“He’s a bum.”
Those were the final thoughts of the first caller who made it on to Blue Jays Talk Sunday afternoon, his assessment of Marcus Stroman after watching the young righty get roughed up yet again.
And while that harsh and untrue assessment is wrought by frustration and emotion that has clearly overwhelmed reason, with Stroman posting an ERA of 7.59 over his last seven starts – allowing six runs or more in four of them – the conversation among a large portion of Blue Jays fandom is now about what to do with the struggling starter.
There are suggestions that Stroman should trade places with Drew Hutchison, who is pitching very well at triple-A Buffalo (2.87 ERA, 1.09 WHIP in 13 starts), or that he should be moved to the bullpen. Some have gone so far as to suggest that it’s time to give up on Stroman as a starter altogether, given that the knock against him since before he was drafted was that a man his size wouldn’t be able to survive as a starting pitcher in the major leagues.
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The attitude speaks so strongly to a “what have you done for me lately?” culture that appears all too willing to see athletes as easily-disposable commodities rather than human beings who can go through ups and downs. It’s the fantasy sports waiver wire thing. You have a player who had a bad week? Drop him and grab somebody else. Great strategy in fantasy, not so much in real life.
Stroman’s current struggles are very real and not a lot of fun to watch. He’s had two good starts in his last seven games, but they came against the worst offensive team in the American League (Minnesota) and the worst offensive team in the National League (Philadelphia). In the other five outings combined, Stroman lasted just 25.2 innings and allowed 31 earned runs on 51 hits, walking nine while striking out 17 and allowing four home runs. So you don’t have to do the math, that works out to a 10.87 ERA, a WHIP of 2.338 and a bucketload of hard contact, more than any other pitcher in the game over that span.
That is one ugly set of five starts.
But that’s all it is. One ugly set of five starts. The eight starts before that this season were pretty good, the seven last year (including playoffs) were phenomenal, and the 20 the year before had Stroman among the league’s rookie leaders.
To write off a 25 year-old because of one ugly month is beyond ludicrous, especially one with Stroman’s incredible pure stuff.
Clearly, though, something is wrong. It might be as simple as what Stroman said after Sunday’s game – that he couldn’t get into a rhythm, didn’t get the feel for his fastball. And that’s the one place that his stature does work against him. Because while Stroman is right in saying that height doesn’t measure heart, and while he’s as motivated by his doubters as anyone I’ve ever come into contact with, none of that does him any good if he can’t consistently get on top of his fastball.
When Stroman’s delivery isn’t perfect, or close to it, he’s in trouble. His size means that he has virtually no margin for error in creating a downward plane on his deliveries. If his pitches come in flat, he’s going to get lit up, as we’ve seen. When he’s on top of the ball, there aren’t many pitchers who are better.
Hopefully for the Blue Jays, that’s all it is. Finding the feel and getting back to where he was for the first 35 starts of his major-league career. But what’s the best way to get Stroman to do that? There would seem to be four choices: Keep throwing him out there every five days until he finds it; send him to the bullpen to work on things until he does; option him to Buffalo to work away from the pressure to win; give him a breather.
For me, the last option is the best. The Blue Jays have a short week this week, with an off-day on each side of their two-game home-stand against the Diamondbacks, so there’s a built-in breather right there for Stroman. His turn doesn’t come up again until Sunday, which gives him six days between starts as opposed to his regular four. If the Jays wanted to, they could even give Stroman eight days off without disturbing the rest of the rotation. However, that plan would put his next start in Colorado, which is no place for a pitcher to get back on track, as opposed to in Chicago.
So maybe for now the best option is to use the days off to allow Stroman to have one extra bullpen, instead of pushing him back to give him two, so that he doesn’t get Colorado’d.
However the Blue Jays and Stroman work together to get him out of this rut, it’s important to remember that this is the young righty’s first full season in the major leagues. Rare is the pitcher who hits the ground running in his career and just keeps pitching at an elite level from day one with no bumps in the road. A good example might be last year’s A.L. Cy Young award winner, Dallas Keuchel – the Astros’ lefty is currently tied with Stroman for the A.L. lead in earned runs allowed.
I’ve seen a lot of comparisons to Ricky Romero lately, as well as suggestions that the Jays should send Stroman down like they did Roy Halladay in 2001. Both are hugely misguided.
Romero, coming off an All-Star season in 2011, stopped throwing strikes in 2012. He led the major leagues in walks, likely because he didn’t miss a start all season while pitching with no bottom half – his knees were so torn apart that he required surgery on both of them.
Halladay was sent down to A-ball prior to the ’01 season to be rebuilt because he was coming off a 2000 season in which he set an MLB record for the highest ERA of any pitcher who had thrown at least 40 innings in a season (10.64 in 67.2 innings).
Stroman has had five awful starts in his last seven. Terrible, to be sure, but hardly the end of the world or even cause for a demotion.
