Mets: Three Marcus Stroman predictions for the 2021 season

The 2021 baseball season is quickly approaching as we near pitchers and catchers reporting, which is always a good time to make some predictions. The New York Mets have some high expectations going into the 2021 season after some big moves this offseason, including bringing back starting pitcher Marcus Stroman.

Prior to the offseason, there were a lot of concerns about the Mets rotation as Stroman was set to hit free agency for the first time in his career. Fortunately for the Mets, he accepted the qualifying offer for $18.9M and ensured there will be one more year of the “Stro-Show” in Queens.

Stroman was originally acquired via trade from the Toronto Blue Jays days before the trade deadline in 2019 and provided the Mets with another stable arm as they had playoff hopes. Despite the Mets not making the playoffs in 2019, 2020 looked good as they had Stroman coming back for another season.

Unfortunately for the Amazin’s, Stroman opted out of the 2020 season due to COVID concerns like many others in the league. The good news for them is once he accepted his qualifying offer for the 2021 season, 2020 could be looked at as a year of improvement where Stroman as he has posted often on social media about working hard in the gym to better his game on the field.

The Mets are expected to be in pretty good shape with their rotation in 2021 as Stroman and many others are set to start the year healthy.

Now that Stroman is locked into Queens for the 2021 season and the season is expected to start on time, we can make our predictions for the season. Let’s look at three bold, but also very realistic predictions for Stroman for the 2021 season.

Gold Glove Award Finalist

Stroman has been one of the best fielding pitchers in baseball for multiple years now. Playing shortstop in high school and also in college, he has always been known to have a solid glove on the mound as a result.

Stroman has always been known as one of the better fielding pitchers in the league and showed Mets fans that in his first game for them back in 2019. Debuting against the Pittsburgh Pirates and in a first-inning jam, Stroman rushed off the mound towards third making a bare-handed grab and throwing out the runner at home all in one motion. He wasted no time letting Mets fans see what he is capable of with his glove.

In his six seasons played, he has had positive defensive runs saved in all but two of them. In the two he was not positive, one of them was an even zero and the other was the only negative one. Despite the fact that he had two seasons that were not positive, that is actually really good for a pitcher, and even better that his worst year was the only negative one.

Being a gold glove finalist is not new news for Stroman either, who was a finalist in 2017 and ended up winning the award.

To see Stroman as a finalist for the gold glove award in 2021 should not be a surprise given his history of great fielding. Let’s get into the two more predictions for the Stro-Show in 2021.