The Yankees have temporarily shut down Marcus Stroman after the right-hander reported continued knee soreness following a live batting practice session on Friday. Manager Aaron Boone told the Associated Press and other media that Stroman felt some “discomfort” in his bothersome left knee, and despite “a lot of treatments on it and stuff, it just can’t kind of get over that final hump to really allow him to get to that next level on the mound.”
Monday will mark a full month since Stroman was placed on the 15-day injured list due to left knee inflammation, and Boone suggested that the injury existed well before the IL placement, contributing to Stroman’s 11.57 ERA over his first three starts of the season. Stroman received a cortisone shot to deal with the swelling and scans didn’t reveal any structural damage, yet the knee still isn’t showing much progress all these weeks later. Given this latest development, Boone didn’t have a timeline in place for when Stroman might resume throwing, let alone when the right-hander might be back in New York’s rotation.
After a month on the IL and still apparently weeks to go before returning, Stroman may already be out of time in terms of vesting his player option for the 2026 season. Stroman’s two-year, $37MM deal from the 2023-24 offseason carried a vesting clause that would allow Stroman an $18MM player option for 2026 if he pitched at least 140 innings in 2025.
Stroman tossed 154 2/3 innings of 4.31 ERA ball last season, and his relative durability over his career made that 140-inning threshold seem like quite a reasonable possibility….that is, if he still a starting pitcher. The Yankees explored trading Stroman this past winter with an eye towards opening up payroll space, and because at the time, Stroman wasn’t projected as one of the team’s top five rotation candidates. Stroman was quite blunt about his intent on remaining in the rotation, and as it turned out, Gerrit Cole’s Tommy John surgery and Luis Gil’s long-term lat strain suddenly opened up two spots in the starting five.
Max Fried has been arguably the best pitcher in baseball this season and Carlos Rodon has been solid, but Will Warren, Clarke Schmidt (who also started the season on the IL), and Carlos Carrasco (who was outrighted off the 40-man roster earlier this week) have all struggled to varying degrees. Swingman Ryan Yarbrough got the start today and pitched well in the Yankees’ 12-2 rout of the Athletics, and Yarbrough might be the top candidate to step in for Carrasco as the fifth starter.
Gil started his throwing progression a couple of weeks ago, and is expected to be out until June or July. Assuming Stroman is also back before Gil, that will give the Yankees some time to evaluate their rotation prior to the July 31 trade deadline, though it would seem like the club will surely be in the market for at least one more arm or two.