It only took one year for this former NY Mets player to wear out his welcome

All things considered, Marcus Stroman managed to avoid controversy as a member of the New York Yankees in 2025. His social media presence has been much more mum since leaving the Chicago Cubs and even more so from his days with the New York Mets where his post-game routine heavily involved retweeting his own highlights even when the team lost.

An athlete his fans adore and detractors can’t wait to see leave, the Yankees are trying their hardest to trade Stroman this offseason. Having already been rejected by the St. Louis Cardinals in a straight one-for-one swap for Nolan Arenado who might just talk his way into being a public enemy down there, the Yankees will have to overcome Stroman’s reputation and worse, declining numbers to find a taker.

The Yankees were hoping for much more out of Marcus Stroman

Stroman has steadily seen his numbers decline each year since he last suited up for the Mets. Whichever numbers you want to reference, each season seems to see them slightly fall.

ERA is easy and understandable so let’s look there. A 3.02 ERA in 2021 for the Mets, it rose to 3.50 in 2022, and finally to 3.95 in 2023 for the Cubs. Year one with the Yankees included a 4.31 ERA, his highest since 2018 when he last pitched a full season for the Toronto Blue Jays. Declining strikeout numbers that dropped to 6.6 per 9 didn’t do him any favors either. A career-high fly ball percentage of 23.3% for a guy who made a career out of being a groundball pitcher wasn’t exactly what Brian Cashman planned for when he signed Stroman for two seasons plus a player option on the third year. Yikes!

The deal only makes the contract the Mets signed Luis Severino to last offseason look better. They saw what potential he had to turn his career around. The Yankees, despite being his employer, didn’t. Not only did Severino turn out to have a much more productive season than Stroman, the shorter commitment provided an escape hatch in case he didn’t figure things out.

We might never know if there was more than performance as to why the Yankees are so eager to move on from Stroman after one season. As a fifth starter, they could certainly do far worse. There are a couple of Mets starting pitchers who have a decent chance at having a worse year in 2025 albeit on a much smaller contract.

More of a brand name at this stage of his career than an actual ace-like figure, we wish the Yankees the best of luck moving Stroman and definitely aren’t hoping he sticks around, bitter about the team trying to move him.