All-Time Indians: Ed Klepfer

If there is one thing the Indians as a franchise are famed for it’s great pitching and this has been a mainstay from inception in 1901 through today. While eventually some of the best would have lengthy careers in Cleveland, it was incredible how many pitchers came, became one of the best pitchers in baseball, then disappeared in the years between 1910 and 1920.

Ed Klepfer was one of those men, joining the Indians in 1915 for what would be an incredibly short, but electric, pitching career. Klepfer was originally signed by the Highlanders in 1911 and after two years in the minors for New York, made another short Major League appearance in 1913. He was released after a poor performance and after playing the 1914 season in the Pacific Coast League, he was signed by the White Sox for the 1915 campaign.

He only threw 12.2 innings in Chicago before being traded to Cleveland in a blockbuster that would eventually make baseball history, sending Shoeless Joe Jackson to Chicago for Klepfer and Braggo Roth. Roth would be a decent hitter for the Tribe and Klepfer had his moments as well, neither would have the peaks or the fall of Jackson with the Black Sox.

Finishing out the season, Klepfer threw 43 innings in seven starts, allowing just ten earned runs for a 2.09 ERA. Guy Morton and Willie Mitchell had ace like seasons for the Indians in 1915 and by proving himself, Klepfer was not only able to join them that year, but replace Mitchell the following season. He wasn’t always used as a starter in 1916 with a primary rotation of Jim Bagby, Sr, Stan Coveleski and Morton getting the majority of the starts, but Klepfer did get into 31 games, 13 as the starter. For the second year in a row, he posted an ERA well below 3.00 at 2.52 in 143 innings, the best on the team with at least 125 innings pitched.

At the age of 29, Klepfer would have his only really remarkable season, one good enough to place him among some of the best in Indians history. Considered the team’s third starter again behind Bagby and Coveleski began the season with eight starts and a 2.52 ERA, but was moved to the bullpen for all of June and much of July. In addition to his 27 starts that year, he would make 14 relief appearances including nine games finished and two saves earned.

After rejoining the rotation for good on July 17th, Klepfer would go on a run for the ages, starting with three consecutive complete games, winning nine of his next ten decisions and finishing the year with a 2.26 ERA over his final 123.2 innings pitched. His 14 wins to just four losses set the mark for top winning percentage in the AL that year as did his zero home runs allowed. In all, this was one of the best rotations of all time as Bagby and Coveleski also held incredible ERAs, both 2.00 or below while Klepfer finished at 2.37. Bagby won 23 games, but Coveleski was the most impressive, holding batters to a 0.99 WHIP and .184 average allowed. All three pitchers kept opposing hitters hitting safely less than 25% of the time.

While his career wasn’t long enough to really set himself apart, this season alone pushed him to about 400 innings (he would finish with 406.1 as an Indian), enough to place him sixth in Indians history in career ERA (with a minimum of 300 IP), ahead of Coveleski and Bagby, behind only some of the best pitchers to throw in the deadball era for Cleveland.

Despite being 30 years old, Klepfer was selected by the draft in 1918 and fought in Europe during World War I. While overseas, Klepfer saw some action and was gassed at at least one point. This effectively ended his career and after missing all of the 1918 season, he rejoined the Indians in 1919, but threw just 7.1 more innings. In these, he allowed six earned runs, 12 hits and eight more unearned runs. As a spitballer, the new rules making the pitch illegal would have likely brought his career to an end sooner or later, but there is no question that his time in the Army was the true culprit.

Klepfer never came back to baseball after retiring following the 1919 season and ultimately moved to Oklahoma, becoming an oil man. He died at the age of 62 in 1950 in Tulsa.