A Look Into Slade Cecconi’s First Start in The Guardians’ Organization

Could we potentially see him in Cleveland soon?

The Guardians acquired Slade Cecconi along with a Competitive Balance Round B Draft pick in exchange for Josh Naylor last offseason. Cecconi made his first official start as a member of the Guardians organization on Wednesday after missing the first month of the season due to an oblique injury. He gave up 2 earned runs that were allowed as inherited, struck out five, walked two, and gave up just one hit in 3.1 innings pitched. When you look at the surface, the stat line doesn’t blow you away, but there are some interesting takeaways if you look below the surface.

Before we dive into this I want to be clear that this data is from just one start, so it is a small sample size and could change over the next few starts. The first and most important takeaway is the fact that he significantly decreased his four-seam fastball usage, and added a sinker and a cutter. This is something you see more and more pitchers doing when they aren’t getting the results they need with their four seamer, and it makes sense for Cecconi, because his four seamer got crushed last season when he started on the Diamondbacks. In 2024, opposing hitters hit .329 with a .582 slugging percentage against his fastball. Not only was it getting crushed, but he wasn’t getting it by anyone either, as the pitch rendered just a 16.4% whiff rate. So what did the Guardians do? Instead of having Cecconi throw his fastball 54.8% of the time like he did in 2024, he threw his fastball just 28% of the time in his first start, and had him add almost two completely new pitches. A sinker and a cutter. He threw just two cutters in all of 2024, and it was a completely different pitch from the cutter we saw on Wednesday. He threw 14 total fastballs, 9 sinkers, and 8 cutters, and the results were beautiful. His cutter had an absurd 66.7% whiff rate, and neither pitch rendered anything close to hard contact. His slider is mostly the same as it was last year, but in his first start it had an absurd 42.9% whiff rate. It will be very interesting to see if these pitches continue to play well off of each other.

Another takeaway I have is that so far, they have completely scrapped his changeup, which is a little odd to me considering that he threw it a fair amount and it was one of his best pitches from a results standpoint in 2024. I’m interested to see if he starts throwing it again in future starts.

When could we potentially see Slade Cecconi start in Cleveland? I think if he continues to pitch like he did on Wednesday, we could see him at some point before Bieber returns. I would imagine it will come down to how Logan Allen and Ben Lively are performing. Right now, they are pitching well enough that there is no need to make a move, but I don’t think they trust Logan Allen all that much so he will likely have a somewhat short leash if he has a couple bad starts in a row.

As someone who was initially disappointed in the return for Josh Naylor, I am super optimistic about Cecconi after seeing the changes that he and the Guardians have made. Let’s hope the results continue to come and he continues to pitch well enough to become a member of the starting rotation for the foreseeable future!