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After fun-filled offseason, Stroman resets focus on becoming an ace

Kim Klement / Reuters

TORONTO - Marcus Stroman had a lot of fun this offseason. This was, to anybody following him on social media, abundantly clear.

Following the finest season of his young career, Stroman, the Toronto Blue Jays' hubristic right-hander, spent the nascent winter months squiring his mother, sister, and a couple pals around the world, sharing the fruits of his labor with those closest to him. It was, he said, in a word, "amazing." (And to all those critics of Stroman's heavy social-media usage, you're not going to jet off to Paris and not take a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower, either.)

"I've been everywhere," Stroman said Saturday at Blue Jays Winter Fest. "Been with my family, my friends; showing my family the life, something I've always wanted to do. Took my mom and my sister to Dubai for New Year's. I went to Europe with two of my best friends, GoGo (former Blue Jays infielder Ryan Goins) and Ryan, for two weeks to Lake Como, Monte Carlo. Did it all. Paris. Milan. It was amazing.

Now, though, Stroman affirmed, with pitchers and catchers set to shake off the proverbial cobwebs in Dunedin, Fla. in less than four weeks, it's time to get back to work. His expectations for himself have only increased, after all, following a superb showing last summer, and as his fifth season in the big leagues dawns, establishing himself as "one of the top two, three, four, five pitchers in the game" is Stroman's sole focus.

"I want to be the best," he said. "My work ethic says so; I don’t believe anyone outworks me. I do everything in my power to take my game to the next level in everything that I do, and I think that I will be one of the top, best pitchers in the game within the next few years. A hundred percent. Not a single doubt in my head."

It's not an unreasonable goal. Last year, after an inconsistent 2016 campaign marred by some unlucky sequencing, Stroman re-asserted himself as one of the game's most promising young starters, riding his unparalleled ground-ball-inducing ability to a 3.09 ERA - a new full-season high-water mark - while eclipsing 200 innings for a second successive season. As allegedly juiced baseballs fueled a home-run explosion around the league, Stroman continued to excel at keeping the ball in yard, surrendering just 0.94 per nine innings - the ninth-best mark among qualified starters - while doing a better job suppressing quality contact, in general. His average exit velocity in 2017 dropped 1.4 miles per hour from the season prior, and he served up a "barrel" - a well-struck ball that, based on exit velocity and launch angle, generally yields a minimum .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage - in just 3.8 percent of his plate appearances, a better rate than Stephen Strasburg, Yu Darvish, and even Clayton Kershaw.

Ultimately, for his efforts, Stroman received down-ballot votes for the Cy Young award, and there is an argument to be made that, after Corey Kluber and Chris Sale, Stroman was the best pitcher in the American League last year. As such, to Russell Martin, at least, the notion that Stroman isn't already considered among the top starters in the game doesn't quite compute.

"I feel like he is already is (elite), to be honest," Martin, a four-time All-Star, said. "The ceiling for that guy is super high, and, you know, I think it's just his mentality. He's the kind of guy that wants to be great, and that's the key. You have to want it, and I don't think everybody does. And he definitely has that. He has that fire, that hunger. And he's just the ultimate competitor. He keeps his body in shape, and he always strives to be better. He always wants to get better. And that's the kind of attitude that the great ones have, so I definitely think he's right there."

By the single most comprehensive objective metric, as well, Stroman is right there, hovering on the precipice of ace status despite just two full seasons under his belt (in 2014, his rookie campaign, Stroman logged only 130 2/3 innings, and a torn ACL - a freak injury suffered in spring training - limited him to just four regular-season starts the following year). Over the past two years, only 13 pitchers have provided more value than Stroman, whose 7.0 WAR ranks eighth in the AL over that span, ahead of Dallas Keuchel, David Price, and several other putative aces. Moreover, after tweaking for park effects, even with his unspectacular 2016 working against him, Stroman's adjusted ERA (86 ERA-) over the last two seasons is still tied for 10th-best in the AL, too.

AL WAR leaderboard, SP, 2016-2017

Name WAR ERA WHIP FIP GB%
Chris Sale 12.7 3.12 1.00 2.97 40.1 %
Corey Kluber 12.3 2.71 0.96 2.89 44.5 %
Justin Verlander 9.4 3.20 1.08 3.65 33.6 %
Carlos Carrasco 8.0 3.30 1.12 3.36 46.7 %
Chris Archer 7.7 4.05 1.25 3.60 44.9 %
Masahiro Tanaka 7.3 3.86 1.15 3.90 48.7 %
Rick Porcello 7.2 3.86 1.19 3.97 41.1 %
Marcus Stroman 7.0 3.73 1.30 3.80 61.1 %

For Stroman to crack that upper echelon, however, he's going to have to start missing more bats. Throughout his career, Stroman's strikeout rate has consistently hovered below league average, and though it hasn't really hurt him to this point, with batted balls flying over the fence at an unprecedented rate in 2017, avoiding contact is now more important than ever. The group above, for instance, excluding Stroman, averaged a 28.5 percent strikeout rate in 2017, nearly nine percent better than Stroman (who, at 19.7 percent, set a new full-season career high that still paled in comparison to the strikeout numbers of teammates J.A. Happ and Marco Estrada). Put another way: aces miss bats. And, to his credit, Stroman is acutely aware of this reality, noting that "striking guys out more when I need it" is one of the keys to his continued ascent.

"I know that I still have room to grow," he said. "I know that my potential hasn’t been reached yet, and I know I’m just starting to tap into it.”

If Stroman can harness some more of that unrealized potential in 2018, it would, not incidentally, be a massive boon for the Blue Jays, who are straddling that line between contender and also-ran, and, barring any last-minute free-agency splashes, seem like a long shot to best the Boston Red Sox or revamped New York Yankees for the AL East title (a consensus Stroman doesn't agree with, obviously.)

"I love our guys. Always loved our guys. I think we have an unbelievable team, unbelievable environment," Stroman said. "I know how hard each guys works, shows up every single day, so I always am extremely proud and confident in our guys. I think we'll go out there and win every single day."

Understandably, his assessment seems a little rosy. Stroman has thrived, after all, by ignoring the outside noise, the haters, if you will - he effectively built a personal brand on that philosophy - so it's no surprise that the Blue Jays' middling projections for 2018 don't factor into his own evaluation of the team. And, moreover, considering how much success that eff-the-haters attitude has yielded, don't expect Stroman to deviate from that mentality as he tries to make the next leap, personally, and become that unequivocal ace.

"I show up every fifth day and do everything I can to win," Stroman said. "That’s all I'm concerned with. I really don’t focus on anything on the outside. I know what it takes for me to be elite out there, and that’s what I do. So all the outside factors and noise is completely irrelevant."

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