Bieber Decides To Stay

According to the Billboard Hot 100 charts, the biggest hit of Justin Bieber’s career is “Stay,” a song you either can’t get out of your head, won’t admit you can’t get out of your head, or just don’t realize you can’t get out of your head because you hear it playing everywhere — all the time — but didn’t know the title or artist. Anyway, it seems as if the not-so-subliminal messaging of one Bieber influenced the other. Shane Bieber has decided to stay (oh, ooh-woah) with the Guardians, and he’s hoping the decision proves to be just as lucrative as Justin’s song.

Bieber’s contract is essentially a one-year prove-it deal with the added security of a player option for a second year. The right-hander will earn $10 million for his age-30 season in 2025. After that, he can either exercise a $16 million option for 2026 or take a $4 million buyout and return to free agency. In other words, the player option is really only worth $12 million to Bieber, which means he surely doesn’t intend to exercise it unless things go particularly wrong. After all, he managed to net this contract halfway through his rehab from Tommy John surgery. The Guardians are prepared to pay him $14 million for half a season of work, and reportedly, that wasn’t even his highest offer. It’s safe to say he’s not picking up that option unless he suffers another injury.

So, if Bieber’s plan is to continue his rehab, rebuild his value, and cash in next offseason, it’s easy to understand why he might have taken less money to stay in Cleveland. Not only does he already have a relationship and a rehab plan with the Guardians, but this is an organization with a strong track record for helping pitchers thrive. Just look at Matthew Boyd, who came back from Tommy John this summer and turned a handful of starts with the Guardians into a two-year, $29 million deal with the Cubs. Alternatively, look at Bieber himself. The organization took a fourth-round draft pick (122nd overall) and 45-FV prospect and developed him into a Cy Young winner. It’s hardly surprising that he wants to stick with the same organization as he works his way back from a career-altering injury. The chances that he’ll ultimately receive a big, long-term deal from the Guardians are slim to none, but he’s counting on them to help him get that offer from someone else.

Does that make Bieber sound like a teen movie character who’s only dating the Guardians to get the head cheerleader to notice him? Maybe, but the Guardians are no chumps in this scenario. In fact, their side of the deal might be even sweeter. The median prediction for Bieber from our contract crowdsourcing exercise was a two-year, $40 million pact. Of the 11 pitchers from our Top 50 Free Agents list to sign so far, only two have signed for less than their contract crowdsourcing estimates: Nick Martinez, who accepted the qualifying offer, and Bieber. (The financial details of Alex Cobb’s contract with the Tigers have yet to be revealed.) If Bieber looks anything like his old self when he gets back on the mound, $14 million will be a steal for the Guardians, even if he pitches only half a season.

At his best, Bieber is just about untouchable. He certainly seemed that way at the beginning of the 2024 season. In his Opening Day start, he gave the Guardians six scoreless innings, striking out 11 and walking none. He followed that up with another six scoreless frames in his second outing. He struck out only nine that time, but he again didn’t issue any free passes. That’s ridiculously good for any two consecutive performances, let alone his first two starts of the year. Going back to 1901, only one other pitcher has ever thrown at least 12 scoreless innings with at least 20 strikeouts and no more than one walk in his first two starts of the season: Shane Bieber in 2020. How’s that for a fun fact?

Underlying those dominant performances was an increase in fastball velocity. Bieber averaged 92.3 mph on his four-seamer in his first start of the season. That number dropped to 91.6 mph in his second start, at which point he was already pitching through the pain of a damaged UCL. Yet, even that diminished number was a mile per hour faster than his average four-seam velocity over his first two starts in 2023 (90.6 mph). Perhaps adding that extra oomph caused his injury in the first place. Alternatively, perhaps nagging injury issues were the root cause of his velocity fluctuations, and a surgically repaired elbow is precisely what he needs to get back on track. Right now, there is little point in speculating when we just don’t know what Bieber is going to look like when he returns.

What we do know is that Bieber can still be a top-of-the-rotation arm even with well-below-average fastball velocity. He was excellent in 2022, when his four-seamer averaged just 91.3 mph, pitching to a 2.88 ERA, 2.87 FIP, and 4.8 WAR across 31 starts. He wasn’t quite as successful the following season, putting up a 3.80 ERA and 3.87 FIP over 21 outings. Still, he was pacing for 3.1 WAR that year before a shoulder injury and his first bout of elbow trouble prevented him from pitching a full season. What’s more, and I’m cherry-picking now, but if you remove his two poor starts from right before he landed on the IL, he would have been on pace for 3.4 WAR in 31 starts. Only 20 pitchers reached 3.4 WAR in 2023.

When Bieber was thriving without a plus fastball, it was thanks to pinpoint command and a pair of dastardly breaking balls. From 2022-23, his 5.3% walk rate ranked seventh among qualified pitchers. Adding in hit-by-pitches, only four qualified hurlers issued free passes at a lower rate. As for those breaking balls, a slider and curveball, they were just as dominant in 2022 as they were in his Cy Young season. However, his curve was noticeably less effective in 2023 (.280 wOBA, .299 xwOBA, -1 Run Value), which was one of the primary reasons his overall numbers took a hit.

On the bright side, that was one of the pitches Bieber worked on at Driveline over the 2023-24 offseason. He adjusted his curveball grip to closer resemble the version of the pitch he threw earlier in his career. The intention was to make it look as much like his fastball out of the hand as possible, therefore inducing more chase. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see enough of Bieber in 2024 to tell if his curveball was back to being the pitch it once was. We didn’t get to see much of the splinker he was working on either. Moreover, we just don’t have any way of knowing what any of his pitches will look like when he finally gets back on the mound. I know that’s a lot of uncertainty, but that’s the reality when it comes to Tommy John. All I can say is that if his secondary pitches are sharp, Bieber has the skills to succeed without his highest velocity. He has always been a tinkerer, and that will help tremendously if he needs to reinvent his arsenal.

The broad 12- to 18-month timeline to return from Tommy John is particularly unhelpful in Bieber’s case. His surgery took place in early April; a 12-month rehab would put him back on the mound not long after Opening Day, while 18 months would put him at risk of missing the entire 2025 season. Bieber himself is reportedly eyeing to split the difference with a return around June or July. Thus, in a best-case scenario, the Guardians probably get 15 to 18 starts out of him during the regular season. Most importantly, they’d have him for the playoffs. A one-two punch of Bieber and Tanner Bibee could give the Guardians a better postseason rotation than they had in 2024, regardless of who else makes up the starting staff.

Of course, we can’t ignore the rest of the rotation, especially when it comes to the first half of the season. As things stand, Cleveland will be stretched thin until Bieber returns, and even more so if he suffers a setback. After losing Boyd and Cobb in free agency, this is what the team’s rotation depth chart currently looks like:

You’re looking at a group that will probably need to rely on another historically great performance from the bullpen in order to keep enough runs off the board. Suffice it to say, a couple more outside additions would be a tremendous help. However, when president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti discussed the rotation earlier this offseason, his comments were something of an internal options sandwich: “I think first and foremost we have to help the guys that are here continue to develop and get better and contribute… Then we’ll always be looking for opportunities to complement them. Our success is going to be dependent upon how well we do with developing the guys that are here.” Antonetti alludes to the possibility of bringing in outside help, but he surrounds that suggestion with stronger language about relying on the pitchers he already has.

When it comes to the Guardians, Bieber’s $26 million guarantee counts as a huge splash in free agency. Moreover, their estimated 2025 payroll ($107 million) is already higher than the final payroll in 2024 ($104 million). So, it’s more than possible the depth chart we’re looking at right now is exactly the same as what we’ll see on Opening Day. In that case, this team should count its lucky stars that Bieber decided to stay.