Cleveland Indians: Five bold predictions for the Tribe in 2021

Shane Bieber will win a second consecutive Cy Young Award

The 2020 season was one of complete dominance for Shane Bieber. While it will be difficult for him to repeat that success, a regression should still keep him among the top of the American League pitchers, if not all of baseball.

Bieber was able to register an insane 14.2 strikeouts per nine innings in 2020, setting a new major league record. That was just one of six categories he led all of pitchers in and one of eight for the American League.

While it should be expected that Bieber will remain dominate in 2021, to expect those numbers again seems a bit too high for expectations. Even if he falls back down to Earth in 2021, he should still fall among the top pitchers in baseball. He looked like he was on a different level in 2020 and if he can return to that form in anyway the Cy Young will be in play.

What will also help Bieber’s case is the exiting of pitchers from the American League this offseason. Blake Snell going to the Padres clears out one of the main threats to Bieber repeating and Darvish staying in the National League takes care of another potential candidate. While repeating is difficult, the elite are able to do it and that’s the category that Bieber entered in 2020.