by LARRY VAUGHT
The southpaw was 6-3 with a 3.235 ERA in 2025 when he struck out 92 batters — the most by a UK pitcher since 2019 — in 83 innings and gave up just 54 hits. He had seven quality starts and helped UK win a series at Tennessee by giving up only two runs in seven innings in the series-deciding game.
“Ben Cleaver, he’s been the voice of our staff,” Kentucky coach Nick Mingione said. “He’s spent the summer here with Brent Jones, our strength coach. He’s bigger, he’s stronger, his voice. He is leading at a very high level, so we’re going to obviously be counting on him.”
The 6-foot-3 Cleaver is now listed at 185 pounds after “eating a good amount” during the offseason.
“I’ve been told I can eat anything (to help gain weight). I ate a lot of spaghetti and chocolate milk. Chocolate milk is like the dessert that you have now,” Cleaver said. “Just adding overall strength was the biggest thing for me. I’ve always been a skinnier guy, so we just really wanted to build overall strength. I think that can help stamina and make my pitches better. I think it kind of adds to everything.”
Cleaver wants to add to UK’s preseason expectations and do even better than the higher ranking projects UK to do.
“Obviously it’s nice to have that preseason (respect), but we always talk about whatever the ranking is that they got it wrong until the last ranking comes out and we’re number one at the end of the year,” Cleaver said. “That’s the only ranking we care about. We just want to ignore that, ignore all the outside noise, and just keep getting better and play to the best of our ability.”
Cleaver has worked to improve his changeup but he’s also intent on being a team leader. He remembers pitching only six innings in six appearances as a freshman
“Obviously I got to learn a lot from the older guys, which was great. Last year I kind of jumped into that role as a weekend guy, and the leadership came along with it,” Cleaver said. “I was unsure of myself in the leadership role as a sophomore. It’s kind of a hard spot to be in for some people, but this year, I’ve really focused on being more vocal to guys and making sure everyone’s doing good, whether that’s on the field, off the field, whatever it may be.
“I just want to check in with guys and continue to build relationships with them, and I think that’s only going to make our team better. It’s great to have all these relationships. We spend more time together than anyone else does. I’m gonna keep these relationships the rest of my life and I think the fact that we’ve gotten as close as we have with the amount of new people this year in such a short amount of time really speaks to the type of people we bring into the school.’
