Could 2026 be the year that Gavin Williams becomes the Guardians' ace?

In many ways, the Guardians’ 2025 season was the season of Gavin Williams. 

While Williams has always had potential oozing out of his 6-foot-6 frame, it was seemingly always overshadowed by his lack of command and ability to attack the strike zone. 

But all that changed in 2025 when Williams rode his electric fastball and dizzying arsenal of offspeed pitches to a career-best 3.06 ERA in 167 2/3 innings. 

Is there a chance that Williams could ride that breakout season into a better season in 2026? At least one member of the Guardians’ beat thinks so. 

On Thursday, MLB.com published a story that asked all 30 of the team’s beat reporters one prediction for their respective team in 2026, where Guardians beat reporter Tim Stebbins wrote that he thinks Williams will finish top-three in Cy Young voting. 

Gavin Williams could be poised for a big 2026 for the Guardians 

While Williams only has one big season under his belt, it’s not hard to imagine a world where he ranks as one of the American League’s top starting pitchers. Williams is coming of a season where his posted a strikeout rate of 24.6% thanks in large part to a fastball that averaged 96.5 miles per hour.

And all that success came in spite of the fact that he posted a walk rate of 11.8% and surrendered a league-leading 66 walks.  So even though Williams was great last year, there’s a clear avenue for how he could get better. 

In fact, all of the baseball world saw how good Williams can be last August when he came within two outs of breaking Cleveland’s no-hitter drought in a start against the Mets. That start was part of a scorching second half where he posted a 2.18 ERA across 12 starts before tossing six scoreless innings in his lone postseason start. 

There’s also the nature of the American League pitching picture. Tarik Skubal has won back-to-back AL Cy Young Awards, but it seems like there’s a good chance the Tigers could trade him at the July deadline. If he’s traded to the NL, that Cy Young picture is suddenly wide open.

Perhaps the biggest reason for Williams’ success last season was his reliance on his newfound cutter (14% usage, .233 batting average against) along with his sweeper, which held hitters to a batting average of just .181.

And, perhaps most importantly, he’s coming off a season where he set a new career-high in innings by a large margin. Williams was never right in 2024 after suffering a shoulder injury in spring training, and ended up posting a subpar 4.86 ERA in just 76 innings. 

But Williams is back, healthy and better than ever. It could end up making a huge impact for the Guardians in 2026.