Gavin Williams, Tanner Bibee and the winding paths for two could-be top Guardians starters

New York Times

2 days ago

CLEVELAND — Terry Francona sat on the dugout bench on a sunny, late-August morning at Wrigley Field in 2015. After visits to Minnesota, Boston and New York, Francona's club had a pitstop in Chicago for a makeup game against the Cubs to complete a four-city tour.
No one could blame Cleveland's manager if he were a bit ornery that morning, given the demanding trip. One Chicago reporter tested his patience.
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The reporter didn't ask a question; he simply made a statement. Francona couldn't stand that approach. He'd usually reply, 'Is there a question in there?'
To make it worse, the statement under fire contended that Corey Kluber was enduring a rotten season. On the surface, perhaps someone who hadn't watched Kluber pitch or studied any of his statistics, aside from his misleading win-loss record, would draw that conclusion. At the time, Kluber was 8-13. The horror!
Kluber's ERA was 3.52. He had already surpassed the 200-strikeout mark. He rarely walked anyone. He didn't give up a ton of hits. His metrics suggested he was the same guy who had captured the Cy Young Award nine months earlier, but he was receiving insufficient support from his offense and had run into some poor fortune.
If anyone was immune from criticism on that uninspiring 2015 team, it was Kluber. And so Francona snapped at the reporter and directed him to examine his numbers and actually watch him operate.
That afternoon, Kluber limited the Cubs to one run on four hits over 7 2/3 innings, didn't issue a walk and racked up 11 strikeouts. Statement made.
Once again, the offense granted Kluber no breathing room. Kris Bryant tagged Zach McAllister for a walk-off homer in a 2-1 Cubs win. Cleveland dropped to 58-66. The club had shipped out every veteran it could in the previous few weeks: Nick Swisher, Michael Bourn, David Murphy, Brandon Moss, Marc Rzepczynski.
The one building block that had the organization giddy, though, was the top of the rotation. That, it figured, could allow the club to contend again in 2016. Danny Salazar's stay at the top was a bit of a fever dream, thanks to shoulder injuries, but Cleveland's brass knew it had a dynamic front end of the rotation in Kluber and Carlos Carrasco.
The path those two took to reach the pinnacle was not a straight line. It veered toward disaster at times. The same goes for Shane Bieber and Triston McKenzie, another duo who spearheaded Cleveland's run to the 2022 American League Division Series.
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The Guardians are experiencing that phenomenon again in 2025. For Stephen Vogt's group to chase down a playoff berth, a two-headed monster of Gavin Williams and Tanner Bibee could lead the charge. Development doesn't always follow a linear path, though.
Cleveland's front office didn't forecast Kluber claiming a pair of Cy Young Awards when it acquired him for two months of Jake Westbrook in 2010. Carrasco was the one with the tantalizing arsenal and the top-of-the-rotation projections.
As Kluber charged toward the finish line of his first Cy Young season in 2014, Carrasco was returning to the rotation after a three-month bullpen stint. He was 27 and on his last chance to stick on the big-league roster. That experience in the bullpen changed everything. When he rejoined the rotation, he kept pitching like a reliever — from the stretch, with simplified mechanics and an aggressive approach.
He posted a 1.30 ERA in 10 starts to close the season. Kluber emerged as the top pitcher in the AL. Cleveland had something brewing atop its rotation, and the two would create years of magic as the cornerstones of the league's most envied pitching operation. If Carrasco had been healthy during the 2016 postseason, the Cubs might still own the league's longest title drought.
Like Kluber, Bieber was never a flashy prospect. He had pinpoint command and the makeup the organization covets, but no one imagined he'd ascend to ace status. He breezed through the minors, and on his 23rd birthday, he made his big-league debut, the new No. 5 starter in a historically proficient rotation. A year later, he was an All-Star Game MVP and finished fourth in the AL Cy Young balloting. A year after that, he was a unanimous Cy Young Award winner.
Meanwhile, McKenzie debuted in 2020 and flaunted the skill that made him a top pick and top prospect. In 2021, however, he suffered through bouts of shaky command and tentative pitching. Bieber missed half the season with shoulder trouble.
In 2022, the two put it all together:
It was a short-lived run. Each made a pair of strong playoff starts that year. Their names surfaced in Cy Young conversations the following spring. But injuries derailed their next two seasons. Now, Bieber is with the Toronto Blue Jays. McKenzie is pitching to teenagers on back fields with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
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Before the lockout ended in the spring of 2022, Cleveland's coaches convened in Goodyear, Ariz., to watch minor-leaguers, since they were prohibited from communicating with anyone on the 40-man roster. Pitching coach Carl Willis had an instant affinity for Williams, a hard-throwing 2021 first-round pick who was built like an oak tree and hailed from North Carolina, where Willis has spent much of his life. But that spring, Willis noticed another pitcher, whom he said had 'impeccable command, a really good slider' and a fastball sitting at 94-95 mph.
'I was asking, 'Who is this guy?'' Willis said.
That was Bibee, a fifth-round pick the previous summer. He didn't stand in Williams' shadow for long. The two rose through the ranks together. The following spring, neither was in big-league camp, but Willis and other coaches and analysts flocked to back fields to watch the two pitch. Those late mornings at the complex were like Pretzel Day at the Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company.
Williams and Bibee were the future, and the future arrived sooner than anticipated. In spring 2023, the Guardians told Bibee he would start the year at Double-A Akron, but because of injuries to other pitchers, they altered his assignment to Triple-A Columbus a few days before camp ended. A month later, he was in the majors, and he flourished, finishing second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting.
Williams joined him that June and didn't look daunted, either. Bibee posted a 2.98 ERA across 25 starts. Williams logged a 3.29 ERA in 16 starts.
Then, the hurdles appeared.
An elbow injury wiped out half of Williams' 2024 season. When he returned, consistency proved elusive. In early September, he held the Kansas City Royals to one hit in seven innings. Five days later, he was yanked in the first inning.
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Williams labored through his first seven starts of this season, with inflated pitch counts, a ton of traffic and early hooks. Since mid-May, however, with some pitch-usage tweaks and mechanical refining, he has carried Cleveland's rotation.
'We're watching a guy turn into a very consistent starting pitcher,' Vogt said.
Gavin Williams shined yesterday in Queens, taking a no-hitter into the 9th!#GuardsBall | @CLE_CLF pic.twitter.com/Nbe1vU3EcL
— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) August 7, 2025
Vogt said he rewatched Williams' near-no-hitter a few times last week to gain an even better appreciation for it. Bibee was awestruck when New York fans offered Williams a standing ovation in the ninth inning, after the Mets finally broke through. As Williams inched closer and closer to history, Bibee stood against the dugout railing, careful not to jinx anything, despite second baseman Daniel Schneemann 'having a freaking aneurysm next to me after every single out.'
'He's figured it out,' Bibee said. 'He's been really good.'
For Bibee, the 2025 season has been a thorn. Many of his metrics are in line with previous years, but his hit rate, home run rate and strikeout rate have traveled in the wrong direction, pushing his ERA to 4.60. Bibee remains confident he'll rebound, and when he does, he's eager to form a potent duo atop the rotation.
'Obviously, everyone wants to be the best,' Bibee said, 'but you don't want to be the best by default.'
For the Guardians, receiving peak production from Williams and Bibee for the next six weeks would go a long way toward vaulting them to the playoffs. They're still navigating their paths to the top, though. Williams struggled in his outing Wednesday against the Miami Marlins. Bibee will have a chance to pick him up and reroute his own season Thursday.
'It takes time. It's still (up and down),' Willis said, motioning his right hand like a roller-coaster car. 'We're trying to make it just a little more linear.'
(Top photo of Gavin Williams: Alika Jenner / Getty Images)
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