Marcus Stroman's Selfish Stance An Early Spring Dilemma

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Today, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on some of the early-spring goings-on down in Tampa, and right at the top, we have some unnecessary nonsense involving Marcus Stroman. Lets get to it.

Marcus Stroman caused a bit of a dust up over the weekend by skipping the first two days of workouts for pitchers and catchers, this after he had reported on time to take his physical.

It was such a stupid way to get the spring going, a needless spark of drama authored by a guy who has long been known as a loose cannon.

“No big deal, he’s a pro,” GM Brian Cashman said, trying his best to throw water on that spark in the hope that it doesn’t get fanned into a brush fire by the New York media. “I know he’s in a good state of mind and good shape. Glad he got here (Saturday). Certainly always want people there from the jump, but getting to know Stro, he knows what it takes to get ready.”

Obviously, Stroman is pissed by what took place over the winter when the Yankees made it fairly obvious that they were looking for a trade partner in order to offload his $18 million salary.

When Stroman met with reporters down in Tampa following his mini-protest, he was asked about the possibility of a move to the bullpen because the Yankees’ five-man starting rotation is already set with Gerrit Cole, Max Fried, Carlos Rodon, Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil. He stood there defiantly and came off like a petulant, me-first brat when he made it perfectly clear that he will not pitch out of the bullpen because, as he stated over and over, “I’m a starter.”

Nice attitude, especially from a guy who was a bum in the second half of 2024, a pitcher so unreliable that he never even threw a pitch in the postseason because he couldn’t be trusted to get Royals, Guardians or Dodgers hitters out.

The 33-year-old righty has had a nice MLB career, 10 years in total with the Blue Jays, Mets, Cubs and Yankees. He has made 261 appearances and only nine have come from the bullpen, and six of those happened in his rookie season with Toronto in 2014. He had two relief outings in 2023 with the Cubs, and then one last year for the Yankees.

So yes, as Stroman said, he’s a starter. But at this stage of his career, and coming off a season in which he had his highest ERA (4.31), WHIP (1.468) and hits allowed per nine innings (9.7) since 2018 and the worst walks per nine (3.5) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (1.88) of his career, maybe he should be reassessing his position.

Unless one of the starters gets hurt, there won’t be a rotation spot available for Stroman, so like it or not, he’s going to be in the bullpen. But here’s the thing: There’s no guarantee that the starting five makes it out of the spring healthy, so there’s a decent chance that Stroman - assuming he pitches well enough to beat out other starting candidates - could end up with a starting role by Opening Day.

Just look at last year when Gerrit Cole went down in the spring and missed the first two months of the season. That opened the door for Gil - who was ticketed for Triple-A - and he burst through it and wound up winning American League Rookie of the Year.

Which is why Stroman should have shut his mouth and not portrayed himself as a bad teammate with his selfish proclamation that “I’m a starter; I won’t pitch out of the bullpen. I’m a starter my entire career. How many people can stay healthy and do it 30-plus starts year after year, especially after being the one that they said could never do it at my size? I’m a starter.”

“That’s vintage Stro,” Cashman said, again trying to calm the waters. “He’s a competitor. And I agree with him, he is a starter. Let’s just see how everything plays out.”

How the Yankees would like it to play out is that Cashman can find a trade partner before the season begins, and if the Yankees do need a sixth starter early in the season, it can come from a pool of prospects knocking on the door including Chase Hampton and Will Warren, or perhaps someone they could obtain if they are able to trade Stroman.

Clayton Beeter will transition to relief

One pitcher they won’t look to is Clayton Beeter because the organization has made the decision to move him to the bullpen full time.

Beeter came over from the Dodgers in 2022 in the trade deadline deal that sent Joey Gallo to Los Angeles. In 2023, he made 14 starts at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and certainly wasn’t great as he went 3-5 with a 4.94 ERA and 1.479 WHIP. And then in 2024, an injury limited him to seven starts but he had a 2.25 ERA and 1.083 WHIP.

The Yankees think he can be more effective in short stints, so he’ll get a chance to win a roster spot as a middle innings bridge pitcher, helping set up for late-inning relievers Jonathan Loaisiga, Luke Weaver and closer Devin Williams.

“As we got through last year, his fastball-slider mix is super powerful and is best suited for relief,” Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said. “We decided to lean into the swing-and-miss of the fastball at the top of the zone and the slider at the bottom. We thought it might even play up in short bursts.”

Giancarlo Stanton’s first injury didn’t take long

Position players reported to camp on Saturday and, shocker of all shockers, Stanton is injured. The diagnosis is tendinitis in both of his elbows, a condition he apparently was fighting through last season.

Aaron Boone was asked if this problem could jeopardize Stanton at the start of the season and he said, “I don’t know. We’ll see. It’s tough to say. I’m not going to put any timeline on it. We’re just going to be smart with it and kind of listen to it a little bit. We want to make sure we’re giving that as much time (as it needs), so we’ll probably slow-play him a little bit. I’m expecting him to be OK, it’s just a matter of when we want to start really rolling it out to give us the best chance to get as much of him as we can.”

I’ll be the first to admit that Stanton was incredible in the playoffs. He hit seven home runs last October, the most ever by a Yankee in a single postseason run, and he now has 18 home runs and 40 RBI in 41 career postseason games. With Aaron Judge doing absolutely nothing, the Yankees would not have made it to the World Series without Stanton going bonkers.

He’s now 35 years old, and even though he goes through periods of time - sometimes it’s days, or weeks, or even months - where he looks terrible at the plate, when he gets on a roll, he is still a dynamic force for the offense. Missing time at the start of the season is obviously better than later, but his absence will be felt in a lineup that already has holes with highly questionable depth behind the starters.

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Get ready for more of Aaron Boone

As long-time subscribers here already know, Boone isn’t exactly a favorite of mine. I know he drives many of you nuts, too, but I guess we’re all going to have to suck it up because indications are that the Yankees are negotiating a contract extension that will probably tie him to the Bronx for another three or four years.

“I hope we get it done,” Boone said Saturday. “No place I’d rather be, obviously, doing it with this team and this organization and in front of this fan base. Hopefully, we do get to the finish line with that. I’m certainly optimistic and hopeful.”

There’s no denying that he has an impressive record across his first seven seasons as Yankees manager - a 603-429 mark and his wins total is already seventh on the franchise’s all-time list as he moved past Billy Martin (556) last year.

He was the first manager in MLB history to reach the postseason in each of his first five seasons, doing so from 2018-22 before missing out in 2023, and then he rebounded in 2024 by winning the AL pennant and leading the Yankees to their first World Series since 2009. And since 1900, there are only eight managers with at least 600 victories and a winning percentage of .580 or better: Boone, Joe McCarthy, Billy Southworth, Frank Chance, John McGraw, Al Lopez, Earl Weaver, and Dave Roberts.

All that said, it feels like pretty much any manager in MLB could have put together that record with the Yankees given their collection of talent and financial resources, and many of them might have been better than 22-23 in the postseason.

Boone is definitely a players’ manager, he handles the media well, and he’s a good face for the franchise, all of which the Yankees’ brass loves. You can do worse than Boone, but I just wish he was a better in-game decision maker and someone who had a better feel for the moment rather than relying so much on robotic decisions pre-determined by what the analytics call for.

I’m not anti-analytics. They’re a huge part of today’s game and for good reason. But Boone - and he’s not alone in this - needs to find the delicate balance between numbers and gut.

“The one thing I’m so impressed with is his temperament,” Cashman said. “There’s a lot of slings and arrows coming our way, despite even last year having a nice run. It wasn’t ultimately what we wanted at the end, but at the end of the day, he’s handled the ups and downs, the successes and failures, all the same way.

“I think that is a strength, that is a benefit. I know that if he wasn’t the Yankee manager, it would be a feeding frenzy for him to be a manager that’s coveted elsewhere, objectively. That’s how we see it. We’re hopeful that we can find common ground to have him continue leading our players from that dugout.”