Corey Kluber Will Outperform his ADP
Sep 21, 2014; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Corey Kluber (28) pitches in the eighth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field. The Cleveland Indians win 7-2. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports
Corey Kluber was one of the breakout stars of 2014. At age 28, Kluber went from a guy with a little over 200 innings in the majors to one of the premier pitchers in baseball.
However, Corey Kluber is still probably not viewed as a superstar caliber player by most baseball fans and fantasy baseball players. They would probably rather have David Price, Cole Hamels, Jon Lester, Stephen Strasburg, and Zack Greinke on their teams.
While all of those pitchers are great, you are paying full price for their performances. With Corey Kluber, you could pay a similar or lower price to most of those starters, but get even better production.
I think Kluber will go in the third or even fourth round of a snake draft in 2015, but I expect him to pitch like a second rounder. The second round is for roughly the top five pitchers in fantasy baseball (outside of Clayton Kershaw who will obviously go in the first round).
People may be scared that Kluber came out of nowhere and he is bound to regress or have some other unfounded skepticism, but I remember being impressed back in 2013 simply because he makes batters miss a lot. I had planned to draft him this year, but I forgot about it. Oh well, I made up by acquiring him in my keeper league for a bargain price.
In his brief MLB career, he features a 9.27 K/9 and a 24.9% K%. While those rates are impressive, his 2014 numbers are at the next level with a 10.27 K/9 and a 28.3% K%. It is not like his season was entirely predicated on luck either as his 2.35 FIP was slightly better than his 2.44 ERA.
When I watched Corey Kluber pitch this year, he was honestly just unstoppable. For every earned run he allowed, Kluber struck out 4.2 batters. In 2014, he struck out 269 batters in 235.2 innings.
When you are drafting your staff ace, you are looking for an arm who will contribute in all pitching categories at a very high level, excluding saves. More specifically, you want a starting pitcher who can give you quality starts, a low ERA and WHIP, and huge strikeout numbers.
The difference between Corey Kluber and Adam Wainwright is the punch out ability. Do not get me wrong because Adam Wainwright is an amazing pitcher and one of the best in the game, but when it comes to fantasy baseball, I want those 269 strikeouts.
Look at Corey Kluber’s 2014 season stats and tell me they are not exactly what you want from your fantasy baseball ace.
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Of course, his value will not be as big as last year because he is a known commodity, but you could get a top 5 starting pitcher for a top 10 price because people like their name brand players.
You do not want to miss out on Kluber because he looks to be the next great pitcher who discovered their career in Cleveland in their late 20’s. For the sake of Indians fans, let’s just hope they hold on to Kluber a little longer than they held on to Cliff Lee.