After a quiet October for Tanner Bibee, the Cleveland Guardians are still treating him like a core piece of what comes next.
That might sound strange on the surface. Bibee was one of the highest-paid players on the roster outside of Jose Ramirez after landing an extension following the 2024 season, and he had just come off a 2023 campaign that put him in the top three in Rookie of the Year voting.
Those are the kind of credentials that usually put a pitcher at the center of a postseason plan. Instead, Bibee barely factored in.
He appeared in only one game during the playoffs, throwing just one-third of an inning in Game 3 of the ALDS.
The usage raised plenty of eyebrows, but Guardians manager Stephen Vogt pushed back on any notion that Bibee’s place in the organization has changed. Vogt said last week that Bibee will still be a major part of the rotation in 2027 and called him the staff’s anchor over the course of the season.
"He was our rock in that rotation, and I don't see that role changing in 27," Vogt said. "He's going to be a big part of our team, and a big part of our rotation moving forward."
Bibee’s 2026 numbers help explain why the conversation is more complicated than the playoff workload alone. He finished with a 4.36 ERA and a 1.22 WHIP, and his percentile rankings sat just below league average across the board. Still, Vogt made the case that the raw line doesn’t tell the whole story.
Run support was part of it. At one point during the season, Cleveland scored one run or fewer in half of Bibee’s outings, a stretch that colored some of the results around him. Bibee kept saying throughout the year that it didn’t affect him on the mound, but that kind of squeeze can wear on any starter.
The bigger issue for Cleveland was consistency. Bibee’s best month came in June, when he posted a 1.89 ERA.
His roughest stretch arrived in September, when that number ballooned to 7.36 ERA. That gap is hard to ignore, and it likely played into why the Guardians were cautious with him in October.
There’s still time for a lot to shift before Opening Day 2027, whenever that arrives. For now, though, the message from Cleveland is clear: the Guardians still expect Bibee to be one of the defining arms in their rotation, provided he smooths out the volatility that showed up over the course of the season.
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What makes the conversation more interesting is how those names line up with Clevelands needs. Some bring shortstop stability, others offer versatility or left-handed pop, and all come with contract situations that could make them more or less attainable. Nothing is close to official, and no deal has been made, but the fact that the Guardians are being linked to this kind of contender-making trade talk says plenty about the level of ambition being considered as the offseason unfolds. [Read more 🡒]