With Feller off the board, that makes the two man race I had for my top overall pick a bit easier.
With the 2nd overall pick, the Wailing Wahoos select:
Corey Kluber, Starting Pitcher
Career w/ Cleveland: 2011-present
Career Stats w/ Cleveland: 98-58, 3.16 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 9.8 K/9, 2.0 BB/9, 33.2 WAR, 3x All-Star, 2x Cy Young, 1x ERA Leader
Kluber second overall? Yes.
- Kluber is the modern-day king of Cleveland Indians starting pitching, and in a franchise where there is not a ton of elite talent at SP available compared to offensive talent, I wanted to make sure I secured one of our very best.
- Kluber is the only two time Cy Young award winner in franchise history, and also had a strong case of winning a third time in 2016 (finished 3rd).
- Kluber's career WHIP (1.08) is actually better than Bob Feller's best seasonal WHIP of 1.13. Eras and batter approaches are of course different, but Kluber was always far more in control than Feller (4.1 career BB/9 vs. Kluber's 2.0), while Kluber also struck batters out at a much higher rate as well (9.8 career K/9 vs. Feller's 6.1).
- To give Feller some credit here (and I'm not ragging on Dailey's pick either, Feller is a great #1 overall selection), according to WAR, he's had three seasons that were better than Kluber's absolute best (1946, 1940, 1939).
The year I've chosen where I believe Kluber was at his absolute peak for Cleveland was his Cy Young award winning campaign in 2017. He had a higher WAR when he won the Cy Young in 2014 actually, but a lot of that was him throwing ~30 more innings that season.
In 2017, Kluber finished with numbers of: 18-4, 2.25 ERA, 202 ERA+, 0.869 WHIP, 265 K, 203.2 IP, 5 CG, 3 SHO, 11.7 K/9, 1.6 BB/9, 6.2 H/9, 0.9 HR/9, 8.1 WAR
He led the league that season in wins, ERA, ERA+, WHIP, CG, SHO, H/9, BB/9, and SO/W (7.36) as he cruised past Chris Sale and Luis Severino to his second Cy Young.
Corey Kluber, one of the truly great starters in Cleveland history, and for my money, far and away the best of the modern era. Hopefully for us, he's not done yet either. Beyond happy to be able to snag him to head my rotation.
@sportscoach is on the clock,
@daddywags is on deck