RADIO
Marcus Stroman 2022 Player Outlook: Nowhere Near as Good as His Surface Stats Suggest
3 years agoMarcus Stroman enjoyed a career year in 2021 despite a losing 10-13 record, pitching to a 3.02 ERA over 179 IP. Unfortunately, his underlying numbers suggest that he won't be a good investment for the Cubs or fantasy managers in 2022. His 3.57 xFIP was more than half a tick higher than his ERA, while his 4.33 xERA suggests that Stroman doesn't have any sort of dependable contact management ability. If Stroman somehow repeated his ERA, fantasy managers would still need to deal with his sub-par K%. Last year's mark of 21.6% was a career-best despite being lower than the league average of 23.2%. Worse, Stroman got those strikeouts by throwing his two best K pitches (slider and cutter) less often in favor of a merely decent change (16.1 SwStr%, 35 Zone%, 37.2% chase rate). He probably won't receive a ton of run or bullpen support on the rebuilding Cubbies either, while Francisco Lindor's 20 OAA gave the ground ball specialist a level of defensive support that you would never expect from the Mets and shouldn't anticipate of the 2022 Cubs. Stroman is sort of expensive at an ADP of 160.69, and the next two pitchers off of the board offer much more upside in Luis Severino (162.06) and Ranger Suarez (167.50). Stay away from Stroman in 2022.
