Corey Kluber Trivia Quiz

Answer: San Diego Padres

Kluber began his first season playing for the Fort Wayne Wizards, a Single A minor league affiliate of the Padres. While he had a relatively ho-hum season, he did earn one Midwest League Pitcher of the Week honor, and this was apparently enough for the Padres to feel comfortable promoting him to join the San Antonio Missions, a Double A team. Sadly, Kluber's first year there was tumultuous, as he had a near 6 ERA. So, unsurprisingly, he was not brought up any further at this time.

Answer: Lower

Kluber took it down from 5.56 to a much, much better 3.45 ERA while also leading the Texas League in strikeouts for the season. While he did not get promoted to Triple A for his efforts, it's possibly due to his struggles the year before that he may have been getting looked at as a potential demotion candidate. Having said that, Kluber would build off the momentum he developed in 2010, and he would never be demoted for the rest of his career, either being promoted or remaining where he was.

Answer: 2010

In a fairly large deal that took place right at the end of July 2010, Cleveland surprisingly sent over Jake Westbrook, who had been a stalwart in their starting rotation for an entire decade, to the St Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals sent outfielder Ryan Ludwick to San Diego, who in turn traded reliever Nick Greenwood to St Louis and Corey Kluber to Cleveland.

At the time, this trade was one that the Indians made amidst a lost season. This explains trading away a solid, longtime starter for a Corey Kluber who, at the time, was a completely unproven commodity. He was not even in the top 30 prospects in Cleveland's farm system. As such, at the time, the trade was widely unpopular, as fans were upset at the departure of longtime hurler Westbrook in favor of such a question mark. Of course, looking back on the trade, Cleveland ended up basically robbing San Diego blind, as Kluber would go on to be a force in their rotation for the next decade.

Answer: 2011

On September 1st of 2011, Kluber was officially called up by Cleveland to make his MLB debut. It was a pretty low stakes affair, as he entered the game in the ninth inning with the team down 7-0. Kluber threw an inning and a third of scoreless ball in the loss, notably striking out three along the way.

Answer: Cy Young Award

Kluber was absolutely filthy in 2014, starting 34 games with a 2.44 ERA that encompassed him throw three complete games. Kluber narrowly edged out Seattle's Felix Hernandez in Cy Young voting, with Kluber getting seventeen votes and Hernandez thirteen. Kluber became just the fourth Indian to win the award, with Gaylord Perry, CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee preceding him in this regard.

Answer: Strikeouts in one game

On May 13, 2015, Corey Kluber inflicted his wrath upon the St Louis Cardinals and struck out eighteen of them in eight innings, tying a franchise record that Bob Feller had set 77 years beforehand o October 2, 1938. Unfortunately for Kluber, extraordinary efforts like this were sometimes necessary just for the team to actually win the game.

Despite pitching like an ace once again, Kluber took a MLB leading sixteen-losing decisions on account of receiving little to no run support from the offensively inept Cleveland Indians.

Answer: Under 2.00

Posting a sterling 1.83 ERA, Kluber picked the best time to show his best stuff, going 5-0 with one no decision. Sadly, the no decision was in Game 7 of the World Series vs. Chicago Cubs, where the Indians lost in extra innings. This was to no fault of Kluber's of course, as he did everything that could realistically have been asked of him as the team's ace navigating through the intimidating Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago Cubs offenses.

Answer: Yes

Unlike his 2014 win, Kluber easily took home the award this time. Boston's Chris Sale was second in voting, but he was nowhere close to Kluber as Kluber obtained 28 first place votes to Sale's two. Kluber's 2.25 ERA was the lowest of all starters in the entire MLB, and his sharp 7.9 WAR was also the best of the best too.

In 2015, Kluber had a good year but took a lot of losses due to poor run support. In 2017, this was thankfully no longer the case, as Kluber had received enough support to attain eighteen winning decisions, tied with Max Scherzer for the most of any MLB pitcher that year.

Answer: Texas Rangers

Boy didn't this turn out to be an interesting trade! In it, Cleveland traded Kluber for utility infielder Delino DeShields and relief pitcher Emmanuel Clase. The initial reaction to this trade was shock and plenty of anger. After all, how could the ace of the team's rotation of nearly ten years be traded for a bench infielder and a reliever? DeShields was pretty ho-hum for Cleveland, and he would end up being let go in 2020.

Clase was a lot more interesting an acquisition! At first glance, Clase worked out really well in Cleveland. In 2021, he asserted himself as the team's closer and would not relinquish the role... At least, not with his talent, anyway. Clase would end up being arrested and federally indicted in 2025 after it was discovered he was gambling on MLB games and very likely was, at times, intentionally playing poorly as to fix the outcome on at least one case.

As such, Clase's career with Cleveland came to a very abrupt end. And of course, that makes people look back on the Corey Kluber trade. Of course, the compensation Cleveland received certainly went the way it did, but Kluber sadly was unable to match his Cleveland production as a Texas Ranger, and really never put together another solid season again.

Answer: Threw a no-hitter

On May 19 2021, Kluber put together the greatest single game performance he had ever put together. Ironically, Kluber found himself facing the Texas Rangers, who he had just played for the year before. It took just 101 pitches for Kluber to devastate Texas' lineup, throwing his first and only no-no, as well as the Yankees' first no-hitter since David Cone in 1999.

Unfortunately, Kluber could not sustain this success, and the Yankees let him go at the end of the year. Two seasons later, after one year with the Tampa Bay Rays and one with the Boston Red Sox, Kluber announced his retirement in 2023.