MLB: Is Corey Kluber A Hall Of Famer?

This past Friday, 13-year MLB veteran, Corey Kluber retired from the game of baseball. The 2x Cy Young Award Winner, played for 5 different teams throughout his career. Most notably, the Cleveland Indians (now known as the Guardians). With his career coming to an end, and the awards he won, it begs the question, is Kluber a lock for the Hall of Fame?

To figure that out, let’s take a look a small look at his career and how he stacks up against current Hall of Famers in stat categories.

In Rare Company

Since the Cy Young Award was introduced in 1956, only 22 pitchers have won multiple Cy Young Awards. Kluber is one of them. That puts him in an upper echelon, if you will. To put it into perspective here are a few pitchers that only have 1 Cy Young to their name: Don Drysdale, Bruce Sutter, C.C. Sabathia, John Smoltz, and Zack Greinke. Three of those names already have a plaque in Cooperstown, while the other two have a fairly clear path there.

That’s not the only rare club the former 4th-round pick is a part of. On May 19, 2021 as a member of the New York Yankees, Kluber pitched a no-hitter against the Texas Rangers. As of this past season, only 322 no-hitters have happened in MLB History. That sounds like a lot, but there’s been 238,277 games played since 1876. The amount of no-hitters isn’t even 1% of the total games played in history. That’s quite the rare feat if you ask me.

ERA Rules All?

Usually, when people look at/talk about a Pitcher’s stats, they go to their ERA (Earned Run Average) first. It seems as though, people think it is the stat that “rules all”. While ERA doesn’t tell the whole story, it’s a pretty good antecedent to how good a pitcher is. Kluber has a 3.44 career ERA, and won an ERA title in 2017. His 3.44 puts him on the career ERA list above names such as Curt Schilling, Orel Hershiser and Tom Glavine. You think about greatness when you hear those three names.

While Kluber wasn’t great for his whole career, the 3x All-Star had a stretch of his career where he was a top 3 pitcher in the league. The accolades, on top of the fact that he’s etched his name into history books for multiple things, make me think Corey Kluber is on his way to the Hall of Fame. Maybe not first ballot, but definitely somewhere along the way deserves to have his face on a plaque in Cooperstown.