Yankees fans have had a first taste of Marcus Stroman in Pinstripes, and for the most part, he’s doing his job as advertised and he’s doing it efficiently.
With many veteran starting pitchers around him, it’s no surprise that Stroman’s precise craft of inducing weak contact and grounders is on point.
In two starts, he pitched 6.1 innings and let up two earned runs on six hits; in the second
start, he shoved four scoreless innings. Despite the restricted pitch count of 71 across two games, he’s holding batters to a .250 average while striking out five with a WHIP of 1.11.
So far, he averages just over 11 pitches per inning, meaning he finds the zone fast, and it doesn’t take him long to get weak contact and an out. The math checks out: 70% of his pitches are in the zone, and he currently averages 2.840 pitches per plate appearance.
Disclaimer: in his first start, he ran into some trouble (as seen in his 7.71 ERA after his first 2.1 innings as Yankee), so as of right now, his groundball percentage is at a humble 31.6%.
His entire career is a different story though. His career ground-ball percentage is 56.7% according to FanGraphs, hovering just north of 50% since 2019 after staying calmly in the 60-64% rate from 2015 to 2018 while with the Toronto Blue Jays.
How does that look compared to the rest of the rotation?
In 2023, Gerrit Cole led the pack with 39.6%, Nestor Cortes was the lowest at 16.6%. Clarke Schmidt and Carlos Rodon were in the middle of the pack at 18.5% and 20.2% respectively. So in the inducing-groundball-category, Stroman took the cake with 57.1% from last season.
Why is this so important? Yankee Stadium is considered one of the most hitter-friendly
ballparks, so groundballs beat the alternative: hard-hit balls or fly balls that have the potential to leave the park. Something to keep in mind is that Stroman had up to six fly balls last season that would have gone home as souvenirs and not outs if he threw them in Yankee Stadium.
All of this comes as a stark contrast to his career thus far at 161st, where his ERA is inflated to
6.06. This season is the time to bring that down, so all he has to do is make sure his sinker is on point.
In sum, the bleacher creatures shouldn’t be surprised if it sees short top halves when he is on the hill.
