 xwOBA on his curve ball, a .313 xwOBA on a tight slider, and a .289 xwOBA on his 4-seam fastball. He is fastball-change for 70-75% of his pitches, with the curve and slider existing mostly as “show-me” offerings to keep hitters off the fastball and change-up. Messick has limited right-handed batters to a .666 OPS this season and left-handers to a .611 OPS, numbers that make it clear he has potential to be a starter and not simply a lefty in the pen.
Justin Lada from Locked on Guardians, the News Herald and Next Year in Cleveland, posted a great highlight reel of one of Messick’s excellent starts this season from May, in which Messick struck out 9. Here you can see his change-up absolutely befuddling hitters:
I am excited to see Messick get a chance to try his fiery, competitive demeanor in Cleveland and see if his changeup can continue to get whiffs in the big leagues, allowing him to become a reliable back-end-of-the-rotation arm for the Guardians. It would be nice if he can prove himself and allow the possibility for Joey Cantillo and/or Slade Cecconi to give some assistance to the beleagured Cleveland bullpen for the stretch run.
Welcome to the Guardians, Parker!
