Several days have passed since the Cleveland Guardians were eliminated from World Series contention, losing the American League Championship Series against the Tampa Bay Rays, and people are still talking about the Tanner Bibee situation. It’s certainly a hot and controversial topic.
Let’s review the facts: Bibee led the Guardians with 188 innings during the regular season, yet pitched just 0.1 in the postseason. The worst part of it all is that he allowed two runs in that lone appearance.
Some say that Bibee got disrespected. Others explain that he got what he deserved from a purely competitive standpoint, having posted a mediocre 4.36 ERA in the regular season with 29 home runs allowed.
There’s another reality that likely affected his mood, confidence, and approach: his 7-15 regular season record. Some of it was self-inflicted, due to his relative ineffectiveness at the time of avoiding the big inning or the long ball. However, he didn’t pitch as poorly as his record suggests he did.
Behind that 7-15 record, there was one of the lowest run supports in the league, and some analysts have pointed that out.
“The only stat you have to look at to tell the story of Tanner Bibee’s 2026 season is the run support that he did not get from his offense. His year would have been a lot different had the Guardians hit when he was on the mound,” Cleveland.com’s Joe Noga said.
Among qualified starting pitchers in MLB, Bibee had the 11th lowest run support per game with 3.93. That certainly explains, partially at least, his awful record.
However, Parker Messick actually got the seventh-lowest run support in the league at 3.78, and Gavin Williams was 12th, right behind Bibee in the standings, with 3.96, and those two were universally praised for their 2026 performance.
So, yes, Bibee had very little run support, but so did Messick and Williams. The truth is, however, that run support and win-loss record don’t mean much in today’s game: it’s how much a manager can trust a pitcher when it matters most that separates the good from the truly great hurlers.
Bibee might not be in the ‘great’ category given what we have seen in the 2026 season, but he should be better in 2027.
NEXT: Analyst Believes One Mistake Cost Guardians The World Series Trip
