Marcus Stroman agrees to Yankees deal to bolster rotation
The Yankees have finally found the fifth member of their rotation.
The team and Marcus Stroman agreed to a two-year, $37 million contract that has a vesting option for a third year, The Post’s Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman reported on Thursday night. The deal is pending a physical.
If Stroman pitches 140 innings in 2025, he gains control of the third-year option, which would make the total value of the deal $55 million over three years.
The fiery 32-year-old right-hander, a Long Island native, is coming off an All-Star season with the Cubs, though he tailed off in the second half and missed six weeks with hip inflammation and a rib cage cartilage fracture.
After trading for superstar outfielder Juan Soto but missing out on Japanese right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto earlier this offseason, the Yankees were left with a hole in their rotation.
They had interest in the top two arms remaining on the free-agent market, Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, and also in Dylan Cease and others on the trade market.
But with the price for those pitchers steep — either in dollars and years or prospects — the Yankees pivoted and landed Stroman to join a rotation with Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, Nestor Cortes and Clarke Schmidt.
It’s possible the Yankees could still pursue Snell, Montgomery or Cease, especially if their prices were to fall, but on Thursday they made sure they filled the hole in their rotation with a veteran arm.
Stroman, the former Blue Jay and Met, posted to Instagram on Thursday night an old picture of himself in a Yankees sweatshirt and another photoshopped image of him in a Yankees uniform.
But in years past, his previous Yankees-related social media content had included exchanging some jabs with general manager Brian Cashman (in tweets that have since been deleted).
At the 2019 deadline, the Yankees did not trade for Stroman (the Mets did) because Cashman said he did not view Stroman as a “difference-maker” and he would be in their bullpen for the playoffs.
Stroman appeared to take those comments personally and later that season tweeted a graphic of his stats compared to those of the Yankees’ rotation.
In 2021, Stroman tweeted, “Besides Cole, there’s no current Yankee pitcher who will be anywhere in my league over the next 5-7 years. Their pitching always folds in the end.
That lineup and payroll should be winning World Series’ left and right…yet they’re in a drought. Lol.”
Now Stroman will have a chance to help them reverse that trend.
The Patchogue-Medford and Duke grad arrives in The Bronx with a career 3.65 ERA across 1,303 ²/₃ innings, though the ground-ball specialist did not surpass 140 innings in either of the last two seasons because of injuries, including right shoulder inflammation in 2022.
But the Yankees hope Stroman will bring some more consistency to a rotation that largely lacked it last season behind the AL Cy Young-winning Cole.
Rodon and Cortes both had their seasons derailed by injuries and struggled when healthy, combining for 127 ²/₃ innings and a 5.92 ERA.
Schmidt took a step forward in his first full season as a starter, finishing with a 4.64 ERA. Michael King was looking like he had the potential to be a high-end starter, but the Yankees used him as part of the package to land Soto from the Padres (along with depth starters Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez and top pitching prospect Drew Thorpe), creating the hole in the rotation.
Before adding Stroman, the Yankees had been replenishing their starting depth.
That continued earlier on Thursday when right-hander Luke Weaver agreed to a one-year, $2 million deal that includes a club option for 2025.
Weaver joins a group including Luis Gil, Cody Poteet, Cody Morris, Yoendrys Gomez, Clayton Beeter and Will Warren who figure to be in line for spot starts when the need arises.
It remains to be seen whether the Yankees will make another move to further bolster their rotation, but they at least have their five starters for now.
