CLEVELAND — Like a painter undergoing a personal renaissance, the Shane Bieber the Guardians know today isn’t exactly the same pitcher they knew in 2020, or even 2022. And he might not be the same pitcher they know in 2024 — if, that is , he remains in Cleveland that long.
It’s no secret that Bieber has progressed through a personal transformation of sorts on the mound, perhaps even more than one, over the last few years. The style of pitcher who won the American League Cy Young Award in 2020 is long gone.
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It doesn’t necessarily mean Bieber can’t be equally as effective on a given day. But it’ll likely look different.
“I think he’s certainly kind of remade himself, and I think he continues to,” said manager Terry Francona after Sunday’s 5-0 win over the Houston Astros. “He sets the bar so high. I think sometimes he might be too tough on himself. I think he’s getting to a point where he’s comfortable, certainly in his own skin and with what he’s pitching with and just going out there and competing.”
Shane Bieber’s fastball usage, velocity drops as his cutter usage increases
In a way, the evolution began with Bieber’s fastball and led to a Domino Effect over his arsenal.
His fastball velocity has dropped significantly since his 2020 Cy Young season, when he averaged 94.1 mph. It has been sitting around 91.2-91.3 mph since the beginning of last year.
Likewise, the rate at which he has thrown his fastball has also decreased each year during that time, from 37.8 percent in 2022 to 33.1 percent this year. As the velocity and effectiveness of his fastball has dropped, he’s begun to lean on his other offerings more and more.
Bieber’s, for example, cutter was implemented in 2020 and is now a much larger part of his repertoire. He threw the cutter 15.8 percent of the time in 2020 and 2022, but that usage has jumped to 25.3 percent in 2023. That pitch has been key to Bieber being able to reinvent himself to a degree each season.
It isn’t just the pitch sequencing and usage. It’s how Bieber is getting to the end of his outings. For the most part, these days, it’s with fewer strikeouts and more contact than before. Bieber’s strikeout percentage has dropped each year since his peak in 2020, when it hit 44.1 percent and then fell to 33.1 percent in 2021, 25 percent last year and 16 percent in 2023.
Hitters are also making harder contact more often. Bieber’s hard-hit percentage sat comfortably around 43 percent for four consecutive seasons. This year, it has jumped to 47.5 percent.
Shane Bieber finds ways to remain effective while adapting as a pitcher
And yet, through it all, Bieber has remained an effective starting pitcher, albeit one who hasn’t looked as dominant as he once did. Bieber posted a 3.17 ERA in 2021 before missing significant time with a shoulder injury. That bled into 2022, as he spent the first half of the season adjusting and still managed to post a 2.88 ERA with 198 strikeouts in 200 innings.
For three-plus seasons now, Bieber has continued to evolve and adjust, tinker and pivot, shift and transform.
“I think I’d like to be multifaceted, right?” Bieber said Sunday. “It’s a hard thing to do to go out there year after year and try to do the same thing and expect the same results. The league is very, very good, very strong, very talented, very smart. So you see guys in year two, year three, the league kind of starts to figure them out. So it’s important to always continue to adapt and try to find new ways even throughout a season and from game-to-game to get guys out.
“So I feel like I’m the same pitcher, I’m just getting better, learning more about myself and continuing to improve.”
This year, Bieber has had some of the worst outings of his career, and others in which he had to grind more than he used to on a regular basis. But he’s also outings like Sunday, when he blanked the Astros over seven innings and struck out nine (although it’s fair to note Houston sat Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez after the team played 17 games in 17 days). His ERA now sits at 3.29.
In Sunday’s win, he struck out nine and looked every bit of his 2020 form.
“Yeah, I’ve seen it from afar the last few years,” said Josh Bell. “You’ve got to guess one of four or five pitches, a lot of swing and miss, a lot of foul balls and he doesn’t really make mistakes over the heart. He’s kind of painting up there.”
The possibility that the Guardians could trade Shane Bieber before the 2023 trade deadline exists
Bieber being effective but not quite as dominant, strong in spurts but not without a few hiccups, has created a murky outlook for the future, both as far as the Guardians and the league as a whole are concerned.
Barring a severe reversal of fortunes, Bieber will be in another uniform by Opening Day 2025. The Guardians have 1.5 more years of control left before he can hit free agency. That much is known.
The question is if the right deal came along, would the Guardians deal Bieber? It’d have to be heavily considered, and the team has shown a propensity to deal a starter to address other needs around the roster. In a little more than a year between the deadlines of 2019 and 2020, Cleveland dealt Trevor Bauer, Corey Kluber and Mike Clevinger, all of whom had no more than 2.5 years of control remaining.
Tanner Bibee and Logan Allen have shown they deserve spots in the rotation as rookies. Aaron Civale and Triston McKenzie have their places. Cal Quantrill is on the injured list but will return relatively soon. Gavin Williams has been mowing down Triple-A hitters all season and could make the jump to the majors soon, and might have if the Guardians had more of a need in the rotation.
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The Guardians can certainly use a starting pitcher with an ERA in the low-3s who has handled big moments and playoff chases. But if another team had a large enough need to send a trade package (or even one highly-regarded-enough player or prospect), Cleveland would have to give the potential deal the full weight of consideration.
It depends whether teams view Bieber as a No. 1 or high-end No. 2 starter pitcher considering his advanced metrics, and that while he has remained an effective starting pitcher, he hasn’t as often displayed the wipe-out, lock-down stuff he used to win the 2020 American League Cy Young. His speed is also a consideration. He has managed to reshape himself as a pitcher around that velocity drop, but it must be a factor nevertheless for any team investing in him.
For the Guardians, like almost every other decision they’ve made over the last several years, there will be a number of factors and timelines to consider. Any potential move with Bieber, such an important piece to the roster and what they’ve done since 2019, would be made with an eye trained on much more than simply the 2023 postseason race.
And for Bieber, it’s just something else to block out of his mind while his ever-changing presence on the mound continues. But he said that it hasn’t been difficult.
“I have a great internal support system, external support system. It’s my job to be able to block those things out and go out there today and ultimately just compete,” Bieber said. “That’s one thing that I love to do and that’s compete against players around the league and against other teams. And so that was my one focus today and I was able to feel that and to fall into a rhythm. And that’s kind of that feeling that is easy to fall in love with.”
Bieber will almost certainly be gone after next season. The question is if another team falls in love with him enough to make his exit even sooner, or if he’ll attempt to take the Guardians to the playoffs in 2023 and 2024.
While it’ll likely be as an effective starting pitcher in some form, It’s just anyone’s guess as to what a Bieber outing might look like by then.
Ryan Lewis can be reached at [email protected]. Read more about the Guardians at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/cleveland-guardians. Follow him on Twitter at @ByRyanLewis.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Cleveland Guardians could trade Shane Bieber as he continues evolution