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CLEVELAND, Ohio — Baseball players, like long-lost friends, sometimes unknowingly pass each other in the middle of the night.
The Guardians recently signed Carlos Carrasco to a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training. Carrasco spent the first 11 years of his big-league career with the Indians, now called the Guardians.
It’s unclear what role Carrasco will fill on the Guardians. He turns 37 in March and his last three years with the Mets have been spotty.
The Guardians’ rotation has a couple of pitchers coming off elbow injuries. If one of them can’t make it through camp, perhaps Carrasco can fill in.
He’s pitched out of the bullpen before as well. Or did the Guardians bring back Carrasco simply to let him retire in a Cleveland uniform, a wish he expressed last year when the Guards played the Mets at Citi Field?
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There is an element of uncertainty about what Carrasco will do next. There is no such uncertainty with Corey Kluber, his former Cleveland teammate.
Kluber on Friday announced his retirement after 13 seasons in the big leagues. Anyone who saw him in his last appearance at Progressive Field on June 8, wearing a Boston uniform, knew the end was near. Kluber, working in relief to save the bullpen in a 10-3 loss, allowed seven runs on 11 hits in 3 1/3 innings.
He went on the injured list at end of that month and did not pitch again.
If memory serves
Career endings are rarely easy. It’s why we have memories.
The memories of Kluber have nothing to do with that lopsided loss last year. They have everything to do with a career that started late and flamed brightly for a one of the best five-year runs in Cleveland and MLB history.
In what the organization called a “collective effort,’ the Guardians unearthed Kluber in the Padres’ farm system where he never pitched above Class AA in 3 1/2 years. They acquired him in a three-team deal with the Padres and St. Louis, which cost them Jake Westbrook in 2010.
They turned Kluber over to Ruben Niebla and the rest of Cleveland’s pitching gurus in the minors. The transformation took a while.
He made his big league debut in 2011 at the advanced age of 25 and posted a 8.31 ERA in three relief appearances. Kluber made his first big league start in 2012, allowing six runs in the first inning against the Royals on Aug. 2.
It got better from there.
Kluber went 11-5 with a 3.85 in 2013 under new manager Terry Francona before a finger injury shut him down.
Tito’s called shot
In the spring of 2014, Francona did something he rarely, if ever, did in his 11 years as Cleveland manager. He hung a star next to Kluber’s name in spring training, predicting big things for him that season.
While Francona never did that again with a Cleveland player, Kluber did not let him down. He went 18-9 with a 2.44 ERA in 34 starts. He struck out 269 batters and walked 51 in 235 2/3 innings.
Francona’s called shot set off a five-year run by Kluber that made him one of the most dominant pitchers in the big leagues.
Here are the stats:
- 2014: 18-9, 2.44 ERA, 34 starts, 269 strikeouts, 232 2/3 innings.
- 2015: 9-16, 3.49 ERA, 32 starts, 245 strikeouts, 222 innings.
- 2016: 18-9, 3.14 ERA, 32 starts, 227 strikeouts, 215 innings.
- 2017: 18-4, 2.25 ERA, 29 starts, 265 strikeouts, 203 2/3 innings.
- 2018: 20-7, 2.89 ERA, 33 starts, 222 strikeouts, 215 innings.
- Totals: 83-45, 2.85 ERA, 160 starts, 1,228 strikeout, 1 091.1 innings.
Kluber won the Cy Young in 2014 and 2017. He finished third in the voting in 2016 and 2018 and ninth in 2015.
In an age where starters are being reined in after two or three times through the lineup, Francona turned Kluber loose. From 2014 through 2018, he ranked second in the big leagues in innings pitched, third in strikeouts and fourth in ERA.
Carrying a heavy load
After throwing 215 innings in the 2016 regular season, Kluber almost led the Indians to their first World Series title since 1948. He did so with his friend, Carrasco, unable to pitch because of a broken right hand courtesy of a line drive off the bat of Detroit’s Ian Kinsler. Carrasco joined Danny Salazar, another starter, on the shelf with a strained right forearm. Trevor Bauer joined them early in the postseason after he suffered a gashed little finger on his pitching hand in a drone accident.
Kluber and Josh Tomlin carried the rotation to Game 7 of the World Series against the Cubs before Kluber finally hit the wall, In the postseason, he went 4-1 in seven starts with a 1.83 ERA. Two of those starts came on short rest.
In 2019 Kluber was struck by a line drive against the Marlins and suffered a broken right forearm that cost him most of the season. The Guardians exercised his option for 2020 and traded him to Texas for Emmanuel Clase and Delino DeShields in December of 2019.
Initially, it was a trade that hurt both teams. Kluber pitched one inning for the Rangers in 2020 because of an injury. Clase, meanwhile, was injured in spring training and then suspended for the Covid-shortened season because of a positive steroid test.
In the last two years, Clase has led the big leagues with 86 saves. Kluber, it turns out, is the first that keeps giving.
What about Cooperstown
What are we to make of Kluber’s career? He definitely belongs in the Guardians’ Hall of Fame. What about Cooperstown?
From a bulk standpoint, the resume is light. But this is an era where less and less is being asked of starters. The win no longer carries the weight it once did. Teams can’t wait for a starter to reach the fifth or sixth inning before turning the game over to a bullpen full of high-octane and interchangeable arms.
If this trend continues, and Kluber makes the Hall of Fame ballot after his five-year waiting period, his body of work certainly deserves a look.
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