World Series Special Edition: Everything You Need To Know About Corey Kluber

I’m making the unilateral decision that Corey Kluber is the only starting pitcher on the Cleveland Indians worth your time and attention. No disrespect to Trevor Bauer’s developing career arc, Danny Salazar’s return from the DL or Josh Tomlin’s remarkable ability stay in the big leagues despite being a 32 year-old with overwhelmingly mediocre stuff. It’s just that if the Indians have any sincere hope of winning this series, it’s resting on the shoulders of Corey Kluber to out duel Jon Lester on multiple occasions.

So let’s talk about Kluber.

Executive Summary: Kluber has electric stuff. He primarily throws heavy (read: sinking) two seam fastballs early in the count that run in on righties and away from lefties. He has two fantastic “out” pitches in a plus-plus cutter (ranked 2nd best in baseball from 2013-2016) and a plus-plus slider/curve/slurve (ranked 3rd best). Kluber is a classic American League #1 with primetime power stuff.

Kluber won the 2014 Cy Young Award after being a virtual nobody in the minor leagues. He then bounced back to lead the AL in losses in 2015 despite a 4.2 WAR and the AL’s 6th best FIP at 2.97 FIP. He’s on fire again in 2016 and a frontrunner for the Cy Young. He led the AL in ERA+ and FIP going 18-9 with a 3.14 ERA over 215 innings while racking up 9.5 k’s per 9 innings.

Kluber’s Pitches: Kluber throws a low 90’s sinker, low 90’s cutter, high 80’s slider/slurve, and a rare changeup in the mid 80’s. His slider and cutter are absolutely filthy. GIF’s below.

Kluber’s Approach: I can write thousands of words on Kluber’s background or you can just take my word for it… he stopped throwing 4-seam (read: straight) fastballs in 2011 because he walked too many hitters. It was too hard to locate a straight pitch in a target the size of a solo cup so he started throwing sinkers about 5 seasons ago. He doesn’t pitch in and out like you see from the Cubs staff. He more pitches ahead to contact early then leverages heavy swing and miss stuff later in the count. The key is pitching to contact early.

Pitching to contact early is the key because it enables Kluber to be dominant later in the count. You can either swing at a heavy two seamer on 0-0 or you can try to wait for him to elevate a fastball up in the zone to drive. If you wait, chances are the first pitch is a strike and now you’re down in the count with visions of his plus offspeed dancing in your head. Not a good spot to be. If he throws you a ball and you’re 1-0, there’s a 75% chance you see a cutter or a sinker the next pitch. (Cutters and sinkers are similar pitches as they’re fastballs that break down. The cutter breaks away from your throwing arm like a slider while a sinker breaks in from your throwing arm like a screwball.)

So basically if you get ahead 1-0, you’re getting something that’s in the low 90’s in the bottom third of the strike zone that is either going to dive in on your barrel or away from your barrel. Good luck figuring that one out.

Once even or ahead (1-1, 1-2, 2-2), Kluber works off his slurve/cutter combo to put you away. His slurve looks just like his cutter except it’s a little slower and has more break. This adds a fucked up wrinkle to your at bat because if you’re looking away (looking for the cutter over the sinker) then you need to worry about the speed and depth of the slurve… you have to identify if it’s a big break and slow or a little break and hard. Very difficult when you factor in the quality of Kluber’s mechanics allow him to hide the ball extremely well throughout his delivery, which means the hitters don’t get a clean look at the ball out of his hands. As you can imagine, that means it’s harder to see what’s coming which means it’s harder to judge the pitch which means it’s harder to get on base.

1st pitch sinker.

Slurve part 1.

Slurve part 2.

Backdoor cutter.

Don’t be discouraged by the above. If anything, Kluber is just a really solid American League pitcher. He’s not superman. He’s just got really good stuff and he knows how to best use it.

Fortunately for the Cubs, Kluber doesn’t change speeds that well which effectively means everything is just kind of hard. Like his slurve is obviously slower but it’s still a hard/firm pitch. Compare that to Hendricks who is constantly pulling and pushing hitters back and forth. Those are the pitchers that match up well with this Cubs lineup… ones that pitch to both sides of the plate and change speeds and tempo. In this case, Kluber just comes right at you with hard stuff in the zone to open up his swing-and-miss pitches. He’s not blowing you away. He’s just alternating the way his hard stuff breaks in and around the zone. He challenges hitters early so he can give them the kitchen sink later.

Cubs Approach: With all that said, I still like the Cubs in this match up because Kluber doesn’t change speeds or work both sides of the plate consistently. He’s around the plate A LOT just with completely different kinds of pitches. Nevertheless, I think the Cubs are patient first time through the lineup just trying to see how the different pitches break and trying to pick up anything they can on his delivery. I think the next time through the lineup – if the game is close – you’ll see the Cubs be very aggressive on the first pitch. If the Indians scratch a couple early against Lester, I think you see the Cubs stay more patient. But realistically they should be evaluating Kluber the first time through then looking to do their damage innings 3-5.

Finally, I think Anthony Rizzo absolutely dominates Corey Kluber in this series. I need to go on record right now and say that Rizzo matches up beautifully with Kluber for a number of reasons. Hear me now, believe me later, Anthony Rizzo will ride a big game 1 into the 2016 World Series MVP.