This story was excerpted from Tim Stebbins’ Guardians Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CLEVELAND -- Tanner Bibee isn’t the same pitcher he was when he took the mound for the Guardians on Opening Day this season. He isn’t exactly the same pitcher as he was five weeks ago, even.
“I feel like I've really changed how I pitch after that Washington game,” Bibee said.
Bibee had one of his worst starts this season against the Nationals on May 25. He surrendered seven runs on eight hits (including five home runs) over three innings. In six outings since, he has a 2.29 ERA in 39 1/3 innings, all while his arsenal has undergone a bit of an evolution.
At the center of that evolution? Bibee’s sinker, which he has been leaning upon as a primary offering.
“He's really learning to command that pitch and use it as a weapon,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said.
Coming off a down 2025, Bibee primarily threw his four-seamer (27.3 percent usage), cutter (25.7 percent) and changeup (19.5 percent) over his first 12 starts, which culminated with his outing against Washington. His sinker usage was just 15.8 percent.
In six starts since, Bibee's sinker usage has been 37.2 percent -- highest in his arsenal ahead of his cutter (24.5 percent) and four-seamer (13.3).
“The sinker last year, the start of this year,” said Bibee, who has a 3.69 ERA in 18 starts this season, “it was kind of like a surprise pitch. But now it just feels like a real weapon, where I can really lean on it to get quick outs, like I've been getting. Or I still can have guys freeze on it. ... It opens up a lot of stuff.”
We can perhaps attribute some of what we’re seeing to catcher Patrick Bailey, whom the Guardians acquired from the Giants on May 9. Bailey has caught eight of Bibee’s 10 starts since he joined Cleveland.
Bailey faced an acclimation process after his trade, which included a lot of observing and conversations with catchers Austin Hedges and David Fry, and Cleveland’s pitching team. Among the observations, Bailey noted Bibee’s body seems to move in a way that a sinker could be natural for him to throw, both from a release and delivery standpoint.
"It's been pretty exciting to see a guy who's had a lot of success in his big league career so far kind of make an adjustment and see the fruit of it,” Bailey said, “and also just continue to kind of morph into that. I think the ceiling is a lot higher than what we've seen so far.”
Bailey noted Bibee can throw the sinker inside on right-handers and on the outer half to lefties, typically lower in the zone. It’s a pitch Bibee can throw for a strike consistently. As Bailey noted, the less you throw a pitch, the more it will be protected from opponents hunting it. The sinker has been key for Bibee's other hard stuff.
Over Bibee's first 12 starts, opponents hit .313 against his four-seamer with a 56.1 percent hard-hit rate. They hit .295 with a 47.8 percent hard-hit rate against his cutter. In Bibee's past six starts, opponents are 1-for-21 against his four-seamer with a 26.7 percent hard-hit rate. They are 3-for-28 against his cutter with a 26.1 percent hard-hit rate.
“A lot of the conversations since I've been here too have been just how much we can limit slug,” Bailey said. “As he continues to develop in this, I think the four-seam is gonna be even more of a weapon as guys start to kind of posture down to get under the sinker. That should make the four-seamer a lot better.”
This isn't the only change Bibee made. He slightly tweaked his changeup, deploying it against Texas for the first time, so it now moves more closely to his sinker. The idea is to make opponents not know what’s coming between those two offerings.
Bibee is pleased with the results from his recent tweaks, but not satisfied.
“Obviously it's not a finished product at all, but I feel like it's a good step in the right direction,” Bibee said. “I’m going deep into games, keeping a low pitch count. That’s kind of the name of the game for starting pitchers. So far it's been good, and obviously I want to keep going.”