His MLB playing career spanned from 1972 to 1973 and 1975 to 1977 for the New York Mets, Cleveland Indians and San Diego Padres.

[1] He served as pitching coach for the Houston Astros in 1996 and from 2014[2] to 2021, helping guide the club to the 2017 World Series championship.

[3] Prior to playing professionally, Strom attended San Diego High School then the University of Southern California, leading them to two NCAA championships.

The following year, he split time between the Memphis Blues and the Tidewater Tides, going a combined 13–5 with a 2.85 ERA and 147 strikeouts in 180 innings of work.

Strom was traded with Bob Rauch from the Mets to the Indians for Phil Hennigan at the Winter Meetings on November 27, 1972.

[10] As of June 2018, Strom was the oldest pitching coach in MLB,[11] but he had developed a reputation for marrying an old-school baseball mentality with an open-minded approach to new-age analytics.

"[11] In particular, Strom embraced the idea of throwing fastballs high in the zone and curveballs down and used data to convince Astros pitchers to buy into the approach.

"It makes it a lot easier to pitch.”[11] Following the Astros' 2021 World Series defeat to the Atlanta Braves, Strom announced that he was leaving the organization to retire from professional baseball.

Heralded as an essential architect of an era of increasingly-dominant Astros pitching,[13] he ably blended his experience and teaching with analytics.

Strom coached Dallas Keuchel and Justin Verlander in their Cy Young-winning seasons (2015 and 2019, respectively) and was credited with assisting Gerrit Cole and Morton in elevating their own success.

During their World Series run of 2021, the Astros relied heavily on young pitchers Framber Valdez, Luis García and José Urquidy following losses by injury to Verlander (for the season) and McCullers Jr. (in the American League Division Series), and the departures of Cole and Morton to free agency in seasons prior.

[14] For over 30 Years Strom was a Co-Director of The San Diego School of Baseball along with Tony Gwynn, Alan Trammell and others.

Notwithstanding his announcement that he was retiring following the 2021 World Series, Strom was hired by the Arizona Diamondbacks on November 12, 2021, to serve as the team's pitching coach for the 2022 season.