Guardians Starting Pitching Preview: The Definite
Everything needs a facelift after so long. Legacy brands like Pepsi or Coca Cola don’t need to tweak much, but there are subtle differences over the years. Sometimes it’s major, like New Coke, and sometimes it’s just shifting the color blobs of the Pepsi circle. The Cuyahoga Pitching Factory LLC underwent a much-needed face lift this offseason, adding Luis L Ortiz, Slade Cecconi, Jakob Junis, and John Means to the roster while also re-signing free agent and former ace Shane Bieber. Junis is likely headed for a long relief/fireman role with the bullpen, but he is capable of starting, but the others are all likely to be in the rotation at some point in the season. Fitting them into spots and molding them with the guys already there will be the fun and interesting part, so in this series, I’ll take a look at the three groups of players that will be in the rotation mix this season. Today? The Definite
The Definite
Tanner Bibee
2024 stats: 12-8 record, 31 games started, 173.2 IP, 3.47 ERA, 3.56 FIP, 1.12 WHIP, 26.3K%, 6.2 BB%, 187 Ks
He’s the list, the one and only. Bibee has earned ace status for Cleveland; he’s the stopper, the steady hand, the guy you want out there to win you a game. In another case of “pitcher wins don’t tell the full story”, his 12-8 record is a little deceiving: The team was 22-9 when he was on the mound in 2024. He was exactly what the injury-savaged rotation needed, and he was always reliable to go five innings plus to help out the beleaguered bullpen. [He had only four starts where he failed to finish the fifth inning.] When Shane Bieber blew out his elbow and Triston McKenzie couldn’t find the strike zone, Bibee was there. When Gavin Williams was delayed in debuting until July, Bibee was there. When veterans like Ben Lively, Carlos Carrasco, and Matthew Boyd had to be called on to fill in innings, Bibee was there.
While the rest of the rotation might be in flux, we know that Bibee will be taking the hump on March 27th in Kansas City. Bibee mixes in his offspeed stuff with his four-seamer as well as anyone. Sporting a cutter, a slider, a changeup, AND a curveball, Bibee keeps hitters off balance with his secondary offerings. While he has been at the low end of the maxEV standings the last two years, his avgEV, Barrel %, and Hard-Hit % are all right around league average. [88.4, 7.0%, 36.9%, respectively.] The next level for Bibee is missing just a few more bats; his SwStr% is 20th in the league at 12.2% and if he can bump that up to 13% or better, he’d be a top 10 starting pitcher in the bigs.
