Week 7

After a brief five game stint with the Blue Jays, Marcus Stroman has been optioned back to AAA Buffalo. Looking at his stats over the five games, you can definitely tell he has a lot of improving to do, shown by his 12.79 ERA after only 6.1 innings pitched. This is due largely to two bad outings for the young pitcher, one against the Angels where he gave up four earned runs over 1.2 innings, and another against the Indians where he gave up four earned runs (five total runs) over 1.1 innings pitched. Take away those final two outings, and he has a respectable 2.70 ERA. While it is good for young pitchers to get exposure to the MLB so they know what the future holds for them, it would have been better for Stroman to be put in as a starting pitcher, opposed to him working in the Blue Jays pen. He has been brought up as a starter through the Jays system, and will most likely be used as a starter once he gets settled in the MLB. Even if the Jays decide somewhere along the way that they want to use him as a relief pitcher, it’s much easier to switch from starter to relief, compared to going from relief to starter and regain stamina that a starter would require. Looking solely at how he performed for the Jays so far, you can tell that he needs lots of work to do if he wants to live up to the hype that he’s been receiving as a prospect. Even if he were to play as a starter for the Jays, those four and five run innings would be even worse as a starting pitcher, as the Jays would need to rely even more on the already unstable bullpen in scenarios like that. Going past his numbers, this experience can be seen as a learning one for the young pitcher. There’s no better way to prepare yourself for major league batters than actually facing them, despite how well you do against them. Hopefully Stroman can perform at a higher level whenever his next call-up comes around, and maybe even stay up for more than a few weeks.