Ace in the Hole: Kluber at Cressey
Now settled in Massachusetts for the offseason, Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber brings unmatched focus, dedication to his training at Cressey Sports Performance, helping inspire a gym full of pros and prospects
Originally published in the January-February 2019 issue of New England Baseball Journal.
Jan. 25, 2019
By Eric Beato
Poppppp! … Poppppp! … Poppppp!
IT’S A COLD WINTER MORNING, just days before the new year, and one of the most intimidating pitchers on the planet is humming fastballs in a near-empty gym in central Massachusetts.
Corey Kluber, two-time AL Cy Young Award winner, has driven 40 minutes from Winchester, Mass., to Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson, Mass. — his home away from offseason home.
In a couple of hours, there will be a parade of pro pitchers and prospects throwing, lifting and fraternizing amid a din of laughter, chatter and loud music. But, right now, it’s just Kluber progressing through an intense workout — including throwing, stretching, lifting and more — with a quiet determination and without much attention or any fanfare.
“The environment is awesome,” Kluber said, “and obviously there are a lot of other pro guys who train here.”
The expansive facility is otherwise empty except for a handful of middle-agers participating in a small group workout nearby. But save for the chiseled nature of the 6-foot-4, 215-pound physical specimen — and the unmistakable “pop” of elite fastball hitting catcher’s mitt — they might not even know he’s a pro athlete, let alone the most durable and dominant pitcher in the American League.
HE’S NOT FROM NEW ENGLAND, didn’t attend college here and has never pitched for the Red Sox. But, for three-plus months a year, Corey Kluber calls Massachusetts home.
Kluber, who turns 33 in April, has been living and training in the Bay State for the past three offseasons, since shortly after he pitched the Cleveland Indians to the brink of a championship, starting Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.
His wife, Amanda, grew up in Winchester, Mass. They met at Stetson University in DeLand, Fla., in 2006 and were married in 2010. After living in Florida in the offseasons, Corey and Amanda opted to move their growing family back to her hometown of Winchester to raise their children — daughters Kendall and Kennedy, and son Camden, who also arrived shortly after the 2016 World Series.
“This is where we wanted to raise our family, and our kids were at the point where they were about to start school, so that was the main reason we decided to move,” Kluber said. “We didn’t want to have them bounce around from school to school once they got started. So that was why we decided to move back when we did.”
Thanks to his wife’s family’s deep roots here, Kluber — who was born in Birmingham, Ala., and raised in Texas — has settled in comfortably to winters in New England.
“I had visited enough that I was familiar with it before we moved back,” Kluber said. “So that made a pretty easy transition.”
KLUBER’S TRANSITION to New England was made all the more easy — at least training-wise — thanks to Cressey Sports Performance.
Eric Cressey, a strength and conditioning specialist and native of Kennebunk, Maine, opened his first training center in Hudson, Mass., in 2007, quickly building the destination for the region’s top baseball players and prospects, including the likes of Tyler Beede (Auburn, Mass.) and Tim Collins (Worcester, Mass.).
Even non-New Englanders have traveled to train at CSP. For example, Blake Treinen, who had a breakout season last year as the Oakland A’s closer, spent a whole offseason training in Hudson while living with a host family in Wayland, Mass. He even got engaged here and now does the Cressey program remotely from his home in Walla Walla, Wash.
Kluber, though, first connected with Cressey in 2009 through a teammate when he was pitching in Double A. That offseason, while visiting Amanda’s family in Massachusetts, Kluber came in for an assessment and a couple of workouts. And Kluber began adopting Cressey’s program, often training on his own while he and Amanda still lived in Florida.
“Corey and I kind of grew together,” Cressey said. “Corey’s unique in the sense that you very rarely see a guy who’s had the success that he’s had who’s as open-minded as he is. As long as he trusts you and you have a rationale for everything you do, it works. That’s why it’s been a good fit.”
So moving to Massachusetts also meant moving closer to Cressey headquarters in Hudson.
“I think it’s a convenience,” Kluber said, “but I wouldn’t say that it influenced our decision.”
Now, though, living just 20 miles from the CSP facility, Kluber takes advantage of the entire Cressey experience, working with a team of professionals. Cressey himself often serves as the point person for Kluber’s training, but he splits his time between Massachusetts and his second CSP facility in Jupiter, Fla., which opened in 2014. So Kluber also works with John O’Neil, Frank Duffy, Chris Howard and, notably, pitching coordinator Christian Wonders.
“It’s good to be in that environment,” Kluber said. “I think it’s a better alternative than having to go to, say, a commercial gym and kind of motivate yourself. (It’s better) to be in the room working out with other guys who are in the same position.”
During the offseason, Kluber visits the Hudson facility twice a week for his training regimen, throwing program and soft-tissue work with Howard. He also does another day of mobility work with Duffy at his house and meets Wonders on other days for more throwing closer to his Winchester home. They’ll seek out a local turf mound or college with a bubble practice facility or just throw outside — even in 21-degree weather.
“It’s always helpful to have an extra set of eyes and having somebody that you’re comfortable with and that is familiar with you,” Kluber said. “Having that relationship to bounce things off one another definitely helps.”
FOR KLUBER, that someone is Wonders, 26, who serves as CSP’s pitching coordinator and is the owner of Elite Pitching Development. A native of south Florida, Wonders was pitching for Division 2 Georgia College and State University when he decided to spend the summer of 2011 training with Cressey in New England. He lived with a host family in Nashua, N.H., trained in Hudson six days a week and put on 24 pounds in 12 weeks.
“I fell in love with training,” said Wonders, who became an exercise science major.
After injury derailed his own playing career, the self-described “anatomy nerd” interned at CSP in Hudson then worked part time in the Florida facility and began coaching high school travel ball. In September 2015, he moved to Dallas for a sales job but started training Drew VerHagen of the Detroit Tigers on the side. When VerHagen made the Tigers’ Opening Day roster, Wonders moved home to Florida and started doing pitching lessons on the side. In September 2016, Cressey called offering a chance to return to Massachusetts as CSP’s pitching coordinator.
Now, he’s training dozens of pro pitchers and prospects, none more accomplished than Kluber, whom he’s now catching.
“Playing catch with Corey is really cool,” Wonders said. “He’s the man. I love it. I love sitting down and talking with him about what he wants in his throwing program and helping him prepare.”
Wonders writes out Kluber’s entire offseason throwing program — eight weeks total until the start of spring training. After the season, Kluber sent him eight hours of video — good games and bad from 2014 through ’18.
“Then I sat on FaceTime talking to him about what he wants to feel, mechanics, weighted balls, how many times he wants to throw off the mound, what does he want to be ready for when he gets to spring training,” Wonders said.
On this day — at the end of the second week of the program — Kluber is undergoing a heavy workout workload. He does a series of three pre-throw drills with weighted baseballs into a padded black wall, including half-kneeling reverse throws.
Then Kluber goes through a strict progression of throwing two-seam fastballs: 10 throws at 45 feet, 15 throws at 60 feet, 15 throws at 90 feet, five throws at 120 feet, then 10 more shorter throws from 60 feet to focus on his gloveside.
“At this point in time,” Kluber said, “you’re just trying to bring around that muscle memory of where you want your arm slot to be, your mechanics, your release point, things like that, just to get your body used to being back to throwing.
“Once you build that arm strength and all that stuff kind of comes back to you, then you start focusing more on fine-tuning stuff and actually making pitches.”
Wonders’ offseason program calls for Kluber to start throwing change-ups in Week 4 and to begin spinning breaking balls at the end of Week 5.
“He’s going to build up his arm resiliency first,” Wonders said. “He’s got to build back up to that. So we’re going to get his throwing volume in and as the volume goes up, the intensity is going to ramp up. … Week 5 will be his first really aggressive week.”
KLUBER PUNCTUATES his throwing routine by fist-bumping Wonders, whose day is just beginning.
“The environment in here after Corey throws,” Wonders said, “I’m going to have close to 20 pro guys who are going to throw.”
Among others, Wonders today will work with Oliver Drake (Worcester, Mass.), who pitched for a record five MLB clubs in 2018 and recently was traded to Tampa Bay, as well as minor-leaguers Paul Campbell (Malden, Mass./Rays organization), Austin DeCarr (Foxboro, Mass./Yankees), Packy Naughton (West Roxbury, Mass./Reds) and Jacob Stevens (Darien, Conn./Diamondbacks).
“It just creates an awesome environment,” said Drake, who just turned 32 in January. “It’s a lot of fun to come in and train every day. With so many guys here chasing the same dream, it creates a fun level of competition and everyone kind of pushes each other.”
As one of the only regulars with a wife and kids, Kluber often gets his workouts in early at Cressey before the bulk of other pros pour in. His mere presence in the gym, though, carries extra weight — especially on the prospects aspiring to reach The Show.
“I think it certainly helps the cause,” Cressey said. “The high school and college kids see him doing some of the same exercises they’re doing, so they recognize this is directly relatable to the success he’s had, the durability he’s had. So I do think it’s important.”
Kluber admits he’s rarely approached by the younger players — likely intimidated by an All-Star ace known for his steely demeanor on the mound. But that reputation, Cressey says, belies Kluber’s true nature as someone quick to engage in conversation, pose for photos and even joke around with the staff about pranking the arriving interns.
So, what advice would Kluber impart to high schoolers brave enough to ask?
“Do things the right way. Do things with a purpose,” he said. “I think if you do things the right way more often than not, you’re going to get a lot more benefit out of it. And not just doing things for the sake of doing them, but doing them to actually get something out of it.”
It’s a lesson anyone can learn by observing Kluber in the gym — even fellow pros.
“It’s just awesome,” Drake said. “He’s an extremely hard worker, and that’s what you see that he gets a lot of his success from. From everything he does, from lifting, from throwing, he puts a lot of focus and attention to detail into it, and you can tell that’s a big part of why he has so much success.”
UNDRAFTED AND LIGHTLY recruited out of Coppell (Texas) High, Kluber attended Stetson University in DeLand, Fla., where he excelled on the field and met Amanda. Kluber was drafted in the fourth round by the San Diego Padres in 2007 and was dealt to the Indians at the trade deadline in 2010. He made his MLB debut a year later.
Over the past five seasons, only Kluber and Washington Nationals ace Max Scherzer have topped 1,000 innings pitched. Only Scherzer — another Cressey client who trains five days a week at the Florida facility — has thrown more innings, started more games or won more than Kluber (see statistics above), but no one can match Kluber’s 17 complete games and only Clayton Kershaw has tossed more than his seven shutouts over that time.
That uncommon durability and success is directly related to the dedicated work in the gym on an offseason day like this.
“The whole point of the offseason training to me is to build that baseline for you so that you’re in a good spot to hopefully log innings and stay strong through the course of the season,” Kluber said. “Now is when you build your baseline to be able to do that.”
Following Kluber’s throwing regimen with Wonders, it’s Cressey’s turn with the ace. He runs him through a methodical series of exercises with painfully complicated names (see box at left) that sometimes appear just as painful and complicated.
After demonstrably heaving heavy medicine balls into the black wall and slamming them into the ground, Kluber is asked what music he wants to hear on the gym stereo, which has been cranking heavy rock.
He replies softly, “ ’90s hip-hop.” And suddenly “Running with the Devil” and “Crazy Train” transform to “Insane in the Brain” and “Gangsta’s Paradise.”
Kluber literally checks off each exercise from a list on a clipboard that’s always nearby. Before starting the next exercise, he consults with Cressey on proper execution. Then he alternates between safety squat bar forward lunges (with 225 pounds for four reps per side) and reverse bear crawls, proceeds to one-leg squats from an 18-inch box with a 45-pound weight before finishing with one-leg hip thrusts with a massive metal chain draped across his abdomen.
It’s been more than two hours since Kluber arrived, but he’s not done yet. After small talk — and fist bumps — with Wonders, Drake and a couple other recent arrivals, he’ll end his day at Cressey with a soft-tissue massage from Howard before driving back home to Winchester.
The Kluber-Cressey relationship has produced dramatic results for both sides. Kluber has won two Cy Young Awards, including in 2017 after his first offseason in Massachusetts. And Cressey has grown into a top training destination for pros and prospects.
“It worked out well, for sure, and I think to be honest, Corey’s success was probably a part of us becoming more of a national brand,” Cressey said. “But I always say to our folks that you don’t know who your Corey Kluber is going to be. Corey was another minor-leaguer when he started up with us, and he really bought in to what we did and worked hard and obviously saw some benefits and saw it was advantageous for his career.
“But even one of those high school kids out there could be the next one.”
Eric Beato is the Managing Editor of New England Baseball Journal.
