What Signing Shane Bieber Means for the Guardians

Reading what we can into the first non-Austin Hedges signing of the Cleveland offseason

Shane Bieber is coming back to the Cleveland Guardians and I am processing what it means. First, make sure you have the details of his deal in mind:

Bieber had Tommy John surgery on April 12th of 2024, so the team is looking at an early June return at the earliest, but probably more something like late June or early July if things progress normally. There is a possibility, of course, that his recovery takes longer, but that’s part of the risk taken in these deals. In that case, one would assume Bieber picks up his 2026 option and the Guardians would retain his services for an additional bite at the apple.

I think the Guardians leveraged a few things to get a solid deal for Bieber:

1. Bieber’s comfort level with the organization, including familiarity with the medical staff, respect for Carl Willis and company, and certainly also his appreciation of having Austin Hedges as a personal catcher to guide him through his return.

2. Bieber knowing they made the playoffs without him so, in the AL Central, having a good chance to be part of another playoff run in 2025 to set up a lucrative return to free agency in 2026.

3. Their recent success bringing Matthew Boyd back and maximizing his effectiveness following his Tommy John surgery.

There are probably other factors at work, but getting $14 million guaranteed and having the option to hit free agency if he has an exceptional year or to get paid $16 million to remain in Cleveland and try to figure it out for another season is a good deal for Bieber. I also think it’s a no-brainer for Cleveland given Bieber’s potential and the possibility of getting the kind of value he can produce in three months and (hopefully) a handful of playoff starts.

I want to issue a mea culpa on an earlier conclusion I drew regarding the Guardians’ passing on Matthew Boyd’s 2 year and $29 million deal with the Cubs. I felt that because we knew that the Guardians liked Boyd and that Boyd liked pitching in Cleveland, not being able to muster up a two-year deal worth less than $30 million was a bad sign in regards to the team’s offseason pitching plans, especially in light of contracts given to pitchers like Frankie Montas and Luis Severino which notably exceeded public projections. The pitching market looks robust and the Boyd deal looked like a reasonable risk to me. Shoutout to Covering the Corner users like pezzicle and PaduaDSP who advised to give the market more time before coming to any conclusions, because the Bieber deal would seem to indicate to me that the team likely does have some money to give toward improving the roster.

It is unclear to me how the money exactly works, but the best I can tell is that the most the Guardians have committed to Bieber is $14 million, and the least is $10 million. For that, they have acquired the services of a player who has the eighth best FIP among starting pitchers who have thrown at least 300 innings since 2019. This is a great deal and a much cheaper bet than the deal the Cubs gave to Boyd. However, I would say that the deal indicates that the team will be adding at least one additional piece to the rotation. This is a deal made with a playoff run in mind and it only makes sense if a team is going to maximize their chances of making that playoff run. The Guardians have some interesting arms (Gavin Williams, Joey Cantillo, Doug Nikhazy, Austin Peterson, and even a Triston McKenzie rebound chance) to go with their proven commodities (Tanner Bibee as a front-of-the-rotation guy and Ben Lively as a back-of-the-rotation guy, in my mind), but they need at least one more proven arm who is likely to give them at least 150 innings of solid production, and probably two to feel good about their chances of securing a playoff spot in the season ahead.

I now expect the Guardians to make at least one more notable move - maybe signing a Kyle Gibson-type along with possibly adding a bounceback candidate like Mike Soroka. I don’t see any particular reason to think they’ll be fishing in the deeper Sean Manea/Nick Pivetta/Walker Buehler waters of the free agent ocean, but trolling shallower waters for the names mentioned above or Alex Cobb, Griffin Canning, Kyle Hart, Andrew Heaney and Jose Quintana seems well within the realm of possibility to me now. And that’s a very good thing.

Whereas earlier this week, I had resigned myself to imagining how my favorite undersung Guardians prospect Tommy Mace might become prime Alex Cobb for us so I didn’t have to feel bad about Cleveland not signing any notable starting pitcher, I am now able to go to sleep tonight knowing there is a very good chance I will get to see Shane Bieber make more important starts for Cleveland before his time here is over. That is certainly not something I thought was likely when I woke up this morning, so I’m always glad to be surprised, thrilled to be wrong, and happy to be mistaken when the unexpected turn of events is such a happy one. If the Dolans ok a couple more signings, I’ll be more than happy to praise them and admit that my low expectations for this offseason were wildly incorrect.

Before we go, let’s just remember how special Bieber looked to being 2024 and dream of him returning to something close to this form for October of next year: