Deep Thoughts: Do You Wanna Build With Stroman?

Come On Let’s Go And Play

After what feels like a year-long winter without baseball, inside dining, and building social capital, it’s finally back. No more concealing it, it’s finally time to open up the gates… this last week pitchers and catchers have reported to Spring Training, and the smell of baseball is in the air. I can’t tell you how much that gets me hyped. It’s been years since I played baseball competitively. Yet with the promise of spring around the corner, I still get that same joy from deep in my soul. It happens every year like clockwork, and it’s always magical. The chance at a new player breaking into the bigs, a hitter making an adjustment to finally hit sliders, and a pitcher… oh, the pitchers… finding that new grip that opens the door to new possibilities. How can you not be romantic about baseball?

There are pain and challenges too, but that’s all part of the journey. Injuries can delay a player’s growth who is about to take that next step forward. Marcus Stroman was one of those players. After rehabbing a calf muscle injury, Stroman decided to opt-out of the 2020 season due to COVID concerns. That must have been tough as he is a competitor through and through. If you have followed his timeline for a hot minute, you’ll see he is meticulous with his craft and training, dedicated to advancing and improving. Players like Stroman with a killer work ethic also fire me up. I was waiting for him to be unleashed last year, but sadly had to wait.

It’s Like You’ve Gone Away

After the All-star break in 2019, Stroman was traded from the Jays to the Mets. What’s important to note about that change in scenery, is his K-rate took a step forward in the second half. Our very own Grey pointed this out after the 2019 season in a sleeper post that winter, here. There he said…

“Stroman’s K/9 went from 7.0 to 8.8 from the 1st half to the 2nd half and had a 3.28 ERA with a miserable BABIP (.332). Of course, he’s prone to some BABIP bad luck and iffy defense because he has a top five ground ball rate in the majors. His Ks only on the Mets were 9, recording 60 Ks in 59 2/3 IP. If Stroman holds these improvements to his K rates, and he’s gonna go from a ‘just okay’ fantasy number four to a number two, bordering on an ace. Dare I call him, Black Greinke.”

So let’s pull up the numbers and take a look:

One thing to keep in mind is that all seasons aren’t built the same and they’re not flat. Each player goes through ups and downs, ebbs and flows, and even some luck and bad luck (“randomness” of outcomes, i.e. trying to hit a spinning sphere with a cylindrical stick); and all this goes on while they tinkering and adjusting their approach and game plan in the background. What we see here is that throughout the second half, Stroman was steadily improving his K-rate. Tick by tick, that culminated at 9.26 K/9 which translated to a 24% K%. Do you know who else has a 24% K-rate? That’s right, Zach Grienke. And one step from there at 25% is Jose Berrios (more on that later).

I Wish You Would Tell Me Why

So what was he doing to get that K-rate up you might be asking? Yes, you. You were asking. I can see in your eyes. Well, my esteemed colleague Jay also happened to write a piece on Stroman last spring (here), and here’s what he found:

What Stroman did in the second half was increase his cutter usage, and that began to generate a doubled swinging-strike rate. It went from an 18.9% whiff rate before the trade to the Mets, to 33.8% after. The cutter became a weapon for him and ended with being his put-away pitch 25.8% on the Mets. But, there’s more to it. Remember the ebb and flow? Let’s take a look at that:

This wasn’t just a post-All-Star Break adjustment, but more of a season-long process of discovering the right pitch mix. Since April, the cutter usage trended upwards from less than 20% at the start of the season to north of 30% by September. And this change came mostly at the cost of his slider as his sinker eventually settled back around to where it was in April.

It Doesn’t Have To Be (The Same) Stroman

Now, enter 2021…

Day 1 as a Momentum Creator and @PitchingNinja already has @STR0 spilling all his pitch grip secrets?

Check out the full video at https://t.co/UGzdaBfXR6. pic.twitter.com/qI565FWxUM

— Momentum (@Watch_Momentum) February 11, 2021

This is a great interview where he discusses the process of his pitch grips, and their unorthodox nature… andddd Stroman mentions his work on new pitch grips. The takeaways: He’s going to be reincorporating his 4-seamer after learning a better grip from Gerrit Cole at the All-Star game to generate more spin. Also, after talking with Gsellman he’s converting his changeup to a split-change. This will generate more downward action, making the ball dive more like a sinker with less depth. The tunneling possibilities are endless and could lead to more whiffs.

Two players currently that execute a very formidable split-change is Jake Odorizzi and Kenta Maeda. Both of them do not have dominant velocity, yet use their split-change to increase their K-rates as an out pitch. In 2020, Maeda got batters to whiff at it 45.6% of the time while only batting .122 against it. In 2019, Odorizzi got batters to whiff at a 27.4% rate while hitting .244 against it. The bonus being, each pitch kept the opponent’s exit velocity under an average of 85 mph, suppressing power.

The final key to the puzzle for Stroman in 2021 is the defense. The Mets acquiring one of the best SS in-game in Lindor to patrol the right side should help to alleviate some of the goofy BABIP bad luck he was getting with ground balls. And now with McCann behind the dish, he goes from having one of the worst framers in the league (Ramos, 8th percentile) to one of the best, 88th percentile. Time to get excited, as he’s about the breakout (again) in a big way.

Okay, Bye

Remember when I said he’s not far off from Jose Berrios? Over the last 162 games, you can see he’s already better than him in everything except Ks. Right now, Marcus Stroman has an ADP of 201 across all 12-team formats. That seems silly to me. He has a career ERA of 3.76 thru 849 IP with a 1.29 WHIP and an HR/9 rate under 1. He is a great value anywhere after pick 180 due to possible limited innings (160-170ish is my guess vs 180-200). If he matches the Ks from the end of 2019 with the new pitches (which I believe he will), you are essentially getting Berrios+1 about 100 picks later in the draft. That’s fire, that’s value. Don’t you wanna build with Stroman? (I think you do) Okay, bye.

If you want more Coolwhip to top-off your baseball experience, fantasy or otherwise, you can follow me on Twitter: @CoolwhipRB.