Returning player spotlight: Ben Cleaver

The returning player spotlight series continues with junior lefthanded pitcher Ben Cleaver. Hudson Brown was the first player profiled in the series. I'm aiming to have three players a week over the next few weeks, but I will be mixing in some other content as the series goes on.

Background

The highest-rated recruit in Kentucky's 2023 class by Prep Baseball Report, Cleaver was ranked No. 147 nationally following his senior season at Independence High School. One thing mentioned in last year's story on Cleaver is that he was turning into a legitimate draft prospect during his senior year of high school. Cleaver had nearly 30 scouts at one of his high school starts in April of that year, but he was shut down for a couple of starts while dealing with an arm injury.

He enrolled at Kentucky and finished with a 4.26 ERA in just 6.1 innings pitched in 2024. Despite a small workload, Cleaver was called upon in a rubber match at Florida and struck out Landon Russell – the winning run in the game – to record the final out of a 7-5 victory. Cleaver also struck out two of the three batters he faced in a rematch against Florida during the College World Series. In all, Cleaver held opponents to a .182 average as a freshman.

He entered the 2025 season in the Wildcats' rotation and quickly established himself as the best pitcher on the team. In fact, there's a case to be made that he had the best season for any starting pitcher at Kentucky since Zack Thompson's All-SEC campaign in 2019.