Cleveland Indians fans are used to seeing Cy Young award winners leave the city almost as fast as Cleveland Browns coaches and general managers leave.
This time, they’ll be able to watch the reigning Cy Young award winner pitch in a Cleveland uniform through many more Browns coaching changes.
According to various sources, the Indians and Corey Kluber have reached an agreement on a new five-year extension that will keep him under team control through at least the 2019 season. According to Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the contract has two club options making it very similar to the extension deal Yordano Ventura signed with the Kansas City Royals earlier in the day. The deal is also subject to Kluber passing a physical.
Kluber’s contract breaks down this way: $1 million for 2015, $4.5 million 2016, $7.5 million 2017, $10.5 million 2018, $13 million 2019. In March, Kluber signed a one-year $601,000 deal to avoid having his contract renewed, but that has been adjusted. The fifth year of the deal can escalate to $17 million depending on incentives in the contract. The first club option in 2020 can go from $13.5 million to $17.5 million based on esclators. The 2021 club option can go from $14 million to $18 million with a $1 million buyout.
It is the largest contract for a pre-arbitration eligible pitcher in MLB history. If all incentives are met, the deal could be worth $77 million.
Kluber was due to be arbitration-eligible for the first time next off season. As the Cy Young winner, he was in line for a large payday in arbitration next winter. After winning back-to-back Cy Young’s, Tim Lincecum requested $13 million in his first time at arbitration as a Super-2 and received over $60 million during his four years of arbitration without giving up a single free-agent season. Clayton Kershaw, like Kluber would have, received three cracks at arbitration, earning $19 million over his first two years and was set to earn around $20 million in his third before signing his seven-year contract. With the deal finalized, Kluber will offically forgo those arbitration years and up to three years in free agency in exchange for immediate security, which is probably a wise business move considering his late emergence at age 29.
For the Indians, this is also a wise move. They’ll be able to control Kluber’s cost rather than watch it rise like Lincecum and Kershaw’s if he has one or two more elite seasons. There are some risks such as are injury and the possibility last season was closer to Kluber’s peak than a sustainable output.Within the terms of the contract is probably an insurance policy that will hedge the organization against an injury to Kluber if it were to happen.
If the Indians are to contend for the division championship the next few seasons, they will need Kluber to pitch like the number one starter. It can be assumed that the dollar amount of the deal is below the going rate for reigning Cy Young winners in arbitration.
These low-cost investments rarely do harm, and can provide a tremendous return while also giving players, like Kluber, lifetime security instead of the Major League Baseball minimum salary.
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