Marcus Stroman has reached a deal with the Chicago Cubs, the right-hander announced Wednesday on social media.
“CHICAGO! @Cubs,” Stroman posted to Twitter.
“Chicago has always been one of my favorite cities,” he added in a separate post. “Culture and passion everywhere. Beyond excited to pitch in front one of the best fan bases in all of sports. Thank you to everyone in the city for the warm welcome. I can feel it. Let’s get to work!”
CHICAGO! @Cubs
— Marcus Stroman (@STR0) December 1, 2021
Chicago has always been one of my favorite cities. Culture and passion everywhere. Beyond excited to pitch in front one of the best fan bases in all of sports. Thank you to everyone in the city for the warm welcome. I can feel it. Let’s get to work! @Cubs
— Marcus Stroman (@STR0) December 1, 2021
Wrigley Field is the only big league stadium I haven’t pitched at in my career. Crazy. Can’t wait to call it home! @Cubs
— Marcus Stroman (@STR0) December 1, 2021
The Cubs later announced they had agreed to a three-year contract with Stroman.
The deal is for $71 million and includes an opt-out after the second season, sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Stroman will make $25 million in 2022, $25 million in 2023 and $21 million in 2024, and the deal includes $2 million escalators for reaching 160 innings pitched in ’22 and ’23, sources said.
Since recovering from a torn ACL suffered during spring training in 2015, Stroman has been one of baseball’s steadiest pitchers. With the omission of a 2020 season in which he first missed the beginning due to a torn calf muscle before opting out, Stroman ranks tied fifth for games started, eighth in innings pitched and 16th in fWAR (15.4), posting FIPs of 3.71, 3.90, 3.91, 3.72 and 3.48.
Stroman makes his money by attacking batters with four pitches: a sinker, a slider, a splitter and a cutter, producing a high rate of ground balls. In 2021, his ground ball rate of 50.8% ranked eighth in the sport, which is balanced out by his proclivity for allowing hard contact, with the third-most hard contact of any pitcher in baseball, according to Baseball Savant’s hard-hit rate.
Throughout the course of 2021, Stroman became the New York Mets‘ most reliable pitcher, especially following the injury to Jacob deGrom. Stroman became one of two pitchers to start at least 20 games for the team, and he allowed no more than three earned runs in 29 of his 33 starts.
Stroman was one of the top free-agent pitchers in a group featuring Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. After accepting the qualifying offer from the Mets in 2021 and betting on himself, Stroman was rewarded after coming off one of the best seasons of his career.
In four of the past five seasons, Stroman has made 32 or more starts, compiling at least 3.3 WAR in each of those seasons, and he has never posted a FIP above 4.00 in his career.
ESPN’s Joon Lee contributed to this report.
