Meet The New Guys: Ross Stripling

Ross Stripling (age 30) was acquired from the Dodgers the day of the trade deadline in return for Kendall Williams (13th rated prospect for Toronto), and a player to be named later. Stripling made his debut in 2016, and maintained an ERA below 4.00 in each year up until 2020, with his best year coming in his 2018 all-star campaign. As a career Dodger, he has been used in both a starting role, and as a reliever, making appearances in both roles every season up until now. He was part of a key pitching core for the team until he fell upon hard times in 2020, sporting a career high 5.61 ERA at the time of the trade, while leading the league in most home runs allowed. With two years of service remaining for Stripling, he will look to turn things around as a long term project for the team, while hopefully remaining serviceable for the 2020 season as the team fights for a postseason spot.

Over the last few years, Stripling has been an extremely dependable option for the Dodgers, proving his value not only in his success, but his versatility and ability to throw multi inning relief appearances, and his ability to make spot starts at any point throughout the season. With the Dodgers he made 143 appearances, 59 of which came in the form of starts. He totaled 420.2 innings over that span, which proves his durability no matter what role he is put in (approximately 3.0 innings per outing, nearly 60% of his outings came in relief). He should be a valuable player for Toronto as an innings eater, regardless of what role he finds himself in. Should he rediscover his past form, he will undoubtedly slot back into the rotation as a middle of the order guy, but should his struggles continue late into the season, he will likely find himself to become a multi inning relief guy with the team.

Pete Walker has had his fair share of turnarounds with Blue Jays pitchers, so Stripling has a good chance to turn his career around, especially knowing already what his issue is. Stripling believes his fastball has led to his issues on the mound this year, having allowed most of his home runs against the pitch. Should he be able to straighten that out, he could return to his all-star form, and become a valuable contributor down the road for the team. Considering Walker is working with many fastball oriented pitcher (Pearson, Giles, Walker, etc.), this could be an excellent fit for Stripling, and not just for the 2020 season.