Cleveland Indians: Three players that could become the Tribe’s closer

Emmanuel Clase

This is a shot in the dark because we haven’t seen Emmanuel Clase pitch for the Indians yet following his suspension during the 2020 season, but he checks all the same boxes that Karinchak does. He has a blazing fast fastball and it is more than proven that that can be enough to lock down the ninth inning.

Clase only has 23.1 innings of major league experience over 21 games with the Texas Rangers in 2019. That isn’t a large sample size, but he did log one save over that span. Should Clase be put into the mix, he likely wouldn’t take over until deeper into the season to get him back in the swing of things.

Clase’s minor league resume is also similar to Karinchak in the way that he didn’t close out many games. Over 92 games pitched in the minors, Clase had just 24 saves.

Given his skill set, Clase is more of a setup man at this point, but he has the potential to eventually become the closer, it just might not be in 2021. He’s only 22-years old, so he has a lot of time to blossom into whatever role he is assigned in the bullpen.