Guardians fans, it is time to admit it, say it with me, now: “Matt Festa is Good.”
As a baseball fan, it’s easy to hate the sixth-inning guy/everyday reliever guy, because, more often than not, he is going to be in the game when things fall apart more often than other relievers are. One, because he will be brought in with runners on-base more often than not. Two, because he pitches almost everyday, so he is going to be more likely to have some bad batted-ball luck. And, three, because while he is a good pitcher, he’s not going to have the elite strikeout stuff of your late-inning guys, so he’s going to allow more balls in play. But, when it’s all said and done, I would say most good bullpens are going to have a good middle-inning guy whom fans mistrust and deride unfairly. I am here to tell you that such is the case for the Guardians’ Matt Festa.
The average relief pitcher in MLB this season has a 4.12 ERA, a 4.02 xERA, a 4.10 FIP, a 4.20 xFIP and a 3.90 SIERA, with a 22.6/9.3 K/BB%.
Matt Festa has a 4.24 ERA, a 2.97 FIP, a 3.21 xERA, a 3.61 xFIP, and a 3.35 SIERA, with a 24.3/6.3 K/BB%. The only metric where Festa is not solidly to significantly above average for an MLB reliever (which, to be clear, is still a valuable player) is ERA, indicating that he has been unlucky in having poorly-timed, subpar defensive plays behind him that have resulted in the inflated ERA. Festa has done all this while leading the team in appearances (by THREE games!) since being added to the roster on May 2nd.
How is Festa doing this? Well, the Guardians have raised his arm angle by about 5 degrees which has enabled him to get an extra inch of vertical AND horizontal break on his sweeper, which has, consequently, increased the pitche’s run value by SIX runs from what it was in 2024. They have also had him throw his cutter about 10% fewer times and, instead, added a sinker to replace that percentage. This has helped Festa keep hitters more off-balance and prevent their loading up on his 4-seamer and cutter.
Aside from the sweeper, Festa doesn’t have a great pitch, but it seems the arm angle change has allowed him to better tunnel the sweeper and cutter and the sinker and four-seamer. His sinker and fastball are average offerings and his sweeper is a good pitch, and, perhaps, most importantly, his location has improved with this change. He puts his pitches where he wants them to be, he has optimized his pitch mix, and made his sweeper an effective putaway pitch (generating almost 30% whiff on it).
Folks, this is what a good middle-reliever looks like. He throws strikes, he has one good pitch, he optimizes his other average offerings through an effective pitch mix, and he doesn’t walk folks and makes them hit their way on while reducing hard-contact. I am excited that the Guardians’ have Festa under team control for another four years and I think an offseason of continuing to help him adjust to a new arm angle can help him get a better feel for the sinker that Festa hadn’t thrown in the two years prior to 2025, and enable him to be more effective.
Guardians’ fans, it’s time to realize that we’ve been unfair to Stephen Vogt’s version of Bryan Shaw, just as we often were to Shaw when Tito Francona saw him as a reliable source of value in the 6th and 7th innings. Matt Festa is good, and it’s time to accept that.