Cleveland Indians Corey Kluber: Prime for a 2016 Rebound?

After his Cy Young award-winning year, Corey Kluber disappointed a lot of fantasy owners throughout the 2015 season. He is primed to bounce back in a big way in 2016.

The Cleveland Indians have a lot to look forward to next season. The offense has promise, but the pitching staff is the big bright spot for this team. I wrote about the No. 2 pitcher Carlos Carrasco earlier, but now it’s time to profile the No. 1 guy, Corey Kluber. He didn’t pitch as well as fantasy owners would have hoped, but there is promise that he will bounce back to Cy Young levels in 2016.

Kluber did not pitch well in his first two full seasons with the Indians. In 41 games (214.2 innings), he went 13-10 with a 4.32 ERA, 1.35 WHIP and 3.61 K/BB ratio. He averaged 8.2 K/9, but 2.3 BB/9 took away some of that value. There was not much shown to help us predict how good he would be in 2014.

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At the end of the 2014 season, Corey Kluber was the best pitcher in baseball, and he had the hardware to prove it. He won the American League Cy Young award after going 18-9 with a 2.44 ERA, 1.095 WHIP, 10.3 K/9 and 1.9 BB/9 in 235.2 innings. He finished second in strikeouts, just two behind David Price.

This amazing season skyrocketed Corey Kluber up the rankings and draft boards for 2015. He had an ADP of 30.0 (third round) as the eighth starting pitcher drafted. While he finished 14th among pitchers on the Player Rater, some of the numbers did not look good.

He ended the season with a 9-16 record, 3.49 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 9.9 K/9, 1,8 BB/9 and 245 strikeouts. He pitched well in spurts, but the jump of more than one run in his ERA shows that there was some regression. His FIP was 2.97, so not that far apart to debunk the argument. Kluber gave up 22 home runs and a 10.7 HR/FB rate, 14 and 7.4 in 2014, respectively.

Next: Phillies Aaron Noal: 2016 Sleeper Starting Pitcher

The soon-to-be 30-year-old pitcher still has a lot left to his career. Every pitcher has a down year or two and I think 2015 was that year for Corey Kluber, and it wasn’t much of a down year. The AL Central has some good offenses, but some bad ones as well. He will bounce back in 2016, not to his 2014 form, but somewhere in between. He should be drafted as a top-15 pitcher, top-60 overall.

Projections: 14-10, 2.99 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 228 strikeouts

Draft: Round 6