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 $17.5 million option for 2020, and if so, it can wait through the 2020 season before choosing whether to exercise the $18 million option on 2021.
The contract bears almost no risk whatsoever, and for clubs of every market size this would help to make him an enormously attractive trade target now that the Indians are actively listening to offers for their most expensive players.