Marcus Stroman

Marcus Stroman

33-Year-Old PitcherSP
New York Yankees
2025 Fantasy Outlook
The right-hander inked a two-year contract with the Yankees in January of 2024 but had an up-and-down first season in the Bronx, finishing with a 4.31 ERA, 1.47 WHIP and 113:60 K:BB over 154.2 innings. Stroman has never been a big strikeout guy, but his 16.7 percent strikeout rate last year was a career worst as his average fastball velocity dropped nearly two ticks to 90 mph. He's been able to offset the low strikeout totals throughout his career by inducing grounders, but a 49.3 percent groundball rate and 9.9-degree launch angle were both the lowest and highest numbers, respectively, in his 10 MLB campaigns. He may have been fortunate to get the results he did with a 4.87 xERA and 4.50 xFIP, so positive regression isn't likely in his age-34 campaign. Still, there's a decent chance for a rebound given that Stroman had a 3.38 ERA across the four previous seasons, but he'll need to sharpen his pitch placement and get the ball back on the ground. Even if he does bounce back, Stroman has a limited fantasy ceiling unless he's fully able to regain that younger form since he's a groundball pitcher that doesn't get a lot of strikeouts. Read Past Outlooks
RANKS
Rest of Season
From Preseason
#432
ADP
$Signed a two-year, $37 million contract with the Yankees in January of 2024. Contract includes $18 million player option for 2026 that vests with 140 innings pitched in 2025.
Posts strong start Wednesday
PNew York Yankees
March 19, 2025
Stroman tossed three scoreless innings in a Grapefruit League game against Philadelphia on Wednesday, allowing one hit and issuing one walk while striking out three batters.
ANALYSIS
The only hit Stroman allowed was an infield single, though he did display a bit of wildness by walking two batters and plunking another. That led to him needing 64 pitches to get through three frames, but the overall results were mostly positive as the veteran righty prevented the Phillies from crossing the plate. Stroman struggled early this spring, but he's since bounced back and has a tolerable 4.66 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 7:2 K:BB over 9.2 spring innings. He's a leading candidate to open the season in the Yankees' rotation, due in part to long-term injuries to Gerrit Cole (elbow) and Luis Gil (lat).
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Pitching Stats
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Left/Right Pitching Splits
Since 2023
 
 
-7%
BAA vs LHP
2025
No Stats
2024
 
 
-12%
BAA vs RHP
2023
 
 
-29%
BAA vs LHP
BAA Batters K BB H 2B 3B HR
Since 2023vs Left .246 639 106 66 139 26 4 14
Since 2023vs Right .265 611 126 46 148 29 0 14
2025vs Left 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2025vs Right 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2024vs Left .296 328 47 31 86 14 4 10
2024vs Right .260 347 66 29 81 14 0 9
2023vs Left .194 311 59 35 53 12 0 4
2023vs Right .272 264 60 17 67 15 0 5
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Home/Away Pitching Splits
Since 2023
 
 
-25%
ERA on Road
2025
No Stats
2024
 
 
-42%
ERA on Road
2023
 
 
-1%
ERA at Home
ERA WHIP IP W L SV K/9 BB/9 HR/9
Since 2023Home 4.67 1.27 158.0 11 13 0 7.9 3.1 1.1
Since 2023Away 3.51 1.49 133.1 9 5 1 6.3 3.9 0.5
2025Home 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2025Away 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2024Home 5.31 1.42 84.2 5 7 0 7.9 3.1 1.6
2024Away 3.09 1.53 70.0 5 2 1 5.0 4.0 0.5
2023Home 3.93 1.09 73.1 6 6 0 8.0 3.1 0.6
2023Away 3.98 1.45 63.1 4 3 0 7.7 3.8 0.6
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Recent RotoWire Articles Featuring Marcus Stroman See More
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12 days ago
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Past Fantasy Outlooks
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
The 2023 season was a tale of two halves for Stroman. The 32-year-old made his second All-Star team on the strength of a first half which saw him collect a 2.96 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 98:41 K:BB over 112.2 innings. In the second half, Stroman missed six weeks with hip and rib injuries and posted an 8.63 ERA, 1.96 WHIP and 21:11 K:BB over 24 frames. Undaunted by his poor finish, Stroman opted out of the one year and $21 million remaining on his contract with the Cubs to pursue free agency. Although there have been some curvy roads along the way, Stroman has been rock-solid on the whole over the last three seasons in holding a 3.45 ERA, 1.18 WHIP and 396:132 K:BB across 454.1 innings. He's not going to help you in strikeouts, but Stroman remains an elite groundball guy and usually avoids the barrel. He should be a solid floor play in 2024.
After making 33 starts the previous year, a bout with COVID-19 and a shoulder issue limited Stroman to just 25 starts and 138.2 innings last season. His 14.6% K-BB% was in sync with his past few campaigns. However, for the first time in his career, Stroman yielded more than a homer per nine frames, albeit just a tad at 1.04 HR/9. Stroman performed much worse at home, sporting a 5.18 ERA and 1.32 WHIP at Wrigley Field as compared to 2.06/1.00 away from Waveland Avenue. This is likely just noise, but streaming Stroman at home last season backfired. The catch is Stroman's low 21% strikeout rate is best utilized in a streaming capacity, especially in leagues with an innings or starts limit where the strikeout category is essentially K/9. Stroman's low dominance, heavy groundball approach is usually effective, but he's subject to more variance than most hurlers, adding risk to his role as a ratio stabilizer.
Consistency is oftentimes undervalued in both real life and in sports. The Cubs will pay Stroman $71 million for his services from 2022-24, so you make up your mind in this particular instance. Stroman missed the start of the shortened 2020 campaign with a calf injury and ultimately opted out of playing that season. He returned in 2021 arguably better than ever; his 15.6 K-BB% was a career high and his 1.15 WHIP was his lowest in any season with 100-plus innings. Stroman kept his groundball rate north of 50% (just barely) for the seventh consecutive season, a byproduct of his heavy-sinker approach, and when pitching at Citi Field, the ball almost never got out against the righty (five homers in 78 innings). He has now made 32-plus starts in four of his past five seasons. Stroman is consistent with both workload and performance, and that is not "boring" consistency, but in our game the low strikeout totals make him more staff filler than frontline starter.
There's not much to say about Stroman's 2020 campaign, as it never got the chance to get off the ground. He missed the start of the season with a calf strain before opting out in mid-August right when it looked like he was about to return. He accepted a qualifying offer from the Mets in November, leaving him set to do in 2021 what he was expected to do in 2020. Just what exactly those expectations should be isn't entirely clear, however. His ERAs in his last three seasons (3.09, 5.54 and 3.22) have been all over the place, and taking a full year off from pitching doesn't exactly clarify things. He's actually produced a FIP in a narrow band between 3.71 and 3.91 in each of the last four seasons, however, and an ERA in that range would make him perfectly serviceable for both fantasy players and the Mets. He doesn't offer a whole lot else, though, as his unimpressive 20.5 K% in 2019 was his highest since 2014.
After recording a 2.96 ERA and 99:35 K:BB over the first half of the season, Stroman was traded to the Mets at the deadline and slotted into the team's talented rotation. Stroman's surface numbers suffered after the move but he performed well enough in New York, recording a 60:23 K:BB en route to a 20.5 K% on the year that was his highest since his rookie season. For the season, the right-hander carried a 10.1% swinging-strike rate, the highest rate of his career. He struggled to limit home runs after the trade, allowing nine in his final 11 starts in 2019, coinciding with a dip in groundball rate (from 56.3% to 48.3%). Stroman's BB% ticked up in Queens, as did his opponents' BABIP, from .293 to .337. The Mets had a bottom-five defense in MLB last season and they have not upgraded this winter, so Stroman will continue to contend with a high hit rate as a groundball pitcher.
Stroman had his worst professional season in a 2018, a year marred by two trips to the disabled list (shoulder fatigue and a blister on his pitching hand). The extreme groundballer (62.1 GB% in 2018) endured miserable results when on the field, though the peripherals and estimators point to a lot of bad luck. His ERA-minus-FIP came in at 1.63, one of the highest among starters with 100-plus innings, and his 3.91 FIP nearly matched what he did in 2017, when he had a 3.09 ERA. Considering all the contact Stroman allows -- he has never posted a K/9 higher than 7.7 (2014) -- it's only natural that the results would fluctuate more than they do for most pitchers. Determine whether you can buy this volatility with the hope of him repeating 2017 and 2014, not 2016 and 2018. The best part about his 2019: expectations will be subterranean, so fantasy players in position to take on risk could snatch him at a clearance rate.
Stroman built on a strong finish to 2016 to become the Blue Jays' staff ace last season after Aaron Sanchez battled persistent blister problems. Rather than leaning on his cutter as an out pitch as he had earlier in his career, Stroman instead increased the usage of his fastball and slider, with both pitches yielding favorable results. Stroman's diverse arsenal kept hitters off balance and generated plenty of weak contact, with his 62.1 percent GB% pacing all qualified pitchers. His ability to induce groundouts and avoid the home-run ball offers optimism that Stroman will remain an asset in ERA, despite his meager strikeout rate and the 3.90 FIP he posted in 2017 pointing to some regression in that area. Since Stroman is just 26 years old, it wouldn't be unprecedented if he added more strikeouts to his ledger to stave off an ERA decline, but his approach worked so well for him last season, it seems unlikely he would deviate from a successful formula.
Stroman entered 2016 with high expectations, and in hindsight, those expectations were probably unfair for a 25-year-old who made just four starts in 2015 following ACL surgery. It took Stroman time to get his bearings, but he demonstrated growth as the season wore on, managing a 3.68 ERA post All-Star break versus a 4.89 ERA in the first half. He also saw a significant uptick in strikeout rate after the break, from 16.9 percent to 22.7 percent, as he used his cutter more as an out pitch. Of course, it's all about the groundball with Stroman, and indeed his 60.1 percent groundball rate was the highest among qualified starters. Stroman has immense talent and could take a leap forward if he can continue to increase his strikeout rate.
When Stroman tore his ACL in early March, his season was declared over before it ever began and no one seemed to quibble with that. . . except Stroman. He made the best of a bad break. He went back to Duke to finish off his degree, but also got with the medical staff there for an aggressive rehab on the knee. All of a sudden there were reports that he could contribute late in the season, maybe as a reliever. Not only did he start, but he was really good. His swing-and-miss stuff wasn’t quite there, but he ramped the groundball rate up to 64 percent to cover. The strikeouts might be more of a slow climb as he uses the command of his deep arsenal (5 pitches all w/at least 10% usage) to keep the ball down and mow down hitters, but the swing-and-miss upside is definitely there. With all of 158 MLB innings on his arm, the Jays might not be ready for 200-plus-inning season, but even 180 from him has big potential.
The 5-foot-9 right-hander spent most of his age-23 season as the most effective starter in the Blue Jays’ rotation. After graduating from Triple-A Buffalo and Toronto’s bullpen, Stroman compiled a 3.29 ERA, 1.14 WHIP and 103:27 K:BB ratio in 120.1 innings as a starter in his debut season in the big leagues. Were it not for Jose Abreu, Stroman would have had a legitimate case to be the American League Rookie of the Year. He relied heavily on his mid-90s fastball, and only used his deadly 88-mph slider roughly 7.5% of the time. That plus-plus offering generated a 17.6% whiff rate and a 63.2% groundball rate and could be a major weapon if he unleashes it more often in his second season. Considering his fielding independent numbers (2.84 FIP, 3.17 xFIP) and the addition of defensive wiz Russell Martin behind the plate, there was reason to expect an even better 2015 out of Stroman, but he suffered a torn ACL during fielding drills in March and is expected to miss the entire season as a result.
A first-round pick in the 2012 MLB Draft, Stroman put together a fantastic 2013 campaign for Double-A New Hampshire after serving a 50-game drug suspension to start the season. His 3.30 ERA was backed by 10.4 K/9 and 2.2 BB/9 rates, and he even finished on a high note with an 11-strikeout gem in his final start. The 5-foot-9 Stroman boasts a mid-90s fastball with plus command, and he is one of the top prospects in the Toronto organization, despite murmurs that he may eventually wind up in the bullpen. Having already proven his merit at the Double-A level, Stroman will likely join the starting rotation at Triple-A Buffalo to open 2014. Don't be surprised if he earns his first call-up before the end of the year.
Stroman was selected 22nd overall by the Blue Jays in the 2012 draft and the general thought was that he would move quickly through the Jays’ system. After 19 minor league relief innings, posting a 3.26 ERA over two levels, Stroman was suspended 50 games for violating baseball’s minor league drug program. After the completion of his suspension, he will start 2013 in the minors, but could find his way into Toronto’s bullpen if he pitches well.
More Fantasy News
Likely to begin season in rotation
PNew York Yankees
March 6, 2025
With Luis Gil (lat) set to miss extended time at the beginning of the campaign, Stroman is likely to be part of the Yankees' season-opening rotation, Bryan Hoch of MLB.com reports.
ANALYSIS
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Shelled in second spring outing
PNew York Yankees
March 2, 2025
Stroman allowed four runs on four hits while striking out one batter over 2.2 innings in a Grapefruit League game against Atlanta on Sunday.
ANALYSIS
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Not starting Tuesday anymore
PNew York Yankees
February 24, 2025
Stroman, who had been scheduled to start Tuesday against the Twins in Fort Myers, will stay back in Tampa to pitch live batting practice instead, Bryan Hoch of MLB.com reports.
ANALYSIS
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Draws start for exhibition opener
PNew York Yankees
February 19, 2025
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Stroman will start Friday's Grapefruit League opener versus the Rays, Pete Caldera of The Bergen Record reports.
ANALYSIS
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Views himself as starter
PNew York Yankees
February 14, 2025
Stroman reported to Yankees camp Friday and insisted that he's unwilling to move to a relief role in 2025, Bryan Hoch of MLB.com reports. "I'm a starter," Stroman said. "I won't pitch out of the bullpen."
ANALYSIS
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Latest Fantasy Rumors
No trade request
PNew York Yankees
February 14, 2025
Yankees president of baseball operations Brian Cashman said Friday that Stroman has not requested a trade, reports Bryan Hoch of MLB.com.
ANALYSIS
The right-hander reported to camp Friday and told reporters he "won't pitch out of the bullpen," with Cashman agreeing that Stroman is a starting pitcher. The 33-year-old is positioned as New York's No. 6 starter and currently appears to be the odd man out of the rotation. The situation could resolve itself if one of the Yankees' starters suffers an injury during spring training, but for now, Stroman's role for 2025 remains a bit undefined.
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