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Guardians Hire Franchise Legend As New Pitching Special Assistant

Cleveland is bringing back a team icon.

Patrick Andres

Corey Kluber throws a pitch against the Marlins in 2019.
Corey Kluber throws a pitch against the Marlins in 2019. / Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images

The Cleveland Guardians have long been renowned for their development of pitchers—and now their staff has another ace up its sleeve.

Former pitcher Corey Kluber is joining the Guardians as a special assistant, the team announced Wednesday morning. Kluber, 39, has been out of baseball since a year with the Boston Red Sox in 2023.

The move reunites Cleveland with its best pitcher of the 2010s, whose stoic presence on the mound galvanized its success in the middle part of the decade.

Virtually out of nowhere in 2014, Kluber went 18-9 with 269 strikeouts, a 2.44 ERA, and an MLB-best 8.1 bWAR. He won the American League Cy Young award, and eventually won it again for a 100-win Cleveland team in 2017.

The franchise traded Kluber to the Texas Rangers before the 2020 season, and he bounced around four teams before calling it a career.

The Guardians are currently 25-17—second in the American League Central Divison and 2.5 games behind the first-place Detroit Tigers.

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Patrick Andres
PATRICK ANDRES

Patrick Andres is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He joined SI in December 2022, having worked for The Blade, Athlon Sports, Fear the Sword and Diamond Digest. Andres has covered everything from zero-attendance Big Ten basketball to a seven-overtime college football game. He is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with a double major in history .

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