Parker Messick and His Well-Executed Changeup Are Impressing in Cleveland

BOSTON — The Cleveland Guardians drafted Parker Messick 54th overall in 2022, and the decision to do so is looking increasingly shrewd. Since making his major league debut on August 20, the 24-year-old southpaw out of Florida State University has taken the mound five times and fashioned a 1.84 ERA and a 2.50 FIP over 29 1/3 innings. And while his 18.3% strikeout rate in the majors isn’t impressive, Messick fanned 29.1% of batters prior to his call-up, suggesting the strikeout stuff is still to come. When Eric Longenhagen wrote about Messick in late May, he pointed out that the lefty “leads the minors in strikeouts since 2023.”

What makes Messick effective is a combination of factors that belie his pedestrian velocity and lack of an elite breaking ball. As our lead prospect analyst explained when ranking the 50-FV prospect fourth in the Guardians system, “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.” Eric went on to write that his “changeup is at least plus.”

Messick considers his changeup to be his best pitch.

“I would say that it is,” Messick told me when Cleveland played in Boston earlier this month. “As far as swing-and-miss goes, yeah. When it’s paired right with my other stuff — when I’m tunneling it off of my other pitches — is when it is at its best. It does have some sharp movement down at the end, I guess. It also has just enough speed differential to get that swing-and-miss at the bottom when they’re out in front of it.”

Asked if he could elaborate on his favorite weapon, Messick said he has thrown the pitch the same way since his freshman year of high school. He described the grip as “like a funky circle — I’ve never met anyone who grips it exactly the same way — but if you break it down, it’s really just a circle changeup. Other than that, I don’t really know how to describe it.”

Carl Willis has a good understanding of why Messick’s changeup is effective, although he too lacked a concise description.

“I don’t know the right adjective to use,” Cleveland’s pitching coach told me. “But obviously it’s got shape. He executes it. He throws it super aggressively. It matches his delivery — it matches his fastball — so it’s hard for hitters to pick up because of how aggressively he throws that pitch. He charges at the hitter. And then he creates tremendous sink and run with it.”

Per Baseball Savant, the pitch gets 35.5 inches of vertical drop and 14.8 inches of arm-side horizontal break. At 84.5 mph, it doesn’t get extreme velocity separation from his 92.7-mph fastball, but it’s enough to flummox hitters when he’s sequencing well. Again, playing his pitches off of one another is integral to his success. So what’s his second-best offering? Messick gave a two-in-one answer.

“Probably my four-seam fastball,” he said. “When you play the north-south game with some velo differential, that combination is my best pitch. My fastball is around 93, kind of league average, but it does have a decent profile. There are a lot of factors that play into heaters, whether it’s sequencing, the delivery, the arm angle, if you hide the ball. It’s not just one thing.” The average four-seamer from a starting pitcher this season comes in at 94.1 mph, or 1.4 mph harder than Messick’s, but his point about how to succeed despite not having overwhelming velo stands.

As for the rest of his repertoire, Messick has a curveball which “has always been there,” as well as a sinker he added this year, and a slider that has evolved from a “sweepier slower pitch to a harder, sharper slider with a little cut.”

Which brings us to the Guardians’ decision to call the Plant City, Florida native’s name in the second round of the 2022 draft. Eric Binder plays an integral role in Cleveland’s pitching-development program, and he has input in the organization’s draft decisions, so I asked the assistant GM what made Messick a desirable selection.

“He was always going to take the ball, and you were always seeing the best of Parker day in and day out,” Binder said. “That was one of the strengths to his profile. You saw that in terms of his performance consistency. Secondary to that, he had some unique delivery quality and pitch shapes that organizationally we appreciated. We felt like the way he moves would complement well with what we’ve been successful doing on the player development side.”

Binder chose not to go into specifics on the unique delivery quality and pitch shapes, but he was amenable to addressing the importance of the changeup.

“That’s always been his top secondary pitch,” the executive told me. “Having a plus secondary weapon that you can lean on is important, so the challenge for him coming into the system was, ‘How do you sustain the best fastball and changeup quality, but then build out the rest of the arsenal to be successful at the major league level?’ He’s done a good job with that.”

The early returns serve as ample proof. It’s only been five starts, but Messick is looking like he could be a mainstay in the Guardians starting rotation for years to come. The changeup is a big reason why.