How Parker Messick Can Explode Onto the Scene With Cleveland Guardians in 2026

MLB released its top 100 prospects last week, and now analysts are breaking down every angle possible.

Jim Callis breaks down the best tools on the list, and a Cleveland Guardians prospect got a favorable mention.

PARKER MESSICK’S CHANGEUP

Guardians’ pitcher Parker Messick ranked at number 95 on this year’s top 100 list. Messick came up at the end of last season, starting seven games. In those games, he had a stellar 2.72 ERA, giving up 46 hits in 39.2 innings pitched to go along with 38 strikeouts and only six walks.

His second-most-used pitch is his changeup, and that is the weapon highlighted by Callis. Messick has used his changeup as a weapon throughout his career, dating back to his time with Florida State. He does not throw hard, only in the 21st percentile on Baseball Savant, so having an effective changeup is paramount.

His changeup comes in in the mid-80s, which dips and tails off just enough to lock up lefties and twist up righties. Last year, between the majors and minors, Messick was allowing a .176 batting average and a .209 slugging percentage with 59 strikeouts in 148 at-bats using his changeup.

If you needed further proof on the effectiveness of his changeup, he had a whiff percentage of 31.2% on the changeup, the best of all five of his pitches. He also had an xBA of .204 using the pitch.

Due to his fastball playing off his effective change, Messick was better than league average in ground ball rate, getting a grounder 48.8% of the time. The MLB average is 44.2%. His fly ball rate is also well below MLB average, at 20.7%, compared to the average of 24.0% across baseball.

Messick lives off soft contact, emphasized by the ground ball rate. Looking deeper, his hard hit percentage and barrel rates are also below the Major League average. MLB’s average barrel rate as a pitcher was 7.2% in 2025. Messick’s rate was 5.8%.

The average number of times a batter topped a ball against a pitcher was 32.4% across MLB last season. Messick forced batters to top the ball 41.3% of the time. Lastly, he only gave up solid contact 4.1% of the time, compared to MLB’s average of 5.9%.

Messick had a great start to his MLB career. Now, with a year of experience, getting every day experience, and high-leverage experience, the Guardians should expect a leap from Messick this year, especially working another offseason and Spring with Carl Willis.

Messick certainly flashed at the end of last year for the Guardians, helping them keep that six-man rotation that helped them nail down the AL Central title. Messick will likely be a part of the original five at the beginning of the year, but he could eventually be a top-three or top-two pitcher on this staff come postseason time.