For parts of five seasons, Mike Clevinger was a key member of the Cleveland Guardians’ rotation. While he never reached the heights of Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco or Shane Bieber, he was a solid middle-of-the-rotation arm who showed the occasional flashes of being a frontline starter.
And while Clevinger hasn’t been with the Guardians for more than five years after they traded him to the Padres at the 2020 trade deadline, his legacy still lives on in the Guardians roster thanks to the players Cleveland acquired for him in that aforementioned trade.
We got another example of that on Tuesday when Joey Cantillo (one of the players acquired in exchange for Clevinger) tossed eight shutout innings against the Kansas City Royals in a huge win that helped push the Guardians a bit closer to a Wild Card spot.