A's, New York Yankees Make a Nice Trade Fit for a Starter

Jason Burke | Jan 8, 2025

Aug 31, 2021; Anaheim, California, USA; A general overall view of New York Yankees helmets in the dugout at Angel Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The New York Yankees are looking to offload some payroll, and the Athletics may be the perfect team to help them. Hello, welcome to the upside down.

According to Bob Nightengale, the Yankees are actively shopping Marcus Stroman, who has one year of team control for $18 million. That contract also comes with a vesting option for the 2026 campaign for $18 million. This option would vest if Stroman tosses 140 innings in 2025 and would be a player option.

That second year may be a little too much for the A's to consider as Mason Miller, JJ Bleday, Shea Langeliers, and JP Sears begin to hit arbitration in 2026, so they won't need to boost payroll by nearly as much with Luis Severino, Jeffrey Springs, and Brent Rooker already set to make decent money next year as well.

Stroman could always reject the player option after playing one season in a minor-league facility, or the A's could simply look to move him before he reaches the innings threshold.

The reason he'd be a great fit for the A's is that he'd help them reach the magical $105 million payroll figure they're after in order to avoid a grievance being filed by the MLBPA for not spending their revenue sharing dollars on the field.

Coupled with the money, Stroman would also bring with him a career 55.9% ground ball rate. A's GM David Forst has said a couple of times this winter that the front office is unsure how the minor league park will play with big-league hitters. One way they've been seemingly trying to ensure a smooth transition is to add a few ground ball guys to the mix just in case the ball tends to fly more than expected in Sacramento.

There are definitely a couple of causes for concern with Stroman on the mound, with his strikeout rate falling from 20.7% in 2023 to 16.7% last year, and his increasing walk rate over the past two seasons. It has hovered right around nine percent each season. Still, the ground balls have been there, with his 49.9% rate last season ranking in the 84th percentile.

He has been a roughly league average starter (which is something the A's could use one more of), and he can be counted on to eat up a large portion of starts over the course of the year.

Since 2019, Stroman has made at least 25 starts each season (outside of 2020) and has a cumulative 3.56 ERA (3.83 FIP) in that span. That said, the past two years he has combined for a 4.14 ERA (4.13 FIP) and has been just a touch above league average with a 101 ERA+. The A's are a team that could still find value in that profile.

The real question here is how much, if any, money the Yankees are looking to eat in a potential deal. Are they looking to move Stroman as purely a salary dump, or would moving $11 million be good enough? Are they looking to reallocate the money on a free agent, or do they want some kind of a return?

Without answers to these questions, it's impossible to formulate what a potential deal could look like. If the A's were to take on the entirety of the deal, they'd probably want some sort of contingency just in case that vesting option kicks in, so maybe $5 million if Stroman activates the player option.

Regardless of how much money is involved from the Yankees, it's not likely that any player involved would be a big piece of the organization's future plans.

While the A's could choose to reach their $105 million threshold another way, the public perception of the A's eating a contract that the Yankees don't want would almost be too good for the A's to pass up, if they're looking to get even more positive headlines out there.