Podcast
Jayden Stroman is starring back home on LI in hopes of following Yankees star brother's footsteps
Jayden Stroman is a hit on Long Island. The younger brother of Yankees right-hander Marcus Stroman is following in the family business as a lights-out pitcher for Patchogue-Medford, where he is batting a cool .500 as he readies to play for Duke University next year. But you wouldn’t know Stroman is baseball royalty just by […]
Jayden Stroman is a hit on Long Island.
The younger brother of Yankees right-hander Marcus Stroman is following in the family business as a lights-out pitcher for Patchogue-Medford, where he is batting a cool .500 as he readies to play for Duke University next year.
But you wouldn’t know Stroman is baseball royalty just by looking at him — and that’s exactly how the 12th grader wants it.
“We’re Raiders baseball, not Jayden Stroman baseball,” he told The Post during a Wednesday practice.
“It’s all one team. I feel like there’s not any guy that’s above another, including myself.”
Stroman enrolled in the Suffolk County public school after transferring from the prestigious IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., where he spent 11th grade, following two years at Stony Brook Prep boarding school on the North Shore.
The choice to come home was simple. He wanted to “be back with my own people,” like friends and trainers — plus “mom’s cooking” at home around the corner from school was an added incentive, Stroman said of his mother, Michaela.
“It was the best move for my development,” added the 17-year-old, who sees several pro scouts watch his games.
“I think this is the best spot, body-wise, that I’ve been anywhere so far.”
And the ball club, which was 7-2 entering Thursday, is stoked to have him.
A gem on the diamond
“He’s like a coach on the field with the guys,” manager Anthony Frascogna said. “He brings a lot more than just his talent.”
Over the winter, Stroman took it upon himself to work with his catcher, Brayden Davis, to acclimate the junior to MLB-level fastball speeds.
“The first time I caught 97 from him, it stung a bit,” Davis joked. “Now I’m pretty comfortable and it’s fun working with him. … It’s been great learning from him.”
Fellow pitcher James Minutillo, a friend of Stroman’s from middle school, is also grateful for the pitching advice he’s gotten from the star athlete since he joined fall ball in 2024.
“He doesn’t let you get down on yourself. He’s always being positive,” Minutillo said. “It was like he never left. It’s great to be with him again.”
Beyond dominating on the field — Stroman struck out 12 in Saturday’s 7-1 win over William Floyd — he has goals beyond baseball to complete by June.
“I’m trying to keep up all A’s for sure,” said Stroman, who is course loaded with advanced placement classes. “Make mom and dad proud when I walk across the stage at graduation. … You always got to have a plan B.”
Dug out of love
Spending time with his mom and dad, Earl Stroman, before college is a massive priority to No. 11.
“I get to work out with him every day, which is always cool because it’s my last year being able to do that,” Stroman said.
“And being able to see mom and give mom a hug every day after I come home, too, is also really cool.”
Marcus is also keeping up with his little brother’s varsity tenure as Jayden sends the Yankees pitcher lots of videos of his games.
“He lets me know what he thinks, he always tells me to stay on top of my arm care,” said Jayden.
“But I try to keep it brother to brother because baseball takes up so much time. So it’s very limited when you get that real family interaction.”
Family legacy aside, Stroman is successfully making a name for himself at his new school, where, over the winter, he set Patchogue-Medford’s 55-meter dash record as a track sprinter in the offseason to stay in prime condition.
“Everybody wants to get to the big leagues, so you’ve got to work to get there,” he said. “Earned, not given, as cliché as it sounds. So you’ve got to be in there doing what you have to do detail-wise every day in order to be best of the best.”
Podcast
Morning Buzz
Start your morning with Buzzcast with Abe Madkour: Chicago Fire’s big stadium vision; LA28 building sponsor momentum and rating WBD’s tennis coverage A sketch included with Fire owner Joe Mansueto’s letter shows the proposed open-air stadium. Chicago Fire The Fire plan to build a $650M, 22,000-seat soccer-specific stadium along the Chicago River that will be […]
Start your morning with Buzzcast with Abe Madkour: Chicago Fire’s big stadium vision; LA28 building sponsor momentum and rating WBD’s tennis coverage
The Fire plan to build a $650M, 22,000-seat soccer-specific stadium along the Chicago River that will be privately financed by owner Joe Mansueto. The club purchased a nine-acre parcel of land for the venue within The 78, a 62-acre mixed-use development planned by Related Midwest, and aims to open the facility for the 2028 MLS season.
The new venue designed by Gensler would be an open-air stadium featuring a canopy over the seating area and a natural grass pitch. The Fire, who have yet to publicly identify a contractor for the project, plan to reveal more stadium details and renderings ahead of a community meeting later this month.
The MLS club unveiled its plans this morning in a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times, which features a letter from Mansueto to the city of Chicago and a single sketch of the stadium design.
“The Chicago Fire is a Club on the rise. And soon, we’ll have a permanent home that reflects the passion, energy and pride of the city we love,” Mansueto wrote to conclude the letter.
The quarterly MLB Owners’ Meetings will take place in N.Y. this week, and while there are no major action items being voted on, baseball’s short-term national media rights future will be at the forefront of discussions.
As reported by SBJ’s Austin Karp Monday, Apple TV is emerging as potentially the leading streamer to land some of the MLB media rights currently resting with ESPN, though not necessarily rights that NBC could be eyeing. No decisions have been made yet.
ESPN is in the final year of its MLB deal, which features “Sunday Night Baseball,” the Wild Card round and Home Run Derby. MLB is weighing the reach of legacy media at fewer dollars versus more dollars from a streamer with lesser reach. Given that all of MLB’s national media rights expire after the 2028 season, any deal would likely be a three-year pact.
Other topics include the automated ball-strike system, a lookback at the MLB Tokyo Series, and how the overall business is doing, with attendance and ratings up so far this season.
TicketManager has acquired Ovations for an undisclosed amount. TicketManager helps corporate clients like Verizon, FedEx, Adidas, Anheuser-Busch and Mastercard manage their season ticket inventory, and Ovations was its largest competitor in the space and a company that essentially created the corporate ticket management business. Ovations’ contracts, clients, IP and 10 employees were acquired from Cendyn, which bought Ovations in May 2015.
“When we first started they were the Goliaths and we were the little Davids,” TicketManager CMO Paul Kim said of Ovations.
The acquisition, several months in the making, follows hot on the heels of TicketManager announcing a $110M equity investment from Valeas Capital Partners that makes Valeas majority owners of the compay; TicketManager co-founder & CEO Tony Knopp and COO Ken Hanscom will retain a minority interest in the company.
The acquisition timing was perfect as TicketManager gears up for a run of major events in the U.S., starting with Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium, the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup, and the 2028 Summer Olympics in L.A.
Sports marketing agency Two Circles has been hired by MotoGP to help the global motorbike racing property grow its fan bases in the U.S. and U.K., two of the regions that forthcoming owner Liberty Media will be most keen to become more popular in. The deal will be announced this morning without released terms aside from the sides saying they’ll be working together for multiple years. The agency will help MotoGP develop a new social media strategy and broader digital efforts. The hiring comes after Two Circles did an initial research study for the series and at a time when Liberty is nearing approval from the European Union’s antitrust regulators to buy MotoGP, according to a report in April from Reuters. While Liberty aims to unlock commercial value in MotoGP in the same manner in which it has done with F1, F1 was considerably further ahead in its popularity in the U.S. when Liberty bought that four-wheel series in 2016. MotoGP Grand Prix in the U.S. still at times averages only five figures in viewership. MotoGP Managing Dir of Global Marketing Kelly Brittain said of the motivation for hiring the agency: “We’ve known for some time that markets like the U.S. and U.K. have huge untapped potential, and the Two Circles research highlighted this further. We needed the right partner to help us engage them, not just with more content, but the right content. Two Circles are best-in-class when it comes to growing fandom. This partnership is about action, not words.”
Cosm has a new deal to show PBR Team Series events in its shared reality venues. Professional Bull Riders Cosm has a new deal with Professional Bull Riders to show four of the league’s Team Series events at its immersive venues in L.A. and Dallas this summer. Each of the events occupy Sunday afternoon slots, which fits Cosm’s programming schedule and will hopefully appeal to families, Cosm SVP/Content & Media Peter Murphy told SBJ. Cosm also has active content licensing deals with fellow TKO Group Holdings properties UFC and WWE, the latter of whose co-Head of Revenue Alex Varga helped facilitate the PBR deal.
“With the success that we’ve seen with UFC and WWE, they have been tremendous partners,” Murphy said. “We know PBR will be much of the same. It should be exciting.”
PBR is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, making Cosm’s location at the Grandscape entertainment district just outside of Dallas a natural market fit. PBR Chief Revenue Officer Josh Baker added that the league has seen success with events in L.A. (at Crypto.com Arena) and Anaheim (Honda Center) as well, calling Southern California a “big market” for the league.
“I do see our fans reaching out for that content,” Baker said. “And I also see a situation where, when we market this along with Cosm, there’s going to be people that are just looking for something to do, and they haven’t been to Cosm yet, and they say, ‘Wait, bull riding. I’ve seen that a couple of times. I want to see it in this perspective.’ I think we’ll be able to grow new fans out of it.”
Watch 
‘WE HAVE BEEN STARVING!’ | First Take
