The Mets have lost another big name for the year. Marcus Stroman has decided to opt out of the remainder of the 2020 season, the pitcher announced Monday.
Stroman, who was on the 10-day injured list recovering from a left calf muscle tear, said the decision was made with the best intentions of his family. He was very close to returning to the rotation – having thrown an 85-pitch bullpen session in his last simulation game – and the Mets were largely blindsided by Stroman’s decision.
“It just ended up being a collective family decision for me, something that’s been weighing on me daily,” Stroman said. “Just ended up sitting with my family and assessing the possibilities and realizing that there’s just too many uncertainties, too many unknowns right now to go out there.”
The move comes in lieu of the “many uncertainties” Stroman said derive from playing this season, including the team’s upcoming trip to Florida, where COVID-19 cases continue to spike, and the coronavirus outbreaks that have occurred in baseball and around the country. Stroman reiterated the Mets went “far and beyond” in their health and safety protocols and the team’s precautions had very little to do with his ultimate choice.
“I have a few family members who have compromised immune systems — my grandma, my uncle who my mom is directly around all the time — so this was a decision that I had to kind of take myself out of it and really look out for the best interests of my family,” Stroman said.
The Mets are scheduled to play the Marlins for a four-game series from Aug. 17-20 in Miami. Though the season is still young, the Marlins and Cardinals have both dealt with large, team-wide outbreaks. Miami was sidelined for a week with more than half of its active roster on the injured list and St. Louis has not played a game since July 29 against the Twins.
Stroman’s recent positive bullpen sessions had given the Mets hope that he would be able to return to the rotation during the upcoming Miami series.
“Obviously you see the Cardinals, the Marlins, you see spikes everywhere in the country, you see protocols not being handled properly from citizens everywhere,” Stroman said. “You see us going to Florida soon, that was a big discussion I had with my family, going to see the Marlins. I don’t think that’s something where I’d want to be in that situation. A bunch of things factored in. Ultimately we finally decided as a family that it probably wasn’t the best to continue forward this year.”
Stroman, 29, was the Mets surprising acquisition of last season through a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays in July. The Mets gave up pitching prospects Anthony Kay and Simeon Woods-Richardson to the Blue Jays as part of the mid-season Stroman deal.
In the end, he started in just 11 games with the Mets and finished the 2019 season with a 4-2 record. Stroman has not pitched in a major-league game since Sept. 27, 2019 against the Braves due to his recovery from a torn left calf muscle, which was discovered at the end of the team’s summer camp in July. He earned enough service time on the injured list to qualify for free agency this upcoming offseason, and the right-hander indicated he would like to remain with the Mets if that opportunity arises.
But it’s entirely possible Stroman, who has earned a career 3.76 ERA and 1.292 WHIP and remains one of the best starters in the year’s free-agent class, finds value elsewhere in the league.
“I let [Van Wagenen] know, it was a blessing to me, a breath of fresh air when I came over to this organization,” Stroman said. “And I truly mean that from the bottom of my heart. I loved everything, the staff, the people, the trainers, the clubhouse. I truly enjoyed showing up to work each and every day and being a part of this.
“However this may play out in the future, obviously yeah I would love to be a part of what they have going on. There’s a lot that goes into that but I can’t say enough good things about this organization and my time here and everybody that’s been involved.”
Stroman joined Cuban slugger Yoenis Cespedes as the second Mets’ player to opt-out of the 2020 season due to the coronavirus. While the Mets were able to immediately bandaid Cespedes’ absence from the lineup with the red-hot bat of Dominic Smith, Stroman’s decision leaves the rotation with an enormous long-term hole.
David Peterson, the Mets’ top left-handed prospect who had not pitched above Double-A, has so far been effective pitching for Stroman every fifth day. The 24-year-old is now expected to become a permanent fixture in the starting rotation, but Michael Wacha’s recent right shoulder injury puts pressure on GM Brodie Van Wagenen to fill the gap at short notice. He plans to “take inventory” and sit down with the pitching coaches to work around the hole Stroman left behind.
“We were living and surviving without Marcus,” Van Wagenen said. “He’s such a big part of who we are both in terms of not only his talent but also his energy and we’ll miss him. There’s no doubt about that. But what this team has shown already, and what I’m confident that we’ll do going forward, is have the next man stand up and keep fighting.
“We recognize that there are all sorts of challenges associated with this season and this is another one. But we’re prepared to go forward and that will be our focus.”
Manager Luis Rojas said he found out about Stroman’s decision early Monday morning. The first-year skipper has already navigated a laundry list’s worth of challenges in his rookie season at the helm, including a surprise promotion to manager, navigating the baseball shutdown, the ensuing COVID-19 season and dealing with two star players dropping out. But his next, immediate issue will involve deciding who pitches every fifth day.
The team does not yet have a starter for Wednesday against the Nationals at Citi Field. The Mets have considered going with a bullpen game, but they could also call up Franklyn Kilome, Erasmo Ramirez, Corey Oswalt or Walker Lockett from their alternate training site in Brooklyn.
Van Wagenen indicated he is open to shopping the market for a short-term solution to Stroman’s absence. This year’s trade deadline was pushed back to Aug. 31, so depending on how competitive the Mets, who entered Monday with a 7-9 record, are by the end of this month, the GM could be involved in a splashy trade to bolster the rotation. In another scenario, relievers Seth Lugo or Robert Gsellman can be stretched out to join the mix as potential options.
“We’re always going to look to improve or add depth,” Van Wagenen said. “Some of the transactions that we’ve made over the last several weeks are with that in mind and we’ll continue to do the same. I think in a shortened season, with the trade deadline a couple of weeks away, I think we’ll always have to look at the near term and long-term decisions, but we have a lot of confidence in the group that we have here.”
