Shane Bieber will resume his career with the only team he has ever known.
The Cleveland Guardians’ ace, currently recovering from Tommy John surgery, agreed Friday to re-sign with the team on a one-year, $14 million contract with a $16 million player option for 2026, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan. He is reportedly expected to return to the mound in the middle of 2025.
The deal reportedly pays Bieber $10 million for 2025 with a $4 million buyout of his player option. Per the New York Post’s Jon Heyman, Bieber had offers for more money elsewhere but chose to remain in Cleveland.
Bieber became an All-Star in 2019 and a Cy Young winner in 2020 but has struggled to stay healthy in the years since. He missed half of the 2021 season due to a right shoulder subscapularis muscle strain, spent two months on the IL in 2021 due to elbow inflammation and went under the knife to repair his UCL in April of this year.
When healthy, Bieber has been among the best pitchers in baseball, with a 3.02 ERA since 2019 that ranks 15th among MLB starters. However, at age 29, there are also signs beyond the injuries that his arsenal is degrading, such as a fastball velocity decrease from 94.1 mph in 2020 to 91.3 mph in 2023 (his 69 four-seamers in 2024 averaged 92 mph).
Bieber also went from striking out 41.1% of batters in 2020 to 20.1% in 2023, with chase rates of 35.7% and 29.7% in those years. To be clear, though, he has been an above-average pitcher even in his down years, with a 3.80 ERA and 3.87 FIP in 2023.
Pitchers often return from Tommy John surgery looking like their old selves, but in Bieber’s case, he might be aiming for his self from two or three years ago. Now he’ll be doing so while wearing the same uniform.
What to make of Bieber’s return to Cleveland?
I speculated recently that the high prices being paid for starters so far this winter could result in a significant payday for Bieber, regardless of the fact that his return to a big-league mound following Tommy John surgery isn’t expected until the middle of next season. In that sense, it’s a bit surprising that he was able to secure only two years and $14M guaranteed. However, nobody knows his current rehab status better than Cleveland — and it makes sense that Bieber would want to finish the road to recovery with the team with which he is most comfortable, rather than learning a new organization mid-rehab.
From that perspective, it’s not surprising to see reports that Bieber turned down more lucrative overtures from other clubs in favor of staying the course with the organization that drafted and developed him amid hopes of reinforcing the Guardians’ rotation at some point in 2025. Should he return next summer and look as sharp as he did in early 2024, he can simply decline his 2026 player option and re-enter the market at age 30 with the chance to cash in considerably.
For now, though, this is a big organizational win for Cleveland to potentially benefit from Bieber’s sky-high potential for another season, if even in an abbreviated capacity. At the same time, theirs is a rotation with substantial question marks, and Bieber’s exact timeline for return remains unknown. This is a nice move for the Guardians, but it should not be their only rotation addition this winter if they want to enter 2025 in position to defend their AL Central crown. — Shusterman
