Latest news with #ShaneBieber
New York Times
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Guardians takeaways: Shane Bieber's return, José Ramírez's numbers, Julio Franco's timelessness
CLEVELAND — The clock has started. Barring any setbacks, Shane Bieber could rejoin the Cleveland Guardians at the end of June. Bieber made his first minor-league rehab start Saturday for the organization's Arizona Complex League team. His outing aired on just about every TV in the Guardians' clubhouse and coaching areas. The guy on the mound looked familiar. Bieber struck out five, didn't walk a batter and allowed one hit in 2 1/3 innings. His fastball registered 92-94 mph, and the changeup he's tinkered with for years had more depth than usual. Advertisement Bieber's rehab assignment can last up to 30 days, which means if all goes well, the Guardians could activate him in about four weeks, give or take a few days. He'll make his next start Thursday for Double-A Akron, with a target of three innings or 50 pitches. Reliever Erik Sabrowski, recovering from elbow inflammation, will join him. Designated hitter David Fry, who returned from Tommy John surgery over the weekend, spent time catching Bieber in Arizona this spring. After each pitch, Fry, who is working through a throwing program, placed the baseball in a machine that sent it back to Bieber. 'He'd throw 25 pitches and miss one spot, and he was like, 'I'm all over the place today,'' Fry said. 'I'm like, 'No, you're pretty good, dude.'' Cleveland's rotation is trending in the right direction. Guardians starters posted a 4.84 ERA in March/April and a 3.60 ERA in May. Bieber, though, could give the group a jolt. Last summer, Matthew Boyd returned from elbow surgery to supply the Guardians with eight stellar starts (2.72 ERA), plus three sterling efforts in the postseason. Bieber could have enough time remaining on the schedule to make 15 starts or so in the regular season. The Guardians are paying him $10 million this year, and Bieber can opt for a $4 million buyout or a $16 million deal for next season. Speaking of starting pitchers rehabbing in Arizona, Triston McKenzie, uh, did not fare as well in his Complex League debut. Here's how his outing unfolded: hit-by-pitch, strikeout, walk, wild pitch, walk, run-scoring walk, strikeout, strikeout, home run, groundout, walk. The prospect who hit the home run was born in 2006. It probably goes without saying, given McKenzie's fall from trendy Cy Young Award candidate to throwing on back fields three time zones away from Progressive Field, but those in the organization have significant concerns about his road back. He has four months to unlock whatever's preventing him from consistently attacking the strike zone. Advertisement As things stand, McKenzie can become a minor-league free agent at the end of the year. He won't be eligible for another round of arbitration unless he's added back to the major-league roster. This might as well be a regular bit. There have been 28 hitting streaks in franchise history that lasted longer than the 21-game streak José Ramírez snapped over the weekend. Only 17 of those 28 have taken place in the last century. In the last 50 years, only seven Cleveland hitting streaks have lasted longer: 30: Sandy Alomar, 1997 26: Casey Blake, 2007 24: Matt Williams, 1997 23: Mike Hargrove, 1980 22: Michael Brantley, 2012 22: Marty Cordova, 2001 22: Julio Franco, 1988 Three others matched Ramírez's 21-gamer: Franco again in 1988, Joe Carter in 1986 and Albert Belle in 1996. Ramírez joined Earl Averill as the only players in team history to record a double-digit home run total in 10 consecutive seasons. His 1.085 OPS in May was the sixth highest in any month for a Cleveland hitter since 2000, behind Manny Ramirez (September/October 2000), Jason Kipnis (May 2015 and June 2013), Francisco Lindor (May 2018) and Grady Sizemore (June 2005). Ramírez posted a .386/.451/.634 slash line in May, with five homers, eight doubles, eight stolen bases, 11 walks and 11 strikeouts. His month culminated in the Los Angeles Angels' twice intentionally walking him in the first three innings Saturday. 'You saw what happened when they didn't intentionally walk him,' pitcher Slade Cecconi said. 'Almost a homer, a homer and a screamer up the middle. Nobody wants to face that guy.' The calendar flipped to June on Sunday, and Ramírez kept humming along as he tacked on a single and a homer. How lucky we are to be alive while José Ramírez is playing baseball.#GuardsBall — Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) June 1, 2025 Here's where he's stood on June 2 each of the last five years: 2025: .327 average, .939 OPS 2024: .276 average, .885 OPS 2023: .277 average, .807 OPS 2022: .292 average, 1.025 OPS 2021: .258 average, .882 OPS Carlos Santana, another veteran out to prove he isn't slowing down, logged a .316/.450/.544 slash line in May, with five homers, 19 walks and 16 strikeouts. Advertisement 'He's a very old man,' Ramírez said through team interpreter Agustín Rivero. 'He's my brother. … He's the hardest worker out there.' A sight to behold: 66-year-old Julio Franco offering hitting instruction to Jhonkensy Noel and Angel Martínez in the Guardians' dugout Saturday afternoon. Martínez was born in January 2002, when Franco was 43 years old — and when Franco still had six big-league seasons remaining. Noel, listening intently, sat beside Franco and Carlos Baerga on the bench. Martínez briefly left the conference to retrieve a bat so Franco could demonstrate some tips. At one point, the two longtime big leaguers stood up, and Franco shifted Baerga's hands and arms as if the former second baseman were a robot built for hitting demonstrations. Franco and Baerga were teammates on the 1996 Cleveland team. Guardians bench coach Sandy Alomar Jr. said Franco helped him in the batting cages daily in 1997. 'He would not let you get down,' Alomar said. ''You have to do this every day.' He was good with routines. He was a great hitter. He was one of my favorite teammates.' Franco debuted in the majors April 23, 1982, and played his final big-league game Sept. 17, 2007, when he was 49 years old. In his debut, he hit a few spots behind 41-year-old Pete Rose in the Philadelphia Phillies' lineup. In his final game, he opposed a 24-year-old wunderkind named Miguel Cabrera. Even in his mid-40s with the Atlanta Braves in the 2000s, Franco reached base at a high clip and posted an OPS near or above .800 in a part-time role. Nolan Jones had multiple hits in five of his first 49 games this season. He's had multiple hits in three of his last four. In his last 16 games, he's hitting .333 (16-for-48). The key? A less-is-more approach. All but one of those 16 hits have been singles. He's lining pitches back up the middle instead of trying to rescue his reeling stats with a barrage of home runs. Advertisement For nearly two months, coaches have assured Jones the hits would eventually fall. His metrics — exit velocity, hard-hit rate, chase rate — suggested better days are ahead, but that can be difficult to trust. 'Impossible,' in fact, as Jones said Sunday afternoon. Jones would return home after each game, study video of his swing mechanics and take pretend swings in the mirror. That's not a practice he employs when he's performing well, and eventually, his fiancee told him it was becoming a 'terrible' habit. About a week ago, Jones quit the routine. He stopped watching video at home and examining his motion in the mirror. And instead of trying to convert glitzy metrics into gaudy stats, he focused on hitting line drives up the middle in the batting cage. He's 8-for-14 in his last four games (and he probably should have had another hit Sunday, but the official scorer charged the defender with an error). 'Sometimes, the best answer might be simplifying,' he said. (Top photo of Shane Bieber in 2023 start for Akron: Jeff Lange / Imagn Images)
Washington Post
3 days ago
- General
- Washington Post
Shane Bieber's second rehab start on Thursday brings hope for Guardians' rotation
CLEVELAND — Shane Bieber will make his second rehab start on Thursday with the possibility of the 2020 American League Cy Young winner rejoining the Cleveland Guardians rotation by late June or early July. The right-hander — who had Tommy John surgery on his right elbow last April — is scheduled to start for the Double-A Akron RubberDucks after throwing 2 1/3 scoreless innings in an Arizona Complex League game on Saturday. Bieber, who turned 30 on Saturday, faced nine batters, allowed one hit and struck out five.
Associated Press
3 days ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Shane Bieber's second rehab start on Thursday brings hope for Guardians' rotation
CLEVELAND (AP) — Shane Bieber will make his second rehab start on Thursday with the possibility of the 2020 American League Cy Young winner rejoining the Cleveland Guardians rotation by late June or early July. The right-hander — who had Tommy John surgery on his right elbow last April — is scheduled to start for the Double-A Akron RubberDucks after throwing 2 1/3 scoreless innings in an Arizona Complex League game on Saturday. Bieber, who turned 30 on Saturday, faced nine batters, allowed one hit and struck out five. Chris Antonetti, Cleveland's president of baseball operations, was pleased that Bieber was averaging 93 mph on his fastball. 'It was really fun to watch Shane just get back out in a competitive setting,' Antonetti said before the Guardians faced the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday. 'He's worked on adding some complementary pitches or changing the way some of his pitch profiles look. So his changeup in particular had maybe more depth than it's had in the past.' After spending most of his time at the team's spring training complex in Goodyear, Arizona, Bieber is likely to remain in Northeast Ohio for the remainder of his rebab. The Guardians top affiliates are in Columbus, Akron and Eastlake, Ohio, which are all less than a two-hour drive from Progressive Field. The plan is for Bieber to throw up to 50 pitches again on Thursday before ramping things up. With the two-time All-Star likely to pitch every five days, it is possible his return to the rotation could occur between June 25 through 29, when the Guardians have a homestand against the Toronto Blue Jays and St. Louis Cardinals. 'We have a pretty good plan in place, but the one thing we want to make sure, especially with Tommy John, is that we're really deliberate in helping him get back to a point where once he returns, he's able to pitch for the balance of the season without issues,' Antonetti said. Bieber's return — whenever it is — should provide a lift for a rotation that has struggled the first two-plus months of the season. Guardians' starters went into Sunday's game with the fourth-highest ERA in the American League (4.25). Tanner Bibee is 4-5 with a 3.86 ERA while Ben Lively will have Tommy John surgery later this week. Bieber agreed to a one-year, $14 million contract last fall with a $16 million player option for 2026. Cleveland (31-26) enters Sunday six games behind Detroit in the AL Central, but has one of the three wild-card spots. 'I think we're right in the mix. I think what we're seeking to do is be a little bit more consistent in all areas of the game, whether that's starting pitching, our bullpen, defense, offense, all of those areas,' Antonetti said. 'I think we've seen periods of what we're capable of doing, but we feel like we still have our best baseball yet in front of us and that's part of something that goes along with being a young team.' ___ AP MLB:
New York Times
10-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Shane Bieber won't rush recovery, but Guardians optimistic about his 2025 prospects
GOODYEAR, Ariz. — There he stands, wearing that white No. 57 uniform, in the bullpen area behind the batting cages at the Cleveland Guardians' spring training facility. He pauses and collects himself after each toss to his catcher. There's no pitch clock, no pressure, no Opening Day start to cram for. Shane Bieber is in no hurry. Advertisement Bieber is less than a year removed from Tommy John surgery, but there's hardly any evidence that he's on the mend as the late-morning Arizona sun beats down on the back fields at the team's complex. To watch him blitz through his rehab isn't surprising. It's seeing him in a Guardians uniform in 2025 that can be difficult to comprehend. This is almost certainly Bieber's last hurrah with the only franchise he's ever known — although the same line was uttered each of the last two years, a reaction to the Guardians' tendency to ship out valued players with dwindling team control. Yet, Bieber is still here. He's here because of his trust in Carl Willis, his only major-league pitching coach, the guide best equipped to return him to ace-dom. He's here because of his faith in the organization's training staff, the group most knowledgeable about his injury history and his rehab process. Bieber's path to this point is one rarely traveled by a Cleveland star, but it has paved the way for perhaps one more memorable stretch in a Guardians uniform. Upon his arrival in the majors, he made a quick transition from understudy to wunderkind. He arrived as the low man in a loaded rotation and, seemingly overnight, emerged as an All-Star Game MVP, a Cy Young Award winner and an unquestioned frontline starter. Then the injuries came. A shoulder strain wiped out half of his 2021 campaign and forced him to recalibrate his arsenal and recalculate the best ways to rack up outs. He recaptured his form in 2022, but elbow trouble hindered him in 2023 — otherwise, the Guardians would have dangled him at the trade deadline, and he may have followed rotation mate Aaron Civale out the door. Cleveland clutched onto him that winter, rather than sell low on a pitcher with one year of team control and a wealth of injury concerns. If Bieber pitched well early in 2024, he would either help them in the standings or rebuild his value on the midseason trade market ahead of an inevitable departure in free agency. Advertisement But during his second start last year, he knew he was finished. He pushed through elbow pain to throw what he figured would be his final pitches of the season. Bieber said he sulked for several days after his surgery last April. The realization that he'd spend his final season before free agency on the sideline struck him like one of his knee-high heaters. He spent six weeks in a brace and eventually learned to embrace the mini milestones and the gradual progression. It wasn't easy. It's not how he's wired. He urged Cleveland's trainers to force him to be patient. When a particular stage calls for a lighter throwing load, they need to be the ones to rip the baseball from his right hand. 'I'm always going to push,' he said this spring. Joey Cantillo. Tanner Bibee. Trevor Stephan. Shane Bieber. Four key arms for 2025. Well, together they have eight arms. But you get the idea. — Zack Meisel (@ZackMeisel) February 21, 2025 Bieber joined the Guardians for their October playoff run, but he could only contribute on the periphery. Instead of devising an attack plan against Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, he was advising Tanner Bibee on how to handle the pressure of a postseason start. The season ended and Bieber became a free agent, which meant a break in communication with the Guardians' training staff as he pondered his next move and his next team. If the Guardians wanted to take on the risk of re-signing a player recovering from elbow surgery, they did have a compelling pitch. No one knew him better. No other team could offer the comfort of familiar trainers and pitching coaches. They steered him through the first six months of his rehab, and they could lean on nearly nine years of history. That familiarity spearheaded a reunion. 'There's no doubt they put the player and the player's future at the top of the priority list,' Bieber said. Advertisement That's reflected in Bieber's new contract. If Bieber shakes off the rust and resembles his old self, he probably won't be a Guardian in 2026. He'll be somewhere else, on a much more lucrative deal. He'll decline his player option, toss a $4 million buyout into his savings account and accept someone else's long-term offer. Everyone knows this. Bieber trusts the Guardians to get him back to that level, and he can help restore the Guardians' rotation to its usual standing as the team's backbone. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. The question, then, that everyone is asking, but that Bieber is in no rush to answer: When will he pitch in a big-league game? John Means, another pitcher drawn to the Guardians' ability to aid rehabbing pitchers and signed with the team this offseason, projected an August timeline for himself. Bieber won't use such specifics. 'Midseason' is about as much clarity as he'll offer, but he sounds like someone cautiously optimistic about his progress. Catchers, coaches and front-office evaluators who have watched those bullpen sessions have shared similar sentiments. It would be human nature to mentally map out the schedule — throwing to hitters, simulating a multi-inning appearance on an actual diamond, making minor-league rehab starts, finally jogging out of the dugout and to the mound at Progressive Field while savoring the home crowd's ovation. Bieber prefers to temper his expectations and keep this a methodical, deliberate process. It's hard, though, to watch him throw so crisply and confidently and naturally — even if in the back of the complex in front of a bunch of analysts studying the feedback of every throw on high-tech cameras and iPads — and not envision a triumphant return, reminiscent of the one Matthew Boyd enjoyed with Cleveland last summer. Bieber stressed that every pitcher's recovery from elbow surgery is different, but he admitted he leaned on Boyd last year for guidance. 'Seeing the success he had right away was encouraging,' Bieber said. Advertisement Boyd parlayed a 50-inning partnership with the Guardians into a two-year deal with the Chicago Cubs. Bieber is four years younger — he'll turn 30 on May 31 — and boasts a more decorated résumé. He could also return earlier in the calendar than Boyd did, allowing him to script a more fitting final Cleveland chapter than the inconspicuous goodbye that seemed inescapable last season. 'Don't want to jinx anything,' Bieber said, 'but at the same time, (I'm) very confident in my progression.'
NBC Sports
03-03-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Shane Bieber progressing well in his rehab in hopes for All-Star Break return
GOODYEAR, Arizona, March 3, 2025 — For the first time since 2018, Shane Bieber is not attending Guardians' spring training as the favorite to start on Opening Day. He won't even begin the season as a member of the active roster. Instead, the seven-year veteran is simply focused on getting back on the mound after undergoing Tommy John surgery on April 12th of last year. After the 2023 season, the veteran had been diagnosed with a slight tear in his elbow but had a rehab plan and was even able to make his final two starts of the 2023 season. 'I had a normal off season and worked my ass off, to be frank,' Bieber recalled. 'I felt really great. Had a fantastic spring training. Everything was ticking back up to, kind of, a place of normalcy and where I expected to perform and to be.' In fact, the 2024 season couldn't have started much better for Bieber. He pitched 12 scoreless innings in his first two starts of the year, striking out 20 batters and walking only one. The velocity on his four-seam fastball was the highest it had been since 2021, his slider was graded by pitch models as the best it had ever been, and he seemed to finally land on a changeup grip that worked for him. However, the pain in his elbow became too much to ignore, and Bieber and the Guardians decided that surgery was the best course of action. That kicked off an eight-month process that involved the operation, recovery, rehab, and contract negotiations before Bieber decided in mid-December to rejoin the Guardians on a one-year deal and maintain the relationships that had meant so much to him, even during an incredibly difficult season. 'I had that opportunity to reflect [this off-season],' recalled Bieber, 'but with that being said, I really do believe that my injury was a result of a number of factors. I don't think I was doing anything wrong. I think a big part of being an athlete is, unfortunately, that you have to deal with injuries. Throwing a baseball overhead at a high velocity is not a normal thing for a shoulder or elbow to endure time and time again, so I think there was a little bit of a factor of inevitability... I've always felt comfortable with my routine in season, and it's worked for a long time. I was just kind of battling this for a little bit longer than I would have liked, so we had to address it surgically.' Eric Samulski, That level-headed approach has been crucial to Bieber's success during his rehab. He's currently following a joint program created by Dr. Keith Meister, who performed the surgery, and the Guardians. The two entities have been working closely together to track Bieber's progress and ensure that everybody is focused on the long-term outlook and not rushing to get back on the mound, regardless of how well things are going. 'Honestly, when I try and get ahead of myself, they reel me back in,' laughed Bieber. 'It's a good combination. I think that's the best way to go about things. I'll push, and they'll I feel like I'm ready, and then they make me wait one or two more weeks, I'll be in an even better things are going really smoothly, progressing smoothly.' So far, that progression has advanced to the point where Bieber is throwing bullpens utilizing two different fastballs, his four-seamer and his cutter. He anticipates adding more pitches when he has his next bullpen on Tuesday, and then he'll throw another bullpen on Friday before the team decides on the next course of action. 'When I first got surgery, we were thinking [I would return] right around the All-Star Break,' said Bieber. 'It's a bit conservative but a good spot to target. I don't want to get myself in trouble and try and beat any dates, and that's why they kind of won't give them to me.' When you look back at how Bieber's 2024 season began, it's easy to see why the soon-to-be 30-year-old is eager to get back on the mound. 'I think, for me, before I got hurt last year, I was in a really good spot. My stuff was in a place where I felt most comfortable competing and just having a blast doing so.' With his fastball velocity increasing, he felt as if it 'led to everything else ticking up as well. So I was able to throw a lot more different combinations and just enjoy playing with kind of those newfound tools.' One of those new tools was a dynamic changeup. Since 2018, the most Bieber had ever used a changeup was 9% of the time back in the COVID-shortened 2020 season. Back then, the pitch was 88.7 mph, with 16.3 inches of horizontal movement and 5.3 inches of drop. It graded out as a below-average pitch by Pitcher List's PLV metric in part because Bieber had just a 29 percent zone rate on it, well below the league average of 36 percent. He also had a below-average strike rate on it, so even though the pitch had a solid 21 percent swinging strike rate, it was never a huge part of his arsenal. By 2021, he was throwing the pitch just five percent of the time and then two percent of the time by 2023. Yet, it came back with a vengeance in 2024, mostly thanks to a new grip. 'For a long time, I've tried to kill speed on my change-up, and I just can't do it,' explained Bieber. 'I can't really do it on any of my pitches. They just come out how they come out, and so we stopped fighting it and tried to just say, 'Okay, well, if it's gonna be 88 to 90, let's make it short and late, give a different feel, and try and get it as much depth as possible.'' In practice, that meant Bieber was throwing the pitch 89 mph but with slightly less movement, both vertically and horizontally, than he had in 2021. The 'late' movement he references also tied back to the grip change, which allowed the changeup to almost fall off the table later on its journey to home plate, without the small 'hump' that had characterized its movement profile before. Now, the pitch almost seemed to vanish right before it approached the hitter. The zone rate on the pitch was still low, but the strike rate climbed up around league average, and the swinging strike rate was nearly 23 percent. He threw it to lefties and righties alike, which he had not done in 2020, but he also decided to use it as more of a two-strike offering, taking advantage of its low zone rate and high swinging strike rate. In 2020, he threw the pitch in two-strike counts just 10.4 percent of the time, but last year, he threw it in two-strike counts 23% of the time with a 60 percent PutAway rate. Obviously, 12 innings is an incredibly small sample size, but it was clear to anybody, including Bieber himself, that it was working. 'I got immediate feedback from hitters that [the modification] was the right move and that it was working. And so I had a lot of fun doing it.' Bieber also made small changes to the way he used his slider and his cutter in 2024. Partially due to the increased velocity, Bieber started to attack lefties with his cutter up in the zone over 17 percent more than he had in 2023. Considering he was also throwing the four-seamer up in the zone to lefties more than he had before, he was able to create more deception on his fastball variations than he had ever had. As a result, he saw his swinging strike rate on four-seamer against lefties jump from 3.6 percent to 14.7 percent. Again, these are small sample sizes, but they are also evidence of a veteran pitcher seeing how his stuff is playing differently and making adjustments to take advantage of that. 'I always pride myself on being malleable out there on the mound with the way I throw and attack hitters,' said Bieber. 'I'm excited to be able to do that when that time comes, as I'm reintroducing pitches in my bullpens. Once I get into live BP and see where all my stuff's at, then I think I'll make adjustments from there.' 'Last year. I got back to a place where I was throwing a lot of different sequences and reading swings. Going into games, obviously, you have a plan of attack, and you throw a certain pitch, and you get feedback from a hitter, and you go off of that. You continue to do that over and over, and so I feel like I can attack hitters in a bunch of different ways. That's one of my favorite things about pitching. So I'm excited to get back there.' The Guardians, their fans, and fantasy managers are excited for Bieber to get back out there as well. Even though the All-Star Break feels like a long way away, that will give Bieber over two months in the rotation and almost 10 starts, even if he doesn't beat that conservative timeline. Given how good he looked last year and how excited he seems to be with what he learned from those two starts, that makes Bieber one of the better IL stashes you can draft in most fantasy formats. 'As hard as it is, I'm just trying to put one foot in front of the other,' he said. 'The most important thing is to keep my head down and continue to progress smoothly. I think as long as I do that, I'll be in a great spot.' And so will fantasy managers who roster him for the final few months of the season.
