The Mets have claimed catcher Drew Romo off of waivers from the Orioles. Romo, a former first round pick and top prospect, was claimed by the Orioles off waivers earlier this offseason but couldn’t survive the churn on their 40-man. Now he gets a chance to stick things out on the back of the Mets 40-man instead.
Romo, 24, was selected 35th overall by the Rockies in 2020 out of Woodlands High School in Texas. he checked in at 9th on Baseball Prospectus’s Rockies list that offseason, with his defensive
acumen and potential power from both sides of the dish being cited as clear positives. One year later, he just missed BP’s 101 after a strong season at Low-A, with his defense, power, hit tool, and surprising speed on the base paths standing out as strengths.
Unfortunately, things stagnated from there. Despite playing in extremely hitter friendly stadiums as he worked his way up the Rockies’ system, Romo’s offensive tools never really played all that well in game. His best performance over a meaningful sample was his initial time at low-A (106 wRC+), and he’s generally been an average or slightly worse hitter at every level. Couple that with a defensive decline and you have a player who gets DFA’d twice in one offseason. Call him another victim of young catcher offensive stagnation syndrome…or the COVID draft…or Rockies player development processes.
Still, this isn’t a bad dice roll for the Mets. One of this organization’s few long standing strengths has been improving catcher defense, specifically receiving (see the work done by Francisco Alvarez since the time he was a prospect). It’s also possible a swing tweak could unlock something more in the profile, an adjustment that the Rockies may have missed. In the worst case it’s a gamble on a 4th catcher that doesn’t work at basically no cost.
To make room for Romo, the Mets DFA’d Brandon Waddell. Signed out of Korea last offseason, Waddell posted a 3.45 ERA over 31.1 innings of low-leverage work, running a 5.65 xERA and 4.54 FIP in the process. It’s a nice story for a guy to come back from Korea and get major league time, but Waddell is ultimately an eminently replaceable depth piece (one the Mets might bring back on a minor league deal anyway).
