I was just talking about Stroman with a friend. Definitely like this idea. It gives us a potentially solid rotation until Soroka gets healthy (and allows us the opportunity to actually make sure he is healthy before returning), and then it really ramps it up to a strength. We were lucky this was a short year. I do not believe our bullpen could've covered this rotation over a full season. We need to be sure they don't have to try next year.
I'm not 100% sure it's as big a concern now that Snitker's been forced to deal with SPs giving you 3 IPs (or less) on a consistent basis. AA needs to sit down with him and make sure that he understands that the Newk/Touki/Wilson/Ynoa/Weigel/Davidson/De La Cruz/Muller crowd is not to see a lineup a second time NO MATTER HOW WELL things might be going on a given day (until one takes a SERIOUS step forward), but there's no reason to feel like we don't still have plenty of depth to use an Opener or piggyback guys in the final rotation slot that can't work in 2021. Every one of those guys will still have at least one option left, so there's no reason they can't ride the Atlanta/Gwinnett shuttle until someone does enough to be trusted with a spot in the rotation.
I actually kinda like the idea of going to a 6-Man rotation next year - at least early on. Asking Fried, Anderson, Wright, or Soroka to give you more than 130-140 innings next season is playing with fire. If you bring in an inexpensive veteran SP and use the shuttle until at least the All-Star break, you'll significantly reduce the strain you put on those arms and will have them fresh come playoff time when you want to ramp them up. Depending on what kind of deal you get on that veteran SP, you can spend most of your money on offense and/or bringing in (or back) at least one more arm to maintain a shutdown pen.
Say you could get a Hamels/Minor/Paxton/Ray/Lester on a cheap, make good one year deal ($5-$6 million), you'd add a second lefty to the rotation and have a nice trade piece in July if they're pitching well (and are healthy). Then maybe you could look into adding BOTH Pederson and Lamb while spending what's left on a full-time DH or pen guy. It's a huge stretch, but if AA has $35 million to spend and you could get a SP, Pederson, and Lamb (or Holt maybe) for $12-15-ish million he might still have enough money to play on Ozuna. The problem there is that unless he's got $35 million to play with AFTER paying for raises for Acuna, Albies, Dansby, Duvall, Ender, Fried, and O'Day there's just not going to be that much to spend on free-agents.
Maybe some of those guys (Pederson/Lamb/Holt/Minor/Ray/Lester) come significantly cheaper than I expect them to this winter with all the uncertainty, but EVERYBODY'S going to be shopping in the bargain bins - I just can't see AA landing 3 guys like that for $2-$3 million apiece. If he spends on one of the big-ticket names (Ozuna/Gausman/Stroman/Odorizzi) he's probably just going to have to take what he can get in other spots.