Team president Chris Antonetti said the Indians will exercise Corey Kluber’s $17.5 million option for the 2020 season and decline the options of second baseman Jason Kipnis and reliever Dan Otero.
Kluber made seven starts in 2019, but spent the majority of the season on the injured list with a broken forearm. The two-time Cy Young Award winner was close to returning in August, but he suffered an oblique strain in a rehab start on Aug. 18 that derailed his comeback attempt.
Kluber posted a 5.80 ERA in his seven starts. He will turn 34 in April. The Indians hope Kluber can get back to his old form.
“He’s able to do some things already in his delivery that maybe he wasn’t able to,” Francona said. “You start accumulating all those innings and with that comes bumps and bruises, nicks and things like that. Good pitchers, good players, they keep playing – they find a way. But, over the course of time his arm was getting lower or his back knee was getting a little lower and you just keep competing, but it does things to your pitches.”
Prior to 2019, Kluber made at least 29 starts and pitched 203 or more regular season innings in each of the past five seasons.
“This is almost a blessing in disguise,” Francona continued. “We missed the heck out of him, but come next year, I bet you he has a chance to be the Kluber that we’ve seen and relied on for the innings and what he’s given our team. I bet you he has a chance of being that again because of a little bit of a layoff.”
Kluber will be one of the five starting pitchers for the Indians next season. The team also expects Carlos Carrasco to return to the rotation. It’s a great sign for the right-hander, who was diagnosed with leukemia in June. He returned to the mound in September in a relief role, posting a 6.60 ERA in 11 appearances (15 innings).
With the emergence of Shane Bieber and Mike Clevinger, the Indians will have one open spot in the rotation. That could lead to some tough decisions to make with their young pitchers – Aaron Civale, Zach Plesac, Jefry Rodriguez and Adam Plutko all showed promise during the 2019 season.
It’ll be interesting to see how many teams are interested in Kipnis’ services. The 32-year-old posted a .245 batting average with 17 home runs and 65 RBI in 121 games.
The Indians could also consider moving José Ramírez to second base, which would allow them to sign or trade for a third baseman. Ramírez told the Indians he’s willing to switch positions to help the team, but he wants it to be permanent. He doesn’t want to rotate between second and third base, which is a fair request, especially for a player of his caliber.
Ramírez won’t have any physical limitations this offseason, despite returning from a hamate bone fracture earlier than expected. The 27-year-old posted a .327 batting average with 16 home runs and 48 RBI in the second half of 2019 (44 games).
“Atch is as hard a worker, as good a guy,” Francona said. “It was not a fun conversation. He’s all of our friends. We all think he’s gonna be a Major League pitching coach. We just think there’s a certain skillset we are looking for to complement guys we have here and we will begin that soon.”
“We have to work through the offseason to get a sense of what that will look like,” he said. “I don’t think it will change the way we build our roster. We’ve been pretty consistent in how we think about building our team and that will start with players that we acquire and develop. And I think when you look at our season this year and our success, we expected there to be a period of transition and we tried to patch it through with some veteran guys but we actually got better when we transitioned young players to our roster.”
Antonetti added that he doesn’t anticipate minority owner John Sherman’s acquisition of the Royals to impact the way the Indians operate in free agency. Sherman will have to give up his share of the organization once his acquisition of the Royals is official.
Catcher Roberto Perez battled through multiple ailments during the season. He’s scheduled to have his right ankle examined. He could end up needed a minor procedure, but it shouldn’t have a big impact on his offseason.