Parker Messick is now in a club all by himself.
On Wednesday, the Cleveland Guardians’ left-hander will likely finish third in AL Cy Young voting behind Yankees ace Cam Schlittler and Blue Jays right-hander Dylan Cease. Messick being announced as a finalist confirmed him as just the sixth rookie in MLB history to finish in the top three of Cy Young voting, joining Mark Fidrych (1976), Fernando Valenzuela (1981), Dwight Gooden (1984), Jose Fernandez (2013) and Paul Skenes (2024).
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All five previous rookie Cy Young finalists were named Rookie of the Year for their standout debut campaigns. But on Monday, Messick finished second in 2026 AL Rookie of the Year voting behind Tigers infielder Kevin McGonigle, who received 28 out of 30 first-place votes.
This outcome says plenty about just how special of a season McGonigle put together on his way to surpassing Messick in this race. And as one of the two voters who put Messick first on their ballot, I can now discuss how I arrived at that conclusion.
This was not an easy decision, and it became only more difficult as neither Messick nor McGonigle faltered down the stretch of the regular season. To be clear, McGonigle is quite obviously a worthy winner. Watching the early stages of his career has been an absolute treat, as he quickly proved that his special hit tool, lauded by scouts during his high school days, translates seamlessly to the pro ranks.
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Since he was drafted in 2023, I watched from afar as McGonigle tore through the minor leagues. Then I got my first in-person look last year in the Arizona Fall League, where he was the best player in the league by a mile and also one of the youngest. His brilliant 2025 across three levels of the minors launched him into the highest rung of top prospect lists, alongside Pittsburgh’s Konnor Griffin and Milwaukee’s Jesus Made. And of those three, it was McGonigle who made the big-league team out of spring training and wasted no time announcing his presence, with four hits in his major-league debut on Opening Day.
After four games batting sixth, McGonigle never hit lower than third in Detroit’s lineup for the remainder of the season. Meanwhile, the 21-year-old bounced between shortstop and third base, depending on what the Tigers needed. I watched him in person on multiple occasions in 2026, including at the All-Star Game in Philadelphia, where he was the youngest player on either roster. A few weeks later, I was in Detroit when he walked off the Dodgers during Tarik Skubal’s emotional homecoming weekend, offering a resounding reminder that the Tigers’ future is still bright with McGonigle leading the way.
There’s no shortage of stats indicating that McGonigle’s season was special, but by the end, it was the consistency and bulk of excellence that stood out. From Opening Day through September, McGonigle was a dependable, daily fixture in Detroit’s lineup en route to an AL-leading 707 plate appearances — the most by a rookie since Ichiro Suzuki (738) and Jimmy Rollins (720) in 2001.
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It’s no surprise, then, that the Tigers felt comfortable making an enormous commitment to McGonigle, inking an eight-year, $150 million extension just a few weeks into his career. He’s that good. And if you’re asking me whom I’d rather have on my team moving forward, I’d take McGonigle over not only Messick but also almost any other young position player in the game today. But in trying to assess which rookie season was more impressive, I ended up leaning toward Messick, if ever so slightly.
WAR (Wins Above Replacement) is an easy place to start when sorting through any modern award race, but it didn’t really do me any favors here. While WAR is an outstanding, catch-all measure of all-around value, I’m less inclined to rely on it when two players are within 1 WAR of each other. That was the case with McGonigle and Messick by all three of the most prominent metrics: Baseball Reference (bWAR) had McGonigle at 7.1 to Messick’s 6.3, FanGraphs (fWAR) had McGonigle at 5.4 to Messick’s 4.9, and Baseball Prospectus (WARP) had McGonigle at 5.2 to Messick’s 4.9.
McGonigle’s 7.1 bWAR led all AL players (hitters and pitchers) in 2026. It was the seventh-most by a rookie position player since integration (1947) and the most by a rookie since Aaron Judge’s 8.1 in 2017. Messick’s 6.3 bWAR was third in the AL behind McGonigle and presumptive AL Cy Young winner Cam Schlittler (7.0). His mark rated similarly historically among rookies, tied for seventh among rookie pitchers since integration and the most by a rookie pitcher since Mark Eichhorn’s 7.3 in 1986. By fWAR, Messick stands out even more historically. His 4.9 is tied with six others (including Valenzuela and Spencer Strider) for eighth among rookie pitchers since integration, while McGonigle’s 5.4 is tied with recent rookie standouts Jackson Merrill and Corbin Carroll for 21st among position players.
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With WAR failing to give me a decisive answer, I dug into the degree to which each candidate stood out relative to not only their first-year peers but also the league as a whole. It was apparent by midsummer that McGonigle and Messick had separated themselves from the rest of the rookie pack. So how did their performances stack up against the big leagues’ best hitters and pitchers, regardless of experience? This framing, in a nutshell, is what tilted me toward Messick.
Messick was not a premier prospect like McGonigle, but he wasn’t a total nobody, either. Unheralded at a Tampa-area high school, the lefty blossomed into a brilliant college pitcher at Florida State. Still, his modest stature and lack of impact velocity limited his prospect stock leading up to the 2022 draft, in which the Guardians took him in the second round. He climbed Cleveland’s minor-league system methodically, flummoxing opposing hitters with his funky uptempo delivery and pinpoint command. He made his major-league debut on Aug. 20, 2025, and quietly shined down the stretch, posting a 2.72 ERA across 39 ⅔ innings.
Messick’s stellar first impression boosted his status in scouting circles — you could find him in the bottom 20 of most top-100 prospect lists entering 2026. Still, he did not arrive at spring camp with a guaranteed rotation spot. In fact, it was not until the final days of spring training that he secured a role on Cleveland’s starting staff, making him the Guardians’ No. 5 starter to begin the year. But it didn’t take long for him to shed that label and emerge as a legitimate frontline arm.
In 2026, Messick was one of just 22 hurlers league-wide to make at least 32 regular-season starts. And not only did he log more innings (186 ⅓) than any rookie since Sandy Alcantara in 2019 (197 ⅓) but he also did it in an era in which such workloads are rarer than ever. This year, Messick was one of just 13 pitchers to clear the 180-inning threshold; that’s by far the fewest 180-inning pitchers MLB has ever produced in a non-shortened season, breaking the previous record of 20 in 2021. A decade ago, that number was 46. In 2006, it was 70.
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And Messick wasn’t just eating innings. Among 46 qualified starters, he ranked sixth in ERA (2.56), ninth in FIP (3.07), eighth in WHIP (1.063) and ninth in OPS allowed (.623). His four-seam fastball — which spiked from sitting 92 mph as a prospect to averaging 94.4 mph and climbing as high as 98 mph — ranked as the fifth-most valuable individual pitch in the majors by run value and accounted for 101 of his 193 strikeouts. Another 71 of those punchouts came courtesy of Messick’s terrific changeup; only Cristopher Sánchez produced more strikeouts via cambio in 2026.
Across the 2026 season, the reliability of Messick’s run prevention was staggering. His ERA over such a sizable sample of innings was remarkable; among 115 qualified rookie pitchers in the wild-card era (since 1995), only Fernandez in 2013 (2.19) and Hideo Nomo in 1995 (2.54) logged lower ERAs. This was possible because of Messick’s ability to avoid the kind of total clunkers that would single-handedly damage his sterling stats. He never allowed more than four earned runs in an outing, and even that happened only three times. Messick delivered 18 starts with one or zero earned runs allowed, third-most in the majors behind only Cy Young favorites Schlittler (25) and Jacob Misiorowski (20). He completed five innings in all but two starts — and one of those was an abbreviated outing in Game 162 as Cleveland prepared for the postseason.
Speaking of the postseason: It does seem that Messick’s outlier workload caught up to him in October, when his command uncharacteristically faltered across four postseason starts, three of which Cleveland lost. While he was far from the only one responsible for Cleveland’s postseason exit, Messick’s relatively lackluster showing as one of the team’s best players was disappointing in the context of Cleveland’s push to end MLB’s longest World Series drought.
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That said, the Guardians wouldn’t have even sniffed a first-round bye without Messick’s contributions in the regular season. And with my ROY ballot due before postseason games began, I felt comfortable putting Messick atop my ballot, based on what had transpired over the previous six months.
Across the 2026 season, McGonigle managed to live up to the sky-high expectations — that’s no small feat — and he is most certainly deserving of Rookie of the Year honors. But Messick delivered beyond the preseason projections and then some, putting together a historic rookie campaign of his own. In the end, I decided he did enough to earn my vote.
A quick rundown of the rest of my ballot
3. Chase DeLauter, Guardians
4. Payton Tolle, Red Sox
5. Munetaka Murakami, White Sox
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For third place, it was a coin-toss between Tolle and DeLauter, both of whom wowed me throughout their rookie campaigns. I ended up going with DeLauter due to his season-long steadiness as Cleveland’s best bat. Talent has never been a question for the 25-year-old, but a litany of injuries have limited his availability since he was selected in the first round in 2022. But this season, DeLauter and the Guardians collaborated on a plan to effectively manage his workload, and he amassed 559 plate appearances across 133 games played, including 69 starts in right field and 60 at DH.
And when available, DeLauter delivered excellent results: His 131 wRC+ was not just tops among AL rookies (ahead of even McGonigle) but also 10th among qualified AL hitters. He was one of just four AL sluggers to post a slugging percentage above .450 (.457) and a strikeout rate below 20% (14.7%). The other three: Yordan Alvarez (.601 SLG%, 17.3% K-rate), Junior Caminero (.524 SLG%, 18.4% K-rate) and Miguel Vargas (.474 SLG%, 17.9% K-rate).
While it did not officially count toward his case, it’s worth noting that DeLauter seemed to level up in October, hitting .310/.396/.452 with more walks (6) than strikeouts (4) across Cleveland’s 11 postseason contests. Even as the Guardians’ offense sputtered, DeLauter delivered quality at-bats and was a menace for both Chicago’s and Tampa Bay’s pitching staffs.
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Tolle was terrific, too. Watching him emerge as one of Boston’s best pitchers and one of the league’s most likable personalities was a highlight of the 2026 season. Having begun the season in Triple-A, Tolle’s late start prevented him from accumulating a major-league workload on par with Messick’s, but he was similarly excellent on a per-inning basis.
I could have gone in a number of directions with my final spot. There was another Guardians standout in Travis Bazzana, who was named an All-Star as a rookie but faded badly in August before finishing strong in September. The White Sox had a pair of rock-solid rookie contributors in outfielders Tristan Peters and Sam Antonacci. Even the last-place Royals had Carter Jensen, an impressively reliable power source (27 HR, .467 SLG%) and an exciting next chapter behind the plate as Kansas City prepares for life after Salvador Perez.
There was also Toronto’s Kazuma Okamoto, a bright spot in an otherwise dismal season for the Blue Jays’ offense, and Rule 5 pick Spencer Miles, one of the best multi-inning relievers in the American League. Athletics outfielder Henry Bolte ranked 10th among position players in fWAR from Aug. 1 through the end of the season. I even took a look at hard-throwing Angels right-hander Walbert Urena, whose surface-level numbers (2.97 ERA in 148 ⅓ innings) were eye-catching but whose peripherals didn’t quite measure up.
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Ultimately, though, I thought Murakami’s memorable rookie campaign warranted inclusion on my ballot. Chicago’s spectacular and speedy turnaround from deep rebuild to a postseason appearance was one of the biggest stories of the 2026 season, and Murakami was too big a part of that tale to ignore. I wanted his introduction to the major leagues — as much of a roller coaster ride as it was from start to finish — represented on my ballot, so he earned my fifth and final vote.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
