Blue Jays: A closer look at Stroman, the ace

Marcus Stroman has been an incredibly effective pitcher during his time in the MLB, and used to be considered the ace of the staff. Now slotting in 3rd or 4th on most healthy Jays’ depth charts, Stroman is proving doubters wrong and showing the stuff of a #1.

Marcus Stroman had another strong outing on Saturday afternoon, once again keeping his team in the game long enough to let the offence do their thing, picking up their 4th straight win in the process. He threw 6 innings and allowed 8 hits, 2 earned runs, and picked up 9 strikeouts in the no decision.

The “Stro Show” has been healthy and performing very well thus far in 2017, currently holding a 3-2 record with a 3.33 ERA through his first 8 starts. He’s recorded 49 strikeouts in 51.1 innings, and has a 1.38 WHIP. In fact, the young right-hander has given the club a quality start in 6 of his 8 chances, only faltering on May 3rd against New York (when he was removed with “tightness”), and on April 18th when he was touched up for 6 earned runs in 4.2 against the Red Sox.

Otherwise, Stroman has been one of the saving graces for a hurting Blue Jays’ rotation, providing health and length, averaging more than 6 innings per start, and giving the bullpen a bit of breathing room.

What I’ve always found strange about Stroman is that he was once the prized jewel of the Blue Jays’ pitching ranks, only to have fallen back significantly in the eyes of many baseball fans and pundits. I present to you an argument for why Stroman would be considered the ace if he were dropped into plenty of other MLB rotations.

Take away the first half 2016 and what do you get?

As it stands, Marcus Stroman has a very impressive resume for a young pitcher of just 26 years old. He’s a 27-18 for his career across 63 starts, spanning from his debut in 2014 until the present day. His career ERA is 3.85, WHIP is 1.24 and he’s thrown 413 career innings, surpassing the 200 mark last season for the first time, totalling 204.

For as good as things look with a wide angle, Stroman was struggling pretty significantly in the first half of last season, so much so that the lustre started to come off his star by the All-Star break. With the emergence of Aaron Sanchez as a starter, and the unexpected dominance of J.A. Happ and Marco Estrada, Stroman was bordering on an afterthought at one point, something that seemed incomprehensible at the beginning of the campaign.

Across 18 starts, the U.S. born right-hander was 7-4, which sounds great, but his ERA had ballooned to 4.89 and his WHIP was up to 1.328, both much higher than his career norms. Fortunately for Stroman, the club was producing on offence when he toed the rubber, but his struggles were evident, both in the stats and on his face.

It didn’t last however, as he rebounded to post a 3.68 ERA across 14 starts in the second half, a WHIP of 1.239, and was a key piece of the playoff rotation as well.

Stroman was entering his first full season after having come back from knee surgery, and I honestly believe many people discounted the effect it had on his performance in the first half. Take away those 18 starts, and Stroman’s career ERA lowers from 3.85, down to 3.36. That’s a significant difference, and is nearly identical to the 3.33 ERA he is sporting through his first 8 starts this season.

2015 was wiped away by injury

Entering the 2015 season, Stroman was considered the ace of a young and talented Blue Jays staff, and was set to receive the ball on Opening Day. Unfortunately for the former Duke product, a spring training knee injury would take him out before the season even began, and sent him under the knife to correct a torn ACL.

Many of us (myself included) scoffed at the youngster when he claimed he would make it back before the season was over, but he did just that, making 4 starts down the stretch and coming up huge for the needy rotation. He had a 1.67 ERA in those 4 starts, and helped the Blue Jays snap their 22 year playoff drought.

Seeing him on the mound and stepping into playoff level atmosphere, after having missed almost the entire season was impressive enough, but then he carried it into the actual playoffs, making two big starts against the Texas Rangers in the ALDS before getting roughed up a bit in his lone ALCS start.

Considering that he’s lost almost an entire season to injury, he’s done pretty well to set himself up as one of the more exciting young arms in the American League. Realistically he’s only made 2 season’s worth of starts, meaning he’s got plenty of learning and growing to do before he reaches his full potential.

What makes an ace?

The whole debate about who is an ace and who is not is always a little silly, but let’s face it, us baseball types love to debate this sort of thing. The optimistic Blue Jays fan (me) could make the argument that the Blue Jays have as many as 4 arms capable of performing as an “ace” in their rotation, with the presence of Estrada, Happ, and Aaron Sanchez.

If you type “what makes a pitcher an ace in baseball?” into Google (I know, I’m high tech), it’ll tell you that an ace is the best pitcher on a given team. However, if you used that logic then that means last year’s Cy Young Award winner in Rick Porcello wouldn’t hold that title, nor would Red Sox teammate David Price (when healthy) because of the presence of Chris Sale and his freaky abilities.

Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling would have had quite the argument in the early 2000’s, and the debate would have been endless between Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee in the latter part of the decade in Philadelphia. I could list dozens more, but those are the examples that immediately jumped to my mind. That’s why the argument is flawed to me, because of course there can be more than one pitcher worthy of the title on the same staff. Some teams are spoiled that way.

Stroman has performed at ace-like levels before, but perhaps never more so than when he started for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic this spring. The tournament turned out to be a great showcase for the talented pitcher, and an opportunity to show what he’s capable of in the a big game on the world stage.