Corey Kluber will be 33 years old next April, and if he was about to hit free agency there would be important questions about the high risk of a long-term investment in a pitcher with more than 2,000 innings logged in professional baseball.
But Kluber, the Cy Young award winner in the American League in 2014 and 2017, is not a free agent; rather, he's under team control for the next three years, but only a year at a time through a series of one-year club options. He's set to make $17 million next year, and next fall the front office for which he works can decide whether to pick up a $17.