“When you have that good stuff and you throw it with conviction, even if it may not be the right pitch, it probably is,” Francona said. “He went one outing where Gomer wanted to establish his fastball, and he was locating it. I don’t think he threw an off-speed pitch until the ninth hitter of the game. And he just said: ‘I never really thought anything. Gomer put it down, so I threw it.’ ”

Francona said he was pleased to see a younger Indians starter, Trevor Bauer, finding a similar rhythm with Gomes this spring and pouring strikes into the zone. Bauer is one of several starters in the Indians’ boom-or-bust rotation who could be poised to blossom, and he is using Kluber’s two-seamer as a template.

At one point last season, Bauer asked Kluber if he could stand behind him in the bullpen and film his practice session. Kluber agreed, and Bauer — who chose his angle to best view Kluber’s release point — said he captured his teammate in 240, 480 and 1,000 frames per second.

Bauer watched the film, and other clips he collected of Toronto’s Marcus Stroman, who has a similar two-seamer, and studied the footage as part of his off-season routine, watching it on a loop three out of every five days once he started throwing on Nov. 1. Bauer said Kluber’s two-seamer, which averages 93 miles an hour, veered eight inches down and in to a righty, and he spotted it with such precision that it perfectly set up his curveball, if hitters got that far.

“He puts a lot of pressure on the hitter to swing the bat,” Bauer said, “because I noticed toward the end of the year, a lot of guys were going up there and swinging really early in the count, almost like they were in defensive mode from the beginning. There was an intimidation factor you could see.”

Bauer said his own version was a work in progress — inconsistent, but coming along. For years, that also described Kluber’s career, and his late development has kept him from cashing in on his Cy Young Award.

Kluber was not eligible for salary arbitration this season and will make only $601,000 on a one-year deal. The Indians traded their last two Cy Young winners — C. C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee — before they reached free agency, getting outfielder Michael Brantley for Sabathia and starter Carlos Carrasco for Lee. They are in no rush to move Kluber, who cannot be a free agent until after the 2018 season.