Corey Kluber to Remain at Cleveland Indians

Corey Kluber to Remain at Cleveland Indians

There have been rumors that Corey Kluber is leaving Cleveland Indians. The departure /4/not happen because the player is in talks with Indians management to add more years into his contract.

According to SBNation, the player confirmed last Wednesday that he will continue throwing for the Indians. The player set the record straight after scooping the AL Cy Young Award. His next performance has been scheduled for the second week of next month.

Coincidentally, Baseball Winter Meetings are set to start in the same month. There have been concerns that Kluber will follow the legacy of other players who had won the award before him. This is because the likes of C.C.Sabathia and Cliff Lee left their teams upon getting the award. Indians can therefore consider themselves lucky because they will continue to have the champion in their team.

However, if Indians don’t find it necessary to continue holding him, they have the option of releasing him provided they grant him $550,000 as stated in his contract. His contract is supposed to end in 2016 so there is still enough time to make changes.

It will not be surprising to see Indians adding more years into a contract because they have done it in the past. Those in the know will remember that the team did not to hesitate in adding several years to the contracts of Michael Brantley, Yan Gomes and Jason Kipnis.

Teams are fond of borrowing a leaf from each other and so it’s likely for Indians to do what their peers did. For instance White Sox had agreed to increase Chris Sale’s contract by five years in 2013 at $32.5 million. Though the papers showed he would play for the team for another five years, the management kept on increasing his annual earnings probably to caution themselves.

Sale was to pocket $600,000 in 2013 but to his surprise the amount swelled to $850,000. And as if that was not enough, he was granted $3.5 million in 2014. Sale therefore did not get a raw deal because the executives used their money to deny him opportunities of being a free agent in the first year.

If Kluber gets more years, he /4/definitely have to give up his club options and free agency because they could be covered by the contract. They will probably want to hold on to him until they exhaust all his abilities and by the end of his contract he will be 34 years.

Since he is a pitcher, the injuries could wear him out such that he /4/not get another signing because most of them will see him as a liability.

“The thing that is most encouraging is he will lead this staff for the foreseeable future. You can’t have a better guy setting the standard with his preparation,” general manager Chris Antigone said. “To have that guy at the front of the staff is a great example throughout the organization.”

Kluber stated that he wants to take advantage of spring break to improve his changeup because he was not able to make good use of it.

Fortunately for him, his pitching trainer, Mickey Callaway, has already consulted the best pitchers who include Tim Belcher, Charles Nagy and Jason Bere.