Yankees' Corey Kluber confident that he can make the doubters believe
TAMPA, Fla. — Corey Kluber gets it.
As accomplished as the one-time ace righthander is — he won the American League Cy Young Award twice during his nine years with Cleveland from 2011-2019, when he developed into one of the best pitchers in the sport — he gets why many inside and outside the game think the Yankees’ rotation is full of questions after Gerrit Cole.
"I understand why it’s looked at as ‘Gerrit and the rest,’ " Kluber said with a slight smile, tagging the group with a nickname that just might stick. "We just have to do our best job of preparing ourselves and being in a position that, hopefully, pitch a lot and kind of take away those question marks at the end of the year."
The 34-year-old Kluber, of course, is near the front of the line when it comes to those rotation concerns. A shoulder injury limited him to one inning last season for the Rangers. On May 1, 2019, his season was cut short after a fifth-inning comebacker broke his right forearm during a game in Miami.
"I feel really good right now," said Kluber, who went 20-7 with a 2.89 ERA in 33 starts in 2018, his last full season. "No issues with it now or anywhere along the rehab process. That's encouraging. Honestly, the way I would describe it now is I feel like I'm in a normal spot for spring training. I don't feel like I'm still working on improving the shoulder or anything like that."
Kluber is 98-58 with a 3.16 ERA in his career, including 56-20 with a 2.77 ERA from 2016-18. Like many free agents, however, he experienced a long winter of uncertainty before taking the one-year, $11 million deal offered by the Yankees.
An overall lack of spending by teams this offseason because of what they said were financial losses inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic was one factor. As were, naturally, concerns about Kluber’s health.
In the case of the latter, the Yankees were in position to gain some additional insight. Second-year pitching coach Matt Blake was in the Cleveland organization for some of Kluber’s tenure there. More significant, Kluber rehabbed over the winter in Jupiter, Florida, at Cressey Sports Performance, which is run by Eric Cressey, who is in his second year as the Yankees’ director of health and performance.
"With Eric Cressey, we have a lot of firsthand knowledge about where he was in his recovery and his training and kind of the measurables coming back from different injuries," Aaron Boone said. "Everything in the last few months has checked a lot of boxes as far as the things . . . first from Eric's eyes, and then we’ve got scouts’ eyes on him. Now we're getting our coaching staff and our strength and conditioning and training staff on him. It's February, but I would say we're encouraged, certainly."
As is Kluber when it comes to the rotation he’ll be a part of, especially at the top with Cole. The Yankees’ ace on Thursday praised Kluber as "a craftsman" whom he’s long admired, and Kluber returned the praise Friday.
"I think overpowering is probably the first word that comes to mind," said Kluber, about the furthest thing from a power pitcher. "Just the way he's able to just suffocate lineups, pretty much three, four times through. Obviously, he's got outstanding stuff. But stuff only goes so far. You can see, when you watch him and you pay attention, how well he understands pitching and how he can use that extremely impressive stuff that he has to go out there and just overpower lineups."
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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