3 Guardians who could define the team's success in second half

As we now move past a Midsummer Classic that was swept up in a flooding of Americana centered around baseball and its celebration of the nation’s quarter millennium birthday, it's time to focus our attention to the present and future of the MLB regular season that only has 65 games remaining (along with the trade deadline).

For their part, the Guardians have withstood many obstacles (most coming in the form of injuries) and enter the second half tied a top the AL Central. The division, however, is perhaps the most interesting it has been in some time and wrestling it from the grips of its other contenders will prove to be a challenging task.

MLB’s greatest surprise, the Chicago White Sox, are also in first place with the same .526 winning percentage as the Guardians. The Minnesota Twins, who could be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline are shockingly only three games back and tied for a Wild Card spot. 

Meanwhile, the Tigers have slowly clawed (no pun intended) their way back in the race and the next few weeks will determine whether they trade Tarik Skubal, the most decorated trade deadline asset since the Nationals traded Juan Soto in 2022.

The Guardians are the incumbents, which has them in position to complete for three-peat of claiming the AL Central crown.

In order to do so, they will likely need these three players to preform well down the stretch.

The Guardians have plenty of players who need to have strong second halves

Gavin Williams

Gavin Williams is a bit of a maddening case of a pitcher who has been blessed with the tools needed to be successful, but has yet to truly become the ace everyone believes he can be.

Last season, he had a 3.06 ERA and 173 strikeouts in just 167 2/3 innings, but led MLB with 83 walks. 

While he is unlikely to match that walk total this season, he is still struggling to put away batters quickly as his pitch count is often in the nineties through five innings. As a result, he has made it through six innings once since the beginning of June.

The good news is Williams has only given up more than three earned runs once since May 10 and continues to record strikeouts at a high rate. He has also averaged less than one hit allowed per inning since May 22.

If Williams can continue to lower his walk rate and find a way to work deeper into games, it will benefit a Guardians team whose bullpen is not as sharp as years’ past, and will also provide a 1B ace to Parker Messick as 1A. 

Bryan Rocchio

Rocchio’s start to the 2026 season has been a bit of a godsend for a franchise that's been in desperate need of any kind of offense from its middle infield.

He has already surpassed his career-high in bWAR, currently sitting at 2.6 this season, and has a slash line of .276/.343/.408.

He has shown a flair for the dramatic as well and continued to show why he earned the moniker “Playoff Rocchio."

Defensively, Rocchio has continued to be a steady glove. He leads the Guards in Fielding Run Value (essentially how many runs above average a player is worth) and is seventh in baseball among qualified shortstops. 

Prior to the Guardians' slew of injuries, Rocchio was the most productive No. 9 hitter in baseball.

But those injuries have caused him to see more at-bats in the second and third spots in the order, and while his batting average has been similar, his OBP and OPS have both gone down when hitting in those spots.

But regardless of where Rocchio's hitting in the lineup, he's been the kind of productive bat the Guardians desperately needed.

Hunter Gaddis

Gaddis may not be as sexy of a pick as the two players above, but he's just as important.

The Guardians bullpen currently sits in the middle of a clump of teams (3.70 ERA; ninth in MLB) as good, but not great. While type of evaluation would likely fly for most clubs, previous iterations of Cleveland's bullpen have set a high bar to clear.

Gaddis struggled to begin his season after an early stint on the IL, but has been rather remarkable since the first week of May. Since May 9, he has allowed only two earned runs while pitching in a setup role ahead of Cade Smith. Since that time, Gaddis' ERA has dropped from 7.88 to 2.64.

Yes, the Guardians could (and probably should) add at least one more bullpen piece, which is another discussion to be had as we approach the deadline.

But, if Gaddis can continue the dominance he flashed heading into the All-Star break, the Guardians should win plenty of games thank to the 1-2 punch at the back of their bullpen.

Who is to say how the rest of the baseball season pans out? As we saw only a year ago, a lot can happen and the randomness of the game is one of baseball's charms.

The Guardians have yet another great shot at a postseason berth, as has been the case for the better part of the last decade. And something tells me that any fall success will come on the back of the three players listed above.

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