The Nationals have finalized a deal with first-rounder Seth Romero, who has passed his physical and officially signed a contract, according to Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports (Twitter links). He’ll take home a $2.8MM bonus that comes in a bit above his $2,530,400 draft slot, Heyman adds. Romero was advised by and is now represented by agent Scott Boras.
A left-handed pitcher out of the University of Houston, Romero would likely have gone higher in the draft than the 25th overall selection (where Washington took him) had it not been for significant makeup concerns. Romero was kicked off the team in Houston a month before the draft after repeated off-field incidents, including a failed drug test, a physical altercation with one of his teammates and being photographed holding a bong in full uniform, per a separate pair of reports from the Houston Chronicle’s Joseph Duarte.
Romero ranked 24th on MLB.com’s list of the top 200 draft prospects, while Baseball America ranked him 27th on their top 500, Fangraphs ranked him 36th and ESPN’s Keith Law ranked him 59th. The aforementioned makeup issues factored into each of those rankings, as BA and Law both called him a top 10 talent based purely on his pitching acumen. Romero’s fastball sits in the 92-95 mph range and reaches 97, and the pitch is complemented by a plus slider and potentially above-average changeup. BA also notes that he’s advanced enough to help out a big league bullpen later this year, though the Nats told reporters after the draft that they view Romero as a starter.
Sounds like an upstanding young dude… maybe life in the real world will shake him up, talent can not get you so far
Hopefully the kid will stay away from any major trouble. Unfortunately too often kids who have had issues in the past don’t necessarily make wise decisions once they receive substantially more money than they’ve been accustomed to. Perhaps he’ll be a positive exception
“photographed holding a bong in full uniform”
Sounds like the Nats will have to bring him up here immediately since he’ll be suspended from the minors after his first test.
You can smoke all you want in MLB.
I had to look this up. It is banned in MLB but apparently they don’t test unless there is reasonable suspicions.
Tim Lincecum was a known smoker while he was winning a World Series ring.
The Giants, Dodgers, Athletics, Angels, Mariners and Rockies play in legalized for recreational smoking states open for business. The Red Sox are now in a legal state awaiting implementation. Within a year it’s likely there will be a recreational marijuana shop open near Fenway.
Which is absurd. Pot is the exact opposite of a performance enhancing drug, right? Oh, and I’d love to see the proof that Lincecum was a “known smoker.”?
Lincecum was pulled over for speeding and cited for possession of marijuana in 2009. It led to a huge “Let Timmy Smoke” meme. People made t-shirts, as I recall, ha.
And so this proves he was smoking weed in the World Series? Okay. I smoked weed a few times, in high school, about 25 years ago. I hated it because it made me feel lethargic and loopy. I can’t quite imagine it helps athletic performance.
Lotsa red flags….2.8 mill buys a pretty sweet duffle bag of green….
Baseball’s Johnny Manzel?
Probably more like Josh Gordon than Manziel
Wasn’t the real problem with Manziel that he had no talent? I don’t follow football but that seems to be the crux of the issue, right?
Manziel was actually kind of amazing in college, and also had the off the field issues, which is why there was so much talk about him which created hype, but he had really bad mechanics that ended up costing him in the NFL when he was actually playing.
Yeah, I looked him up. It seems like he was one of those College QBs, a run-first guy and the NFL is moving towards a more pass-heavy game. Plus he beat up his girlfriend so he’s pretty much a non-entity as far as I’m concerned.
nice job by Boras. did Romero have any real leverage here? find a school to take him for a season and go back in the draft next year?
$2.8MM arm $2.00 head