Underrated Kluber-Carrasco-Bauer Trio Could Be MLB's Next Big 3

Good things come in threes. Just ask the Cleveland Indians.

You've heard rumblings about the Tribe's solid rotation, which averaged 8.92 strikeouts per nine innings last season, the most by any group since the 1884 Milwaukee Brewers, per FanGraphs. 

Ace Corey Kluber, the reigning American League Cy Young winner, even landed on the front of Sports Illustrated along with outfielder Michael Brantley, leading to inevitable fears about the SI cover jinx. 

It's not entirely fair to call the Indians' arms underrated. But they do fly under the radar relative to other star-laden rotations such as the Washington Nationals' or Chicago White Sox's. 

If Kluber, Carlos Carrasco and Trevor Bauer keep throwing like they have been, that'll change soon.

We'll begin with Kluber, who has picked up right where he left off in 2014. The 29-year-old right-hander owns a 2.49 ERA and has racked up 25 strikeouts in 21.2 innings. He's walked only four, and opponents are hitting a paltry .176 against him.

This performance makes the five-year, $38.5 million extension he inked with the Indians before the season look like a serious bargain. 

No, the Indians haven't won any of Kluber's three starts, but that's far from his fault. On April 17, he carried a perfect game into the sixth inning against the Minnesota Twins, a contest Cleveland ultimately lost 3-2 in 11 innings.

Carrasco, on the other hand, guided the Indians to a 6-2 win Tuesday over the Chicago White Sox, exactly one week after a Melky Cabrera line drive hit him squarely in the face. (Warning: The video below is not for the faint of heart.)

Scary as the incident was, Carrasco returned to the hill against the very team that nailed him and looked like his old self, flirting with triple digits and fanning eight through five innings.

"He throws hard. I mean, he was getting it up there close to 100 [mph] and had a great changeup tonight," White Sox skipper Robin Ventura said after the game of the 28-year-old right-hander, per Scott Merkin and John Jackson of MLB.com. "The way he commands that back and forth, it's tough to sit there and try to sit on a changeup or an offspeed pitch when he's getting it up there to 98, 99."

Overall this season, Carrasco has struck out 18 with just one walk in 11.1 innings.

This brings us to Bauer, who has been arguably the best of the bunch. He currently leads the pack in ERA (0.95), strikeouts (26) and opponents' batting average (.125).

On April 9, his first start, the 24-year-old right-hander tossed six no-hit innings with 11 strikeouts against the Houston Astros but was removed after throwing 111 pitches.

It was the first time in franchise history a hurler had been pulled with a no-no intact, per MLB.com's Jordan Bastian and Brian McTaggart, and the pen proceeded to allow a solo home run, though Cleveland went on to win 5-1.

Patric Schneider/Associated Press

Mostly, it speaks to how dominant this group has been that we're talking about near no-hitters and near injuries as the only low points.

Some people saw this coming. Yours truly wrote about the Tribe's stable of studs in February, and in November, FanGraphs' Mike Petriello named the Indians his "Far Too Early Sleeper Team," noting, "While second-half performance is hardly a guarantee of future success...I'm also not certain that enough people noticed just how good the Cleveland rotation was down the stretch."

How good were they? In addition to the aforementioned gaudy strikeout total, Cleveland's starting corps led all of baseball with 11 WAR in the second half of 2014, as Petriello points out.

The Indians sit at 5-8 entering play Wednesday, and their offense may ultimately doom them in what is possibly baseball's toughest division. The loss of catcher Yan Gomes—a defensive whiz who smacked 21 home runs last year—to a knee injury certainly doesn't help.

But if Cleveland defies the SI cover curse and stays in the postseason picture, it'll be on the strength of its emerging top-shelf starters, a dynamic triad if ever there was one.

All statistics current as of April 21 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.