The Florida State baseball team may be in the offseason, but former Seminole pitcher Parker Messick has seen steady progression up through the minor league ranks since he left Tallahassee in the summer of 2022.
Messick has made steady progress through the minors. The 2021 ACC pitcher of the year was drafted in the second round by the Cleveland Guardians and is excelling in 2024.
The left-hander began the year at Lake County, the Guardians’ High-A affiliate. Messick went 5-5 with a 3.57 ERA but showed good control with 80 strikeouts and just 23 walks in 68 innings.
After he was elevated to Double-A Akron, Messick has enjoyed one of the best summers of any minor league pitcher. Messick is 4-1 with a 2.06 ERA in 14 starts, with 85 strikeouts and just 21 walks in 65.2 innings.
While Messick was at FSU, he had to handle academics and the rigors of being a collegiate athlete at a prestigious baseball school. Baseball is now his full-time job, where he can put in the full allotment of time to train and develop.
“The focus is a lot more on development and, as you move up, the emphasis starts becoming tailored to winning baseball games,” Messick said. “You’re trying to become the best player possible. So it’s a lot more just focusing on what you can do to be a better player so that in the future, you’re able to help the big-league team win a World Series.”
The training that Messick does with his minor league team and pitching academies has helped him grow as a pitcher. The technology of pitching and the modern drills that pitchers must go through in order to progress is markedly different than 20 years ago.
Messick has worked in the offseason at the Florida Baseball ARMory in Lakeland, Fla. The academy specializes in improving pitching mechanics, velocity, pitch placement and all sorts of different movement-based drills for pitchers to improve on. Founder Randy Sullivan has been working with Messick and the training has been invaluable.
“I’ve trained with Randy since I was in eighth grade,” Messick said. “Going there in the off-seasons and texting him throughout the season, he gives me information I need. I can send videos to him and he gives me more drills and more things I can work on. You get everything when you go to him, you’re getting all these movement enhancers, what your body is good at movement-wise, you get power training, they do yoga classes. So it’s everything you could want all compiled to one day.”
Since Messick left Tallahassee, he started with the Lynchburg Hillcats, which is a Single-A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians. Now Messick has made his way up to the Akron Rubber Ducks. Messick next pitches against Erie on Thursday.
With his season with the Rubber Ducks slowly coming to an end, Messick’s goal for next year is to keep improving and eventually get the call that every minor leaguer dreams about, and that is getting called up to the big leagues.
Messick has been busy chasing his big-league aspirations, but he has been keeping up with all of the success that Link Jarrett had on the diamond this past year in leading the Seminoles to an Omaha appearance. Although Messick never played for Jarrett, he has a mutual respect.
“He’s done a lot of great things with the program, and everyone is starting to buy into what FSU baseball is now, turning back into one of the powerhouses of college baseball,” Messick said. “I have some teammates from Florida and Miami, so when the Noles are winning a lot of games, it's really fun to talk to teammates about it. So it’s really cool to watch them play.”
Since Messick first donned the Garnet and Gold as a college pitcher, he knew how important Mike Martin Senior was to the program. But as most Florida State fans and the college baseball world know, Martin, lovingly known as “11” passed before the 2024 season began. Lucky for Messick, the Guardians organization is first class and knew how much Martin meant to Messick and the baseball program.
“I was lucky enough that the Guardians allowed me to fly home during spring training to attend the funeral and that meant a lot,” Messick said. “The opportunities that family gave me and the love they showed for me, even with Tyler (Martin) being my roommate, is really cool and I appreciate them.”
Messick hasn’t forgotten his studies as well and is determined to graduate from Florida State this fall with a degree in economics.
