Corey Kluber is no stranger to Cleveland. After José Ramírez, there isn’t a player with fabrics tied more tightly to the city and its baseball team in the 2010’s than the two-time Cy Young winner.
Kluber was always on the cutting edge of pitching mechanics, and what separated him from the rest was fastball and breaking ball diversity. It also helped that everything he threw was flat out nasty. Now back in Cleveland as an advisor and occasional face in the clubhouse, Kluber’s fingerprints are all over the Guardians’ rotation, more specifically through the cutter.
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BIG RIG
Gavin Williams is someone who I’ve covered extensively on CtC. I forecasted his breakout last season around the end of May after a rough start forced him to integrate his cutter and prominently feature it in his arsenal. Last season, Gavin’s cutter was essentially a deadened four-seamer. What that means is he kept a similar grip but applied more pressure on his middle finger, killing the arm-side movement on the offering. This was vital to Gavin’s success as his fastball, while playing at a high level at the top of the zone, wasn’t finding the zone enough, and he had no secondary heater to get ahead in counts. Williams led baseball in walk rate in 2025, but the ever growing confidence in the cutter both dropped the walk rate slightly and allowed Gavin to find more success in the zone with his fastball. His heater went from a 15.7% barrel rate across his first two months with a .607 SLG against to 11% barrel rate and .426 SLG against with a +3% growth in whiff rate.
This season, Gavin has taken his cutter up a level, and with the addition of a pretty nasty sinker, his repertoire has filled out nicely. The focus in the Spring was more sinker-driven, but some more pronounced arm-side run from Williams’ cutter was something I found noticeable along with his arm slot dropping from 35 degrees to 32 degrees, though we’ll see if that’s something that sustains. Then he went out and dominated the Dodgers to the tune of 10 strikeouts across 7 masterful innings, and his cutter continued to be a major takeaway. Gavin’s cutter on the season has added an additional inch (2.3 inches to 3.4 inches) of horizontal movement while the rest of its shape remains largely the same. It was dancing a touch more than that against LA while living in the zone at a 75% clip, and Gavin Williams ahead in the count is about as unhittable as any pitcher in the sport. Since the addition of his cutter, Williams posted a .136 average against and 32.1% whiff rate when ahead in the count, a mark identical to Tarik Skubal. Working to get ahead should be the goal of any pitcher, but the more success Gavin has with that in 2026, the more dominant he will continue to look.
BIBEE’S EVOLVING ARSENAL
Last season, Tanner Bibee threw a sweeper. That sweeper was a Stuff+ darling, running marks over 110 across every Stuff+ measurement, but his inability to land it for strikes or generate consistent swing and miss out of the zone led to him not using it thus far in the 2026 season. Bibee’s development in 2026 has been less about his cutter and more about what’s being labeled as a cutter when it shouldn’t be.
Bibee throws a slider now. He threw one last year, but with his arsenal finding an overhaul around September, the noticeable change was more in how much more he was throwing the “cutter” and less about its shape. Now, with Bibee, there’s a distinct shape difference between his cutter “types”, and one is carrying much more like a slider would, and this has essentially cut out his sweeper altogether. Bibee’s attack plan against right-handed hitters has not changed a ton since last season, but with a slider over sweeper, he’s now using it more because he can land it in the zone more confidently without it hanging as much.
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This new slider is running a chase rate of 44.4% through two starts with a whiff rate of 36.8%. The key for Bibee, as it always seems to be, is mechanically cleaning up the discrepancy between the offerings. He’s had a few misfires where the velocity and shape indicated slider, but the location read more cutter in intent, and he’s gotten hit hard because of it. Nevertheless, there’s promise here that Bibee can find more success against right-handed batters in 2-strike counts. Those were the bane of his existence last season, but he’s already seeing a better success rate in those counts, and he has his newly found slider to thank for that.
CECCONI & MESSICK EXPAND ARSENALS
The most recent additions to the Cleveland Guardians Cutter Co. are both Slade Cecconi and Parker Messick. Cecconi showcased improved horizontal movement on his sweeper this Spring, and he’s begun to flesh out his cutter into a real weapon. Tossing out his first start this season as Cecconi pitched through an illness, we’ll largely focus on his Spring. Cecconi’s cutter accomplished something he’d been needing which is a strike-throwing pitch along the inner third to lefties that also serves as something up in the zone running away from righties. He now has pitches that he can attack either handedness with at every section of the zone.
As for Parker Messick, the cutter is very new and could be very useful depending on its usage. In his first start against the Dodgers, he only threw four of them, topping out at 90, but they were all to right-handed hitters. He struggled locating it for the most part, but using a cutter to RHH similar to how he tucks sinkers under the hands of LHH would be an ideal evolution of his arsenal.
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This is something I look forward to tracking all season. The cutter continues to be the added pitch to arsenals of starters once starters reach the Major Leagues, and Kluber, while seldomly there, deserves as much credit as Carl Willis and Brad Goldberg for this seemingly new revelation to this staff.
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