When the Guardians’ season ended Monday night, the most puzzling pitching question had nothing to do with who took the mound in Game 6. It was why Tanner Bibee never did.
Cleveland’s Opening Day starter and leader in both starts and innings during the regular season went unused in the American League Championship Series against the Tampa Bay Rays, even as the Guardians burned through eight pitchers in a 7-3 loss that closed out their year. MLB Network’s Chris Rose pointed to Bibee’s absence as one of the series’ great mysteries, and Stephen Vogt addressed it afterward.
“Had we advanced the usage could have looked a lot different…. We wanted Tanner to pitch, the spot never presented itself,” Vogt said.
Vogt said the Guardians were keeping Bibee available for a very specific kind of emergency: extra innings. The idea was to have him ready as a long relief arm if a game stretched deep and Cleveland needed someone who could cover multiple innings.
That never happened. None of the six games in the series went beyond nine innings, so the opportunity never opened up.
Vogt also said that if Cleveland had reached the World Series, Bibee’s role might have changed, and he called the outcome unfortunate.
Bibee’s October workload ended up being tiny. He appeared just once in the postseason, coming out of the bullpen in Game 4 of the division series against the White Sox. He walked two of the three hitters he faced, both runners scored, and he didn’t pitch again during the final eight games of Cleveland’s playoff run.
The Guardians still leaned hard on the rest of the staff. Shawn Armstrong started Game 6 after throwing on each of the previous two days, becoming the first pitcher in postseason history to do that.
Matt Festa appeared in two ALCS games, including Game 4, when he gave up a two-run homer to Yandy Díaz in his first postseason outing. Cade Smith and Hunter Gaddis, both strong throughout October, each allowed two-run homers late in Game 6.
There were reasons Cleveland might have kept Bibee out of the spotlight. He scuffled in September, finishing with a 7.36 ERA over five starts, and his lone October appearance didn’t go well. At the same time, the Guardians found production elsewhere, including Foster Griffin, who struck out fifteen batters in 10 1/3 postseason innings, and the combination of Daniel Espino and Joey Cantillo.
Even with the strange finish, Bibee’s regular season was a major part of Cleveland’s success. He made all 33 starts, threw a team-high 188 innings and logged nineteen quality starts, the most by a Cleveland pitcher since Shane Bieber in 2022.
Earlier this month, he was also named a Gold Glove finalist, with the winners set to be announced on Nov. 1.
Vogt’s explanation suggests the Guardians weren’t shying away from Bibee so much as waiting for the right game that never came. Now the 27-year-old heads into the offseason looking to rebound from an odd October and reassert himself as a central part of next year’s rotation.
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Vogts message was less about the immediate sting and more about what comes next, urging his players to let the disappointment carry into the winter and the spring that follows. For a club that made it deep into October before bowing out, the challenge now is turning the frustration of coming up short into something useful when the Guardians start over next season. [Read more 🡒]