A deep dive into one of the bigger surprise starts in Cleveland’s system
Coming into 2025, Petey Halpin was looking to take on Columbus running. After spending all of 2023 and 2024 in the cavernous Canal Park and the Eastern League overall, Halpin has taken to Huntington Park’s very friendly dimensions and ran with it to start this season.
Let’s take a look at Halpin’s 2025 stats:
Petey Halpin is reaping the fruits of a vastly more hitter-friendly International League, and even despite everyone getting the same advantage, he’s still plugging away at 22% better than the league average wRC+.
So, can Halpin contribute to the 2025 Guardians? It’s less a debate and more a premise with a clearer answer that could get muddied if Cleveland’s depth above him wavers. The goal of this exercise is also trying to answer a different question as well, and that is can Halpin even sustain this?
On the whole, Halpin’s approach at the plate is not a whole lot different from last season’s outputs. Halpin is not a powerful bat, his 102.3 EV90 mark is on the lower end, but he’s maximizing his balls in play, pulling the ball in the air at a very high rate. Of his 28 hits this season, 11 of them have gone for extra bases. Halpin’s overall approach to swing decisions has improved drastically as well. The major concern with Halpin in Double-A in 2024 was a near 40% chase rate. That number has dwindled down below 30%, currently sitting at 29.6% as of this writing.
That’s all to say that there are glaring concerns here, and it all comes down to one simple question: Why is a contact hitter having so much trouble hitting pitches in the zone? That zone contact rate, z-con% for short, is concerning. A 72.2% z-con rate tells us that of pitches Halpin swings at in the zone, he’s swinging and missing at just under 28% of them. For reference, this is lower than Daniel Schneemann’s mark of 76.3% z-con in Columbus, and Schneemann is vastly more passive at the dish than Halpin.
The biggest factor in Halpin being of use at the Major League level this season largely comes down to him maintaining this start and the health of the major leaguers above him, as previously mentioned. We’ve seen the injury bug already strike Lane Thomas, but that still puts Halpin third on the pecking order behind Angel Martinez and Nolan Jones. Then comes the X-factor of Chase DeLauter who, while not being a center fielder, would likely skip Halpin for that outfield call-up. We’ve also already seen Will Brennan get called back up for Brayan Rocchio.
All in all, the short answer is a pretty clear no. Halpin is both not quite ready nor next man up for the Guardians, but should he find a way to maintain this, a fun battle for a roster spot could be upon us in 2026.