Cubs Add Marcus Stroman Right at the Lockout Deadline

The Sugar Glum Fairy had one last holiday treat for us before the lockout rudely intervened, with the Cubs signing starting pitcher Marcus Stroman to a three-year contract. After opting out of the 2020 season while recovering from a calf injury, he resumed his career without missing a beat, starting 33 games for the Mets with a 3.02 ERA and 3.49 FIP, good for 3.4 WAR.

Over three years, the total guarantee for the deal is $71 million, with $25 million coming in both 2022 and ’23 and a $21 million base salary for ’24. For each 160-inning season in ’22 and ’23, $2 million is added to the ’24 salary, making it a tidy $75 million. Stroman also has the ability to opt out of the final year of his contract, becoming a free agent after 2023. Let’s jump straight into the projection.

Nothing looks particularly odd about the projection or the contract. At the salary assumption I’m going with this winter ($7.3 million for a win with 3% yearly growth), ZiPS would suggest a $70 million deal over three years; over five, it suggests $109 million, putting Stroman’s valuation very close to both that of Robbie Ray and Kevin Gausman. Stroman, though, was not subject to a qualifying offer due to accepting New York’s qualifying offer for the 2021 season (Gausman was in an identical position, but Ray cost the Mariners a draft pick). I’m mildly surprised that he didn’t land a longer deal, but whether the fact that he didn’t was due to inability to get one or simply a desire to get another crack at free agency in the not-too-distant future in a normal winter is unknown to me. If I ran a team or the MLBPA foolishly accepted a bizarre proposal from owners that resulted in my computer setting all salaries, I’d be happy to give him five years at $109 million. (Note to any negotiators: the Szymborski cartel’s service fee is 0.05% of base salary)

However they got to the current contract, this is a very astute signing by the Cubs. No, Stroman is not as exciting a pitcher as some of the other names available this offseason. His fastball isn’t all that fast, though it’s far from the Jered Weaver Zone, and his stuff doesn’t yield an impressive bounty of hitters looking foolish after flailing away at strike three. But if not a star thrower, he’s certainly a star pitcher, and he added another good one this season — a splitter that’s more on the changeup side than the fastball side of the spectrum.

While sinker pitchers seem almost passé in current years thanks to the increased willingness and ability of hitters to golf anything low into the stands, Stroman has seemed basically immune to the offensive changes in baseball over the last five years. Batters struggle to get loft against him; of the 92 pitchers in 2021 who threw 2,000 pitches, he had the ninth-lowest average launch angle. As a result, he’s never allowed more than 21 homers in a season, and his FIP has been remarkably stable, with less than a half-run of separation in his last five seasons.

There’s also little specific reason to worry about Stroman’s health, other than the typical angst you should feel about anybody who throws pitches for a living. His only serious injury related to throwing was shoulder fatigue in 2018 that cost him about a month of the season, but there was no structural damage, and he hasn’t had issues since (he later missed time that season due to blisters). The season he missed early in his career was due to a torn ACL, not any elbow or shoulder shenanigans, and his only nagging issue in 2021 despite missing a year was a hip pull that didn’t even cost him a start.

Also, the Cubs really need a starting pitcher. FanGraphs has starter/reliever breakdowns going back to 1974, and comparing Cubs rotations since then, the 2021 rotation was last in FIP, last in WAR, and (probably) last in the hearts of their countrymen.

Of the solid 2019 rotation, only Hendricks remained two years later, and his stuff doesn’t give him a massive margin of error; he suffered easily the worst season of his career and finished with a FIP only slightly better than five.

While the Cubs are in a rebuilding/retooling phase right now, who starts the games is more than just interesting trivia, because they play in a division in which the games do count for something. Back in August, I made some premature projections for the NL Central based on players who were still under team control for 2022, and Chicago wasn’t noticeably any worse off than three of the other four teams in the division. The Cardinals surged late in the season, but the Cubs are not out of the playoff picture in 2022 by any stretch of the imagination.

There was a flurry of big-ticket activity leading up to the lockout, but you’ll find that the NL Central teams were noticeably quiet, just as they were through most of last winter. Only a single multi-year contract has been signed by a non-Cubs NL Central team: the four-year, $44 million deal St. Louis made with Steven Matz. It’s also the only contract worth more than $5 million. I like Matz and think that’s a fair price for an average-ish starter, which is something the Cardinals need, but literally zero front offices have ever called a tense emergency meeting with coffee mugs plummeting to the floor because of the dropped bombshell that a rival has acquired his services.

With the Reds talking about trading Luis Castillo rather than acquiring top talent, I would not be the least bit surprised if the Cubs enter the 2022 season with a third-place projection, one that leaves them within shouting distance of the Cardinals and Brewers. They have more work to do, plus we’re not quite sure what a possible 2022 season would even look like at this point, so it’s a bit premature to throw any celebrations. But if they spend a bit more dough when free agency resumes, they could be competitive in a weak division far quicker than many of the naysayers think.

For now, this is a dandy of a deal for the Cubs. They needed a starting pitcher, and they got a good one for a good price.