Marcus Stroman has made 11 career starts at Yankee Stadium, which include a few strong outings and a few clunkers thanks in large part to Aaron Judge.
But aside from Stroman now calling Judge his teammate, there’s reason to believe the new Yankees right-hander has the tools to succeed in The Bronx with his bread-and-butter sinker and a strong infield defense behind him.
Stroman, who agreed to a two-year, $37 million contract on Thursday night, has been one of the game’s better pitchers in recent years, with his 3.38 ERA since 2019 the 15th-best mark during that span.
But the athletic, 5-foot-7 veteran has done so in a different way than the rest of the Yankees’ current rotation: he is a ground-ball machine.
At their best, Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon lean on their overpowering stuff, led by their four-seam fastballs, while racking up strikeouts.
Nestor Cortes doesn’t throw nearly as hard but also relies on his four-seam fastball and, like Rodon and to an extent Cole, is a fly-ball pitcher.
Clarke Schmidt, in his first full season as a starter, was just about league average in fly ball and ground-ball rates.
Stroman?
He’s not quite Clay Holmes in terms of living on the ground, but he’s not far off.
His ground-ball rate of 57.4 percent last season ranked in the 94th percentile, according to Baseball Savant. (Holmes, for the record, was the 100th percentile at 66.7 percent.)
That’s a stark contrast from the rest of the Yankees’ rotation.
Schmidt was in the 56th percentile with a 43.6 percent ground-ball rate; Cole was in the 37th percentile at 40.3; Rodon was in the second percentile at 27.5; and Cortes was in the first percentile at 26.1.
Now that Stroman will be calling Yankee Stadium his home, it doesn’t hurt to be a pitcher that leans on keeping the ball on the ground and out of the air with the short porch looming in right field.
Stroman’s career 15.8 percent fly-ball rate is well below the league average of 23.5 and his 0.83 home runs per nine innings since entering the league in 2014 are the fourth-lowest of pitchers who have thrown at least 1,000 innings during that span (behind only Jacob deGrom, Gio Gonzalez and Zack Wheeler).
Though Stroman has allowed eight home runs in 11 career starts at Yankee Stadium — part of the reason for his 6.06 ERA in The Bronx — Judge is responsible for three of those; Stroman will no longer have to worry about facing him, aside from some live batting practice sessions in Tampa this spring.
For the most part, though, when Stroman is on the mound, the Yankees’ infield defense will be put to the test.
They were one of the better units in the game last season, led by Gold Glove shortstop Anthony Volpe, whose 15 Defensive Runs Saved ranked third in the majors (Stroman’s shortstop on the Cubs, Dansby Swanson, led the way with 18).
The Yankees were top-seven in every infield position in DRS besides second base, where it’s possible Oswald Peraza could slot in for Gleyber Torres on occasion when Stroman is pitching.
The Yankees’ infield positioning also stands to benefit Stroman.
According to The Fielding Bible, they were tied for fourth in 2023 for DRS with their infield shift.
Though Stroman’s pitch mix may not be quite like the rest of the rotation — last season, he threw his sinker 46.4 percent of the time, his slurve 22.9 percent and cutter 9.5 percent — the Yankees have had success in recent years with sinker/slider pitchers.
That has largely been with relievers, but also with converted starter Michael King, the man Stroman will be tasked with replacing in the rotation.
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