Guardians ace Shane Bieber tweeted this week that his right shoulder, which caused him to miss nearly half the 2021 season, is back to 100 percent and “has been for awhile now.” He’s been quietly going through his offseason routine as he awaits the resolution of the ongoing lockout.
The 26-year-old Bieber returned to the mound in late September and made a pair of three-inning appearances, which perhaps gave Cleveland fans some relief, but it’s nevertheless encouraging for Guardians fans to hear that he’s been working through the offseason pain-free and with no setbacks. Bieber’s 2021 season was limited to 96 2/3 innings due to a strain in his right shoulder’s subscapularis muscle, but he was quite effective when on the field, pitching to a 3.17 ERA with a huge 33.1% strikeout rate and an 8.1% walk rate. The 2020 AL Cy Young winner will head a Cleveland rotation that’s projected to also include Aaron Civale, Zach Plesac, Triston McKenzie and Cal Quantrill. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects a $4.8MM salary for Bieber this year, and the Guardians control him through the 2024 season.
More out of the Midwest…
- As part of the ongoing lockout, players are unable to communicate with team staff. But that isn’t slowing Byron Buxton at all. In fact, he may even be getting faster, as a profile from Dan Hayes of The Athletic reveals the Twins outfielder has been working with Appling County High track and field coach Sheldon Pearce. The workouts have multiple goals, as Buxton spent the early part of the offseason adding muscle and doesn’t want that to subtract from the speed part of his game. Furthermore, health has been an issue for Buxton to this point in his career, as he’s only been able to play more than 100 games once in his seven-year MLB career thus far. However, when healthy, he has shown the potential to be one of the best players in the game, as evidenced by his 2021 season, where he hit .306/.358/.647 for an incredible wRC+ of 169, along with nine steals and incredible defense. Although he was only able to play 61 games, he still managed an excellent 4.2 fWAR in that limited showing. Just before the lockout, he and the Twins agreed to a seven-year contract extension that reflected both his tremendous talent but also his unpredictable health outcomes, as it comes with a $100MM guarantee but also a number of incentives that could greatly increase his earning power if he stays healthy and productive over the life of the deal. Twins fans will be delighted to read that Buxton is determined to change the narrative by staying as healthy as he possibly can. “I’ve got a chance (to be in the Olympics) at about 38 if I ain’t playing baseball,” Buxton said. “Seriously, the way that some people run now. You see how old they are. If they can sustain that, I can sustain my speed playing baseball for that long, possibly, as long as you keep your body in the right shape. That’s exciting to me. Everybody said when you get older, you’re going to get slower. For me, I feel like I’ve gotten faster because I’m just now starting to understand how to use my speed correctly.”
- Cubs righty Kohl Franklin threw to hitters for the first time in over a year, per a tweet from Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times. Lee adds that Franklin hit 99 mph twice, which makes this doubly good news for Cubs fans, as that’s a notch above where he’d been before. Back in December, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin of FanGraphs placed Franklin 34th on their list of Cubs’ prospects, noting that he “now sits in the low-90s and was up to 95 in 2019.” Unfortunately, the pandemic wiped out the minor leagues in 2020 and a combination of injuries wiped out his entire 2021. Despite that, the report from FanGraphs opines that the 22-year-old is “among the likelier rotation pieces in this system when healthy.” As the Cubs have recently transitioned from competing to rebuilding, the ability to develop pitching prospects will likely be a key component of their future, as it was largely absent from the club’s previous decade. The big league rotation, as currently constructed, is anchored by three veterans in Kyle Hendricks, Marcus Stroman and Wade Miley. However, Miley is a free agent after 2022 and Hendricks and Stroman could both be gone a year later. (Stroman’s deal goes through 2024 but he can opt out after 2023, while the Cubs have a club option on Hendricks for 2024.) That will leave plenty of room for Franklin or any other prospect in the system to find a new gear and take over a rotation spot.
oh boy guys, i wonder if the “ThEy ArEn’T tHe GuArDiAnS” gang will show up today.
Who aren’t the Guardians?
Well that didn’t take long.
^^^ ^^^
K.
They’ll be here eventually. They may be too busy shaking their fist at traffic or yelling at kids for playing on their lawn.
No, they’ll be down in mom’s basement playing PS5 and yelling at mom to bring Hot Pockets down to them. Also complaining about their student loan balance and the fact that they lost their $400 life savings in the wrong crypto.
Such a sensitive little thing.
Why start the conversation for them?
Hate to see a good shoulder go to waste
Beavis to Butthead, “ha ha, he said Guardians”
A $4.8MM salary for Bieber will be nearly 1/10th of their payroll on a single player. Might be time to move him.
Bieber and jram for the jays farm, let’s do it
Kick in the name Raptors and we’ll consider it
If $4.8M is 1/10th of Cleveland’s payroll, the answer to that problem is they need to spend a lot more.
This is the major leagues, not “Major League.”
Gbs42: I was going to type the exact same thing.
*Tribe
I remember when Guardian’s fans refused to call it Progressive Field, instead of “The Jake.” Ahh, give them time to mourn. They will get over it, eventually.
This Tribe fan never stopped calling it the Jake. And no, I will not get over the stupid name change.
Maybe you should trying to speak for Indians fans? You obviously have no clue.
Neither do you, champ. With everything going on in the world, the fact you continue to bother yourself about a team name change is pathetic.
Does your mind actually come up with these kind of responses, or do you pay someone for them?
As for world events, not worried about those. I know how it all ends.
Ironic question coming from the old timer who doesn’t care about world events because he “knows how it will all end”, but rather bothers himself and whines about a team name change for months on end because somehow that’s more important and affects his quality of life.
Hmmm, sounds like the only one whining is you. Me? I’m gonna relax and read a book. That’s something I don’t know the ending of.
If you say so, Mr. *Tribe. Surprised you can read at a time like this when there’s so much team name change going on in the world. Spoiler alert: the Cat in the Hat restores the house back to normal and the kids learn a thing or two about fun.
“Back in my day, we’d all play jacks down at the soda fountain.”
Did you know that on the Navaho reservation there is a high school who has the name Redskins? But you white guilt progressive rainbow warriors probably think the Navaho’s are racist.
@Desertbull These people have used the word racist so many times they don’t even know what is means anymore so they just call everyone a racist.
At least our day didn’t mean living in our parent’s house until we were 35 years old doing nothing but playing video games and virtue signaling.
Hot diggity dog! Don’t snap your cap or flip your wig. Take yourself a hay penny and go get a frosted malt with your best gal. Then get decked out, go to the sock hop and cut a rug doing the Jitterbug. It’ll be a gas!
What you obviously don’t know through your blind rant is that there are very rarely any Cleveland fans on here that were actually for the name change. The difference? They don’t whine about it on every post like the team took their pension.
I think they left a lot of merch money on the table by not going with “Spiders.” The Cleveland Guardian is a good name for a newspaper
I heard on a podcast that the organization that owned the rights to multiple “Spiders…” naming variations made it unpleasant for the club to acquire the naming rights. To me, the story was believable and easy to prove.
The fact that any person in Cleveland’s marketing department still has a job is stunning. Even the most ardent backers of the old name thought Spiders was pretty cool and unique.
What they settled on is complete nonsense and frankly embarrassing.
Times change mate. But if you find joy clinging to the name of a local business and the name of their workplace, have at it. The rest of the world will move forward.
So judgmental. Do you go to funerals for fun too? I certainly don’t believe they’re “oppressed”, like an inconvenienced white man for example, but the pay rate vs. inflation is definitely not in their favor.
Sounds like you create enough drama as it is.
Cool. I hope the Dolan family has tons of fun selling tickets and merch to people like you in Mom’s basement. They won’t.
Cancelled an 81-game suite, and am never coming back. They need to move to Nashville with their woke name and have fun going broke, because MLB in total is already there but just doesn’t know it yet. It’s headed to 4th most popular sports league status.
But am supporting lots of minor league teams which will not be canceling any of their games due to labor(money) issues and won’t be polluting sports with their politics. Sports is a pastime – a distraction from politics.
Start changing names due to fake outrage, and then, well, go broke.
Are you done throwing a tantrum, or do you need another time out?
Here is hoping the best for Bryon Buxton – aside from a young Manny Ramirez, he has the sweetest swing I’ve ever seen
Yankees trade Dominguez, gill, volpe, wells for Bieber and Jose.
I suggest trying to imagine you were the fan on the opposite team when making trade proposals. Now, would you want those 4 prospects players for 2 arguably top 25 players in all baseball?
Maybe for either Bieber or Ramirez. Right?? Absolutely, no way for both.
Over/under 2.5 walls Buxton runs head first into this year?
Those walls are in Twins Territory!!!
We have our first “100%” report of ‘22! I think. Anyway, here’s to being in the best shape of his life….again, again *clink*
The previous post was about Trout/Rendon being 100% so we have our second sighting!!
So players are unable to communicate with team staff. How on earth does anyone police this?
Some player has his wife or other family member reach out to team staff members’ neighbor to drop them a note. Lol. This is so ridiculous.
All of this talk about Ramirez, but three years of Bieber on the jays rotation would be sublime…
What costs more, two years of Ramirez or three years of Bieber coming back from injury?
Any trade rumors?