DUNEDIN, FLA.—It was nice to see Blue Jays right-hander Marcus Stroman emerge on Monday afternoon to address the assembled media for the first time this spring, even if only for five minutes. The talented 25-year-old seems to be using his disdain of the press to fuel his fires, the same approach he has used with his detractors for years. (Critics said he was too short to be a big-league starter, or that he would never return from ACL surgery in the same season, as he did in 2015.)
While avoiding most of the requested interviews from mainstream media this spring, Stroman has ramped up his use of social media, mainly Twitter and Instagram, to connect with his fans directly. It all sounds a bit Trump-ian.
“I don’t know how to categorize that,” Stroman said. “I have a pretty good connection with my fans. I felt like I’ve built that over the years. I’m extremely authentic in everything I do, so it’s just kind of how I go about my business.”
Stroman was asked if this personal preference of going directly to the people would continue into the regular season, if maybe it was now an ingrained part of his Height Doesn’t Measure Heart modus operandi. If so, he would be alone on the Jays.
“I’m focused on everything I can to win a championship here and that’s first and foremost,” Stroman said. “Everything I do is to put myself in the best position and to help this team and that’s the only thing on my mind.”
Stroman explained that he is 100-per-cent recovered from residue of the ACL injury to his knee that he suffered at spring training 2015. He was ruled out for the season, but became intent on proving people wrong and amazingly rehabbed post-surgery in five months. And he proved everyone wrong, including manager John Gibbons, who said, if he came back, he would have to pitch out of the bullpen. Instead, Stroman went 4-0 as a starter in September and was a key in the playoffs as the Jays advanced to the American League championship series against Kansas City.
“Everyone forgets, I came back in five months from full ACL surgery,” the Duke University grad said, explaining why his knee only now is 100 per cent. “I had to stop my rehab to come back and pitch in September and the playoffs. I had to re-amp my rehab back up and start it in the off-season. So it’s not the ideal process that you want to go through, ACL rehab. This year I feel 100 per cent.”
A year ago Stroman was the opening-day starter for the Jays, heading a starting five that was questioned at the beginning of the year because of a variety of legitimate concerns, including Marco Estrada’s back, Aaron Sanchez’s endurance, R.A. Dickey’s aged knuckler and J.A. Happ’s first tour in Toronto. But that has became more fuel.
“I think we have the best rotation in baseball, hands down, day in and day out,” Stroman said. “We weren’t valued at all coming into spring training (last year). Everyone had a bunch of question marks. But we knew what we were capable of. One through five, we’re extremely strong. Each and every guy I consider pretty much an ace and can get us a win every day, and that’s the mentality that we have.”
The group of five Jays starters is very good, with lefties Happ and Francisco Liriano, plus righties Stroman, Estrada and Sanchez. The projected rotation needs to remain healthy because of the organization’s lack of depth at the upper levels of the system, plus they need one of two guys with the highest future ceilings — Stroman or Sanchez — to reach up and touch the sky, to give Toronto, as the season unfolds, a true number one starter. Otherwise, are their number twos, threes and fours going to be good enough?
Gibbons agrees that in order for young players to achieve true success, they first need to know failure. It teaches them to appreciate their accomplishments and to battle through adversity. Stroman has had enough obvious cases of hardship and seems to have come out successfully on the other side.
He served a 50-game suspension in the minors. He was demoted as a rookie after being batted around. He suffered the knee injury in 2015 and he struggled to take the next step while healthy at times last year. Stroman had a 4.89 ERA in 18 first-half starts before improving to 3.68 in 14 second-half starts.
“The reality of the game at this level, you’re not going to be good every time out,” Gibbons said. “You’re going to get knocked down, especially the young guys. That’s part of it. He was in that stretch. There were people calling for him to get sent down. We thought he was going to work it out and he ended up hanging in there and really turning the season around at the end there.
“Most of them, when they get to the big leagues fast, they don’t fail in the minor leagues. It’s something they’re not used to. Really, your top draft picks, they don’t struggle much as amateurs either. It’s just part of the learning process and some deal with it and some don’t and they disappear. That’s just part of the game.”
So where do the Blue Jays deserve to be ranked among the major-league rotations this spring? Maybe fifth, behind the Red Sox led by Chris Sale, David Price and Rick Porcello; the Nationals, with aces Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer; the Indians, with Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar; and the Cubs, led by Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks. But ask me again after 81 games.
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