3 Guardians who must make most of new opportunity with players departing for WBC

The World Baseball Classic is officially here. After a three-year wait, baseball’s top international tournament officially kicks off tonight when Australia takes on Chinese Taipei in the first game of Pool C. 

And Guardians fans will have plenty of familiar faces to watch during the three-week long tournament, as nine players from the Guardians’ organization will appear in the tournament for their home country. 

Of those nine, five are coming from the Guardians’ big league roster: Bo Naylor (Canada), Stuart Fairchild (Chinese Taipei), Travis Bazzana (Australia), Matt Festa (Italy) and Logan Allen (Panama). 

Although the tournament will attract plenty of attention from across the baseball world, all 30 MLB teams will still be holding spring training action across Arizona and Florida.

And, with multiple MLB players gone to the tournament, there will be plenty of opportunities available for the players left in their big league camps.

Here are three Guardians who stand to benefit the most from that. 

Guardians' Rhys Hoskins, Petey Halpin and Parker Messick should benefit from additional spring opportunites

1B Rhys Hoskins 

While Hoskins has a chance to provide the Guardians with some much-needed right-handed thump, he’s gotten off to a bit of a rough start this spring by going 1-for-10 with five strikeouts through his first three games with the Guardians. 

And even though spring training stats don’t matter, every player obviously wants to get off to a good start as opposed to struggling through spring. 

But it’s important to remember that Hoskins’ free agency lingered into spring training, so he has a bit more rust to knock off than some of the other players who had been in camp with the Guardians since before spring training started. 

While Hoskins seems like a lock to break camp with the Guardians so long as he’s healthy, he needs as many spring at-bats as possible. That’ll be a little easier to do with Fairchild, Bazzana and Naylor not in camp. 

OF Petey Halpin 

We could have put any of the young players competing for an outfield spot in this category, but we decided to go with Halpin since he boasts a similar skillset to Fairchild. 

Halpin made his big league debut last season on the back of his speed and defense, but he’s already showcased some pop this spring after working on his swing during the offseason. 

The fourth outfielder spot on the Guardians roster is pretty wide-open, and Fairchild and Halpin stand out as the top two options for it. 

Although Halpin has a bit of an advantage in that he’s already on the Guardians’ 40-man roster, he also has two minor league options remaining so the Guardians could store him in the minors and still add Fairchild to the roster. 

Halpin figures to be involved in the Guardians' plans in 2026 at some point, but it remains to be seen if that will happen at the start of the season or not. 

LHP Parker Messick 

While Messick pitched well for the Guardians’ last year after being called up in August, he’s in the middle of a battle for Clevleand’s final spot in the rotation. And that battle could get a little easier thanks to Allen departing camp. 

Allen threw five innings in the spring for the Guardians before leaving for Team Panama and allowed two earned runs to go along with three walks and four strikeouts in that time. Although it’s still just the spring, that’s the kind of line you can kind of expect from him in the regular season. 

On the other hand, Messick’s allowed two runs in 4 2/3 innings through his first two spring appearances, so they’re pretty much at the same level. 

But there’s more to the story when you consider the context of where both pitchers are at in their career. While Allen has more big league experience, he has a 4.48 ERA across parts of four seasons and has carved out a path as a solid-innings eater. 

Meanwhile, Baseball America had Messick as the Guardians’ minor leaguer of the year last season, and he offers much more potential (even if he’s pretty close to a complete product). 

Messick’s in the same boat as Halpin in that the Guardians could stash him in the minors if they choose, but a couple strong outings while Allen’s away could go a long way toward that not happening.