Cleveland Sports Forum

COREY KLUBER
SP, CLEVELAND INDIANS

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that a trade sending Corey Kluber to the Rangers is "close."

Once it came out that the Angels were no longer in on Kluber, you then had to wonder if that's because someone else was closing in.

Perhaps that's Texas.

CLEVELAND, OH — The Indians have agreed to a blockbuster trade that is sending two-time Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber to the Texas Rangers according to multiple reports.

Kluber, 33, posted a 5.80 ERA in seven starts last season. He missed most of the season with a broken ulna bone in his right forearm and an oblique strain.

Jon Heyman of MLB Network was the first to report that the trade was complete, pending physicals.

Kluber has spent nine years with the Indians, posting a 3.16 ERA in 203 starts. He won the American League Cy Young Award twice — in 2014 and 2017.

This story will be updated.

Ken Rosenthal
@Ken_Rosenthal
·
6m
OF Delino DeShields Jr. and RHP Emmanuel Clase heading to #Indians for Kluber, source tells The Athletic.




Zack Meisel
@ZackMeisel
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7m
Throws a cutter that sits 99-101 mph. 21 years old, made MLB debut last season.
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Levi Weaver
@ThreeTwoEephus
· 9m
Am hearing that Emmanuel Clase will be part of the return to Cleveland in the Kluber trade.

Because of all the videos and graphs, I'll just post a link to the Fangraphs article on Clase. In a word...intriguing!


https://blogs.fangraphs.com/emmanuel-clase-is-wondrous/

DeShields more of a utility type guy with amazing speed like his dad.

More:

Weaver Wire, Chapter 18: Too many cooks. I mean strikes. Wait. Too many strikes?


By Levi Weaver Aug 6, 2019 32

Topic of the Week: 100mph Emmanuel Clase and the curious case of “too many strikes”

One of the moves Texas made was to call up Emmanuel Clase (pronounced Clahs-ay). Clase ended his 2018 campaign with the Spokane Indians after coming to Texas in a deal for backup catcher Brett Nicholas and almost immediately upon arrival in the Rangers organization saw an uptick in his fastball, from 93-95 to triple-digits. This year, he began the season with the High-A Down East Wood Ducks and, after a brief bump in the road upon arrival at AA Frisco, had been mowing down minor-league hitters. He made his big-league debut in what was at the time a one-run game, entering in the fifth inning of the Rangers’ 9-4 win over Detroit on Sunday.

For a quick brush-up on Clase, you can read Saad Yousuf’s May article here, but the big question for many Rangers fans was — no offense to Brett Nicholas — why the heck did the Padres make that trade? Did they not expect him to be this good?

“Of course, that’s why we traded him,” joked Padres GM A.J. Preller. “No, it’s a good story for the organization in the fact that Chris Kemp, Felix Feliz, Trevor Schumm and those guys identified somebody that obviously has moved to the big leagues quickly … Obviously, if we felt like Clase was going to take that type of jump, we never would have included him as one of the players they could have selected in that trade.”

But it’s one thing to point at such a spike in production and marvel that it did happen. It’s another altogether to try to identify how. Clase credits Padres Dominican Summer League pitching coach Jackson Quezada. When the team moved Clase from a starting role into the bullpen, Quezada suggested that Clase come set in the stretch with his hands higher up, near his shoulder. Previously, Clase had set his hands near his back hip.

If that doesn’t seem like a satisfactory answer, you’re not alone, but that’s the answer Clase gave, speaking through an interpreter on Monday.

Additionally, Quezada helped Clase with his command using an unorthodox technique.

“In the Dominican, (Quezada) would test me,” Clase said. “He would put two little dolls on either side of the plate with a little margin in the middle, and he told me ‘throw me five pitches in there’. So that’s how I started to gain my control.”

The trick worked. After walking about half as many hitters as he struck out in 2016 and 2017, Clase’s 2018 season saw a drastic change. Not only was he throwing much harder, but he was walking fewer hitters: just six in 2018, compared to 27 strikeouts. That trend continued in 2019: one walk vs. 11 strikeouts in seven innings in Down East and eight walks vs. 39 strikeouts in 37⅔ innings in Frisco.

“He can put it where he wants to,” said Chris Woodward on Monday. “That was the first question I had: ‘Can he throw strikes?’ The biggest thing for me is if you can throw strikes we can work that. You may get hit; I’m okay with that … if he can throw it over the plate, we can work with that — maybe we can figure out where on the plate, but — they said he goes too many strikes. I had never heard that. ‘Too many strikes?’

(But) if he throws it over the plate too much, he needs to learn the put-away pitch — in to a lefty, up on his hands, the wipeout slider; he’ll throw a slider for strike. So you need to learn when to bury it, throw it down below the zone. And he started doing that, and he started having a lot of success, obviously. But to have a kid that throws 101 miles an hour, and they say he throws too many strikes? That’s a good problem to have.”

Apparently there are more players on the way to the Tribe.

Wow, I'm surprised that is all we got for Kluber. Deshields does little for me.

I would have waited till July and let him prove his health. Think we could have got more then.

Then again, if he came back and pitched like he did early last year before the injury we wouldn't have got anything.

Personally, I would have gambled. But I can see either way.

Clase is a damn good relief prospect. He and Karinchek could anchor the back end of our bullpen for years to come. Nice having a couple power arms back there for a change.

TFIR wrote:Apparently there are more players on the way to the Tribe.

I posted before seeing this. I hope so. I've come to expect more from our front office on these type trades.

I try not to get too involved on rating trades - I have no idea what other teams offered for Kluber. Or how the front office rated the minor leaguers coming back. Orrr what future moves this potentially sets up.

And I think back to last season when the team had NEITHER Kluber or Carrasco in the rotation.

Assuming Carrasco is back, moving Kluber was the guy most obvious.

Clev, Bieber, Carrasco, Plesac and Civale.

If that is it I just don't get it. What's the hurry? We even had Kluber under control for next year too.

I am hoping that means they wanted his money available cause they are talking extension with Lindor...

One can hope any way.

Moneywise, to me at this point it's pretty obvious that losing co-owner Sherman is affecting the cash flow sadly.

We are becoming Tampa. Then again they won 97 games last year.

Dropping Kipnis and Kluber alone is 31.5 mill off the books. Just saying’.