Blake excited to have ‘groundball machine’ Stroman in rotation

When Marcus Stroman first debuted with the Blue Jays in 2014, he didn’t consider his sinker to be anything special.

“I came into the league not even having that pitch and kind of found it a few years in,” Stroman said last week, though pitch-tracking data says he’s thrown it from the get-go.

Nowadays, Stroman calls the offering his “bread and butter,” or “one of the most elite sinkers” in the majors. “I feel like my best sinker against the best swing, I’m usually going to keep it on the ground or I’m going to be able to limit damage,” he said.

The pitch is one of the reasons the Yankees brought Stroman in on a deal that will pay the righty at least $37 million over two seasons.

A Cub in 2023, Stroman threw his sinker 47% of the time, according to FanGraphs. That helped him finish the year with a 57.1% groundball rate. He owns a 56.7% clip for his career.

The Yankees, meanwhile, had the fourth-lowest groundball rate in the majors last season at 38.7%.

In other words, Stroman is an anomaly in a projected rotation that also includes Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Nestor Cortes and Clarke Schmidt. Count the Yankees’ pitching coach among those who are excited about that.

“Anytime you can create some diversity in the rotation or the bullpen, it’s helpful,” Matt Blake said. “Obviously, we’ve typically erred on the side of guys with fourseams who can strike guys out, whether it’s Cole, Cortes, Rodón.”

Blake noted that Michael King would have brought a sinker to the rotation had the Yankees not dealt him in the Juan Soto trade. Schmidt also has the pitch in his repertoire and will try to improve it this year after focusing on his cutter in 2023.

Still, the groundball approach has been missing from the Yankees’ rotation, at least when compared to the team’s tendency for filling its bullpen with such pitchers.

“I wouldn’t say we’re immune to the sinker in the rotation,” Blake said.

“It’s just probably the way that the market works sometimes and what you have available. But I do think (Stroman’s) a nice complement.”