Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and Marcus Stroman’s agent – former Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen – had to negotiate a contract before the Medford native agreed to don the pinstripes last week.
That’s normal.
What was unique in the negotiations was the phone conversation Cashman and Stroman had about some comments the GM made in 2019 after the Yankees declined to trade for Stroman.
Cashman, at the time, said in part: “We didn’t think he would be a difference-maker.”
Stroman eventually responded on social media with some anti-Yankee jabs (which he scrubbed from his accounts before this offseason).
But that’s all water under the Macombs Dam Bridge, which Stroman can pass on his way to work at Yankee Stadium for at least the next two years.
“Me and Cashman kind of hashed out whatever it was that we have from a few years ago,” Stroman said on Thursday in a Zoom news conference. “We kind of laughed about it and we moved on.”
Cashman, speaking later Thursday in a separate Zoom, said: “It was my bad.”
Cashman said he tried to apologize to Stroman through the pitcher’s then-agent in 2019, but felt doing it personally “was an important box for me to check.”
“He was trying to dismiss, like, ‘It’s not necessary, it’s all good,’ ” Cashman said. “He was kind of moving forward with, ‘I’m all about the future, not the past.’ I was like, ‘No, this is important.’ ”
Stroman, 32, signed a two-year, $37-million deal with a vesting player’s option for a third year that could make the contract worth $55 million.
It is the second homecoming for the Long Islander, but the first one of his choosing. Stroman was traded to the Mets from Toronto in 2019 and left as a free agent to sign with the Cubs after the 2021 season. He opted out of his final Chicago season.
Stroman’s tenure with the Mets was a bit rocky – he opted out of the COVID-19 season in 2020 and may have set a Twitter record for blocking his own team’s…
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