Will Corey Kluber Find Success Out Of The Bullpen?
It was recently announced that Red Sox Opening Day starter and 2 time Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber would move to the bullpen. He’ll join fellow former starting pitcher Nick Pivetta as low leverage long relief pitchers, eating up innings in mostly noncompetitive games, while still keeping themselves stretched out enough to start in the event of an injury to one of the starters.
It’s fairly unusual to see a starter of Kluber’s pedigree moved to the bullpen only 9 starts into the season, but the stats he was putting up speak for themselves. When a pitcher has a 6.26 ERA, a 2-6 record, and a 1.536 WHIP, there’s not much a team can do for them besides removing them from the rotation or cutting ties entirely.
When wondering about Kluber’s potential bullpen performance, it’s important to note that his last regular season bullpen appearance was way back in 2013, where he pitched to a 1.80 ERA, a 1-0 record, and an even 1.000 WHIP, but that’s still just a 2 game sample size. If you go back to his last postseason relief appearance, the 2022 AL Wild Card series, it’s not exactly pretty. Kluber gave up a walk off homer to the Guardians’ Oscar Gonzalez in the bottom of the 15th, ending the Ray’s season and his tenure with the team. That’s also just 1 game.
It’s fairly inconclusive to predict how Kluber will perform based off of his extremely limited past relief stats, but a true professional, such as him, can adapt to just about any kind of role they’re given.