Texas Rangers didn’t want to pay Corey Kluber big bucks. Neither did New York Yankees.
The Texas Rangers weren’t going to pay Corey Kluber $18 million to pitch for them this season.
That was the price tag on the club option on his contract, and it was too steep a wage to pay a pitcher who threw one inning in 2020 and made only seven starts in 2019.
Shoot, not even the New York Yankees wanted to pay him $18 million.
They’re paying him $11 million on a one-year contract he signed in January as a free agent. The Rangers discussed bringing Kluber back, but it’s hard to imagine him returning to a rebuilding team even if they had offered him $11 million. Or more.
Besides, how much better would he have made the Rangers?
But the no-hitter he threw Wednesday against the Rangers, on the mound where he tore a shoulder muscle in his lone inning for the Rangers last season, absolutely stings.
It was the second time the Rangers have been no-hit this season, and it was the sixth no-hitter in baseball over the first seven weeks.
“I wish this guy well, but I didn’t wish him that well,” manager Chris Woodward said.
Kluber said that his only start last season for the Rangers, who acquired him in December 2019, never crossed his mind until he was reminded of it by Yankees catcher Robinson Chirinos after the game. He was behind the plate July 26 when Kluber threw 18 pitches in the first inning and exited with a torn teres major muscle.
That was it.
“Robbie Chirinos came up to me and said, ‘Congratulations. A lot better than the last time you were on the mound here,” Kluber said.
The success he had Wednesday doesn’t surprise the Rangers, who watched the meticulous way he goes about preparing in spring training 2020 and in summer camp at Globe Life Field.
They saw the trademark cutter and pinpoint command, the deception his pitches can have when thrown from the same point over and over again.
Woodward said the Rangers expected to see that stuff in 2020, albeit shortened to only a 60-game season. They saw it all right.
“I’ve watched this guy go through his routines and the work that he puts in in every way,” Woodward said. “I’m not surprised by it at all.”
The Rangers were no-hit April 9 by San Diego Padres right-hander Joe Musgrove, and there was one significant similarity. Musgrove throws one of the best curveballs in baseball, and it kept the Rangers tied up as he piled up 10 strikeouts.
Of the 101 pitches Kluber threw, 76 were off-speed pitches — 31 curveballs, 27 cutters/sliders and 18 changeups.
The difference between the two no-hitters was how effective Kluber’s changeup was.
“It really is similar,” Woodward said. “Everything from Musgrove kind of moves left like Kluber, but some of the changeups Kluber threw, he got a lot of guys off the end of the bat and made his slider and cutter even that much more effective.”
Kluber had more of a comfort level than other visiting starters who have pitched here this season, and he also had some familiarity with Rangers hitters after being their teammate last season.
He pitches for a World Series contender now, one stacked with veteran hitters and a deep bullpen. The Rangers, meanwhile, have made no secret that they are rebuilding, which influenced how much they were willing to offer Kluber in the offseason.
Should they have offered him a lucrative deal? Maybe. Would he have re-signed with a rebuilding team over a contender? Probably not.
Should the Rangers have picked up his $18 million option?
If the Yankees weren’t even willing to pay him that much, that should answer that.
