Much has occurred in Yankee land since the end of the 2023 season, but to many Yankee fans much has “not” occurred. These two somewhat opposing viewpoints have kept Yankees’ social media rather busy this offseason.
Yet, something has been mostly overlooked: Marcus Stroman is a very good pitcher, and likely much better than you realize.
Of course, part of the reason Stroman’s consistently above average performance has been overlooked has been Stroman himself, as he’s never been shy about sharing his opinions – opinions, which typically generate more clicks than ground balls to shortstop do. But make no mistake: Stroman is very good at generating groundballs which means he’s very good at helping his team win games.
Since 2021, Stroman has averaged 28 starts and 151 innings per season. So if your concern is seeing a lot of innings from the roster’s number 7 through 9 starters and/or the bullpen’s worst (as was the case for the Yankees in 2023), Stroman’s presence helps alleviate that concern.
And of the 104 MLB pitchers to throw at least 300 innings since 2021, 96 of them were easier to hit home runs of off than Stroman. This is primarily because of a 53% ground ball rate over that span, which was the fifth best among those 104 pitchers.
(For those of you who arrived late: In the modern game, with what teams know about defensive positioning, and with how athletic today’s infielders are, if a batter hits a ground ball, it’s extremely unlikely the batter will reach first base before the ball does.)
Furthermore, even with the caveat that ground ball pitchers don’t usually fare well with the various iterations of FIP due to typically unimpressive K to BB ratios, Stroman posted the 30th best xFIP among the 104 mentioned above since ’21.
All told, Stroman’s work led to individual seasons of 3.5, 2.0, and 2.7 fWAR with his three-season total being the 35th most among MLB pitchers since ’21. In other words, he’s a good number two starter, or great number three, depending on how you look at it. (And if you’re curious, as I was, Baseball Reference had him ranked 35th in WAR within the same group as well.)
Is he as good as Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery? Probably not. Is he as good as Corbin Burnes? Definitely not.
Yet that doesn’t mean we should overlook his addition, as it’s a good one in an area of need, despite your feelings about the rest of the Yankees’ offseason or about Stroman personally.
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