BREAKING: Marcus Stroman is Opting Out of His Deal with the Cubs

I am not quite stunned by this news, but I’m definitely on the heavy side of surprised.

Contrary to almost all projections, Marcus Stroman has decided to opt out of his deal with the Chicago Cubs and head back to free agency:

Stroman, 32, and his representatives must’ve used the last few days to put out feelers to determine whether there would be sufficiently multi-year interest to make opting out worth it. Clearly, they got a positive response. Good for him, I suppose, but I’d be surprised if he finds a MASSIVE deal out there, given the competition on the market and his injured/down second half.

Note that Stroman, having already received one in his career, is not eligible for a Qualifying Offer (unlike Cody Bellinger, who will receive one from the Cubs). It’s TBD whether the Cubs will seriously engage Stroman in free agency.

So where does this news leave the Cubs? Well, it’ll take me a little bit to recalibrate my thoughts on the Cubs’ rotation and budget going into the offseason, but the short version is that I was pretty neutral on Stroman returning or not. A one-year, $21 million deal for Stroman would’ve been completely fine, both financially and rotationally. Him departing is also probably fine, so long as the Cubs use the recouped funds thoughtfully and impactfully.

The Cubs, assuming they pick up the option on Kyle Hendricks, now have a rotation that features Hendricks, Justin Steele, and Jameson Taillon as locks. They also have a number of options for those other two spots, including Drew Smyly (no way he opts out, right?), Javier Assad, Jordan Wicks, Hayden Wesneski, Ben Brown, and Cade Horton, among others.

I would say, though, that the odds of the Cubs making a significant rotation addition in free agency or trade just went up considerably. Guys like Tyler Glasnow and Shota Imanaga were already on the table, in my view, but I would think Yoshinobu Yamamoto just became SLIGHTLY more plausible …