The Cleveland Guardians need a bounce-back season from Tanner Bibee. Will they get it?
Tanner Bibee’s simple counting stats don’t tell the full story of his 2025 season. Yes, he may have had a career-high 4.24 ERA, but he also clearly had some bad luck go against him.
To Bibee’s credit, he was able to channel much of that frustration and was the Cleveland Guardians' best pitcher in September when they capped off a historic comeback to win the American League Central and get back to the playoffs.
But with so much inconsistency and stats all over the player, what exactly can the Guardians expect from Bibee in 2026? FanGraphs ZiPS projections can give us a glimpse at the pitcher Bibee might be next season, and there’s a lot of hope he will have a bounce-back year.
The computer model is projecting Bibee’s ERA to rebound to 3.71 next season, which would be just about an average of his last two seasons. This is also much closer to Bibee's xERA of 3.64 during the 2025 campaign.
It appears that ZiPS also views Bibee as a victim of unfortunate circumstances a year ago, and his projected ERA backs that up.
Jun 14, 2025; Seattle, Washington, USA; Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Tanner Bibee (28) pitches the ball during the third inning against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Ng-Imagn ImagesIt does appear that the model still believes Bibee will get the majority of his outs due to weak contact and because he trusts his defense.
ZiPS projects Bibee to have a strikeout rate of 22.3 percent and a K/9 of 8.3, which was nearly identical to his strikeout rate of 21.3 a year ago.
It’s a similar story for Bibee’s walk rate, which is projected to be 7% in 2026.
Considering all of Bibee’s projected stats, ZiPS is predicting him to have an ERA+ of 114, meaning his ERA would be 14 percent better than league average. Compared to the rest of Cleveland’s starters in the model, that would be second in the rotation, trailing only Gavin Williams’ projected ERA+ of 118.
However, ZiPS predicts Bibee will lead Cleveland’s rotation with a 3.96 FIP.
Looking at all of ZiPS’ projections for Bibee, it does appear that the computer views the Guardians starter as a pitcher who will have a much more productive season statistically, and that’s something Cleveland should be encouraged about.
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