One Decision Will Shape the Entire Construction of the Guardians’ ALDS Roster

12 or 13 pitchers? That is the question

As we inch ever closer to the American League Division Series, Stephen Vogt and the Guardians have some decisions to make regarding the postseason roster. The position players feel almost all but set, but one decision surrounding the pitching staff for the American League Division Series could change it all. Will Stephen Vogt roster 12 or 13 pitchers?

It’s the elephant in the room right now. The early games of the Division Series are more spaced out compared to the Championship Series solely due to being a five-game set, and this works heavily in favor of Cleveland. The Guardians will play Game 1 at home on October 5th, Game 2 on the 7th, and Game 3 on the road on the 9th. Game 4, if necessary, will be played the day after on the 10th, but Game 5, if necessary, will be played on the 12th at home. The spacing of this series makes for a very interesting series of decisions for Vogt.

In 2022, Cleveland and Terry Francona rocked with 12 pitchers, but they had the benefit of having two ace-level starters in Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie with Cal Quantrill tagging along as another sub-4.00 ERA pitcher who racked up 186.1 innings to serve as a viable playoff starter.

However, this situation feels much different. Stephen Vogt’s first year as manager saw Shane Bieber start off as dominant as he’d looked since 2020. That lasted for two starts, and he was immediately shut down, having to get Tommy John surgery. Triston McKenzie battled through injury all last season, and this season, he battled himself. From a mental hurdle coupled with being unable to find his arm slot, Sticks’ season — and possibly career — went up in the air. From there, the only starting pitcher left from last season was Logan Allen, and he went from a serviceable back-of-the-rotation arm in 2023 to batting practice for right-handed hitters. He was promptly demoted and only pitched 97.1 innings at the big league level.

On top of those two regressing severely, Carlos Carrasco, whose right arm has completely fallen off by this point in his career, was asked to get this staff over 100 innings despite running an ERA over 5.00 for months. Gavin Williams has been fighting to find himself all season since he returned from injury, so until August, the rotation was largely carried by Tanner Bibee and Ben Lively. Matthew Boyd, who was a midseason signing, has changed a lot of the dynamic of the rotation since his return from Tommy John, but while Alex Cobb has also provided good starts, he’s only had three of them due to lingering blister issues.

In short, this rotation is being held together by staples and superglue. It’s a far cry from what this team had in 2022. That being said, while 2022 had a very good bullpen, Stephen Vogt and Carl Willis have built arm barn of death this season and won’t have to burn their top starters in the Wild Card round like ‘22’s team did.

This will allow the Guardians to deploy Tanner Bibee and most likely Matthew Boyd to start games one and two of the ALDS at home, but from there, what is the philosophy beyond that? We may have already seen it against Cincinnati. Andrew Walters opened the game and got 1.2 shutout innings before handing the ball off to Erik Sabrowski for another 1.1 scoreless innings. After getting nine outs, they handed the ball off to Cade Smith in the fourth inning, up 1-0, to face the top of Cincinnati’s lineup. Smith promptly rolled through TJ Friedl, Elly De La Cruz, and Tyler Stephenson. From there, Eli Morgan pitched a perfect two innings, and all of a sudden, the Guards are through six perfect innings, in line to hand it over to Herrin, Gaddis, then Clase.

Yes, Gaddis and some shaky defense blew a 2-0 lead. Yes, expecting the Guardians bullpen to pitch six perfect innings every time they pitch is impossibly overzealous, but 90% of the time, Gaddis is nails, and this bullpen is capable of producing extensive amounts of innings of quality pitching against any team in the sport.

It doesn’t even have to be all bullpen either. That’s where starters like Alex Cobb and Gavin Williams come in. As Zack Meisel reported Wednesday afternoon, Gavin’s final appearance of 2024’s regular season will come out of the bullpen to prepare him for his possible role in the postseason. The bullpen game plus this indicate that Vogt is not just obviously aware of what this team’s strength is and how to utilize it, but that he knows he’s going to have to deploy his bullpen as often as he can in order for this team to have a deep run.

Given how the ALDS is formatted with the off day between each of the first three games, it’s likely he still keeps just 12 arms on the roster. Here is what that may look like:

Starters: Tanner Bibee, Matthew Boyd, Alex Cobb, Gavin Williams, Joey Cantillo
Relievers: Pedro Avila, Emmanuel Clase, Hunter Gaddis, Tim Herrin, Erik Sabrowski, Cade Smith, Andrew Walters

First off, Andrew Walters’ postseason eligibility likely comes down to a petition to the commissioner due to injury of someone else who is on the 40-man whose spot he would be occupying. Whether it be Bieber or Karinchak, there is a path forward here for Walters. We’ve seen it in recent years with Evan Carter for the Rangers and Jordan Lawlar for the Diamondbacks among others. With Walters, the stuff, namely his fastball that he rides at the top of the zone, is as dominant as anyone’s in the bullpen. He was predicted to fast-track his way to the major league roster this season, and that’s precisely what he did.

Walks can be a problem for him at times which we’ve already seen, but he still battles through it behind a dominant fastball and wipeout slider. Via Stuff+ on Fangraphs, Walters’ fastball ranks second on the team at 127, behind only Erik Sabrowski’s 128. His slider is also a plus offering, sitting at 111 on the Stuff+ scale (100 is average). Walters has allowed just four baserunners in his eight appearances thus far, and all have been via the free pass, but the stuff and ability to create soft contact get him through it. Walters is running a 38.7% whiff rate and 23.5% hard hit rate thus far. Simply put, he absolutely has to be on the ALDS roster.

This leaves a decision to be made between three pitchers, and it’s keeping Eli Morgan, Joey Cantillo, or Nick Sandlin. If recent performance is any indicator, the decision is between Morgan and Cantillo. Morgan was called back up in early August, and across his 19 appearances since being recalled, Morgan has posted 27.2 innings of 1.30 ERA ball, allowing just 22 baserunners and a .495 OPS against. Here’s the catch to this. Of those 27.2 innings, 5.0 of them came in medium leverage situations and just 1.1 was a high leverage spot. He’s largely been a bulk guy, asked to get innings to alleviate the rotation. With the possibility of both Williams and Cobb being bullpen bulk guys, the need for either Morgan or Cantillo could become redundant.

Cantillo out of the bullpen as depth might just be what he needs. Cantillo has been great in September, striking out 36.7% of batters faced across 16.1 innings while posting a 1.10 ERA in three starts. His command and usage of his changeup has been the game changer for him. He’s cut his slider usage from 11.3% down to 5.3%, and he’s instead thrown his vulcan change way more, and it’s seen immediately better results. His changeup rate has gone from 23.9% all the way up to 34.6%, inducing a staggering 45.2% whiff rate (league average on a changeup is 30.8%). Lance Brodzowski has a great write-up on Cantillo’s alien vulcan change which you can read about here.

The flip side to these two is rostering Nick Sandlin in October. After having a great start to the season as the ultimate fireman, Sandlin’s inherited runners scored rate went from 10% through his first 28 appearances up to a mind boggling 63% since, and his walk rate has ballooned all the way to 13%.

So, it all comes down to what you value. Do you value the sheer value of Cantillo’s stuff despite the inexperience in a bullpen full of rookies, a bullpen arm who has been great recently in low leverage innings with postseason experience but a bad history in high leverage spots or an arm who has been either great in stretches or very bad, but has lots of experience in high leverage spots? I personally lean Cantillo or Morgan, but it’s solely because I don’t think Sandlin is rosterable right now. The ascension of both Erik Sabrowski and Andrew Walters into legitimate pieces in the ‘pen over the past month have made the need for Sandlin on the ALDS roster negligible, and Morgan is fighting an uphill battle with them as well because he simply doesn’t have the stuff to compete.

However, should Vogt decide to roll with 13 arms instead of 12, the Guardians then keep Morgan and Cantillo, but it brings up another decision in this domino effect: Do you keep Daniel Schneemann or Angel Martínez?

Unfortunately, the odd man out is likely Martínez in this scenario solely to just how much he’s struggled since being called back up. Schneemann hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire recently either, but having a left-handed option off the bench who can play six of eight possible positions has value that I’m not sure Martínez can bring right now.

Despite seeing him late in the season due to Kwan’s IL stint, Myles Straw would be a surprise to make the postseason roster. That being said, Straw feels like a Terrance Gore-esque roster situation where having him on the roster as a late inning pinch runner and defensive replacement as an elite defender and base stealer. In his seven games at the end of the season, Straw pinch ran in three of them and swiped a pair of bags without getting caught. He also stole 30 bases in 31 tries in Triple-A this season. He is worth the consideration solely for that, but ultimately, he is likely left off.