The Yankees announced Thursday that they’ve selected the contract of righty Sal Romano from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and cleared a spot on the active and 40-man rosters by designating right-hander Asher Wojciechowski for assignment.
Wojciechowski, 32, was selected to the roster just yesterday and started last night’s game for the Yanks, holding the Phillies to a pair of runs on three hits and three walks with four strikeouts in four innings. That’ll prove to be little more than a spot start for the well-traveled Wojciechowski, who must now be traded, released or placed on outright waivers within the next week.
The Yankees were Wojciechowski’s fourth big league club in seven years. He spent the 2019-20 campaigns with the Orioles and got out to a solid start in 2019 before struggling mightily during last year’s shortened schedule. Last night’s outing took Wojciechowski past the 200-inning mark in his MLB career, and he’s worked to a 5.93 ERA with a 21.5 percent strikeout rate and a 7.9 percent walk rate in that time. Home runs have been a problem for the former No. 41 overall pick, but he’s continued to find work as a depth option for situations much like this one. Wojciechowski owns a career 4.29 ERA in 647 1/3 innings of Triple-A ball.
In Romano, the Yankees are turning to another former Reds right-hander. The 27-year-old New York native was once considered one of the more promising arms in the Reds’ minor league ranks, but he’s struggled in several opportunities after a solid rookie showing back in 2017. Romano worked to a 4.45 ERA and 4.24 FIP in 87 innings as a rookie, but he’s been worked over for a 5.48 ERA/5.13 FIP in 184 innings since.
To his credit, Romano has consistently fared well in Triple-A — including in a relatively short look with the Yankees’ Scranton affiliate in 2021. He’s spent parts of three seasons at the Triple-A level and logged a combined 3.42 ERA in 142 frames. Romano’s 20.3 percent strikeout rate there is below average, but he’s also notched a solid 7.8 percent walk rate and a strong 49.8 percent ground-ball rate in that time.
Great… another Cashman find
Everybody loves Sal.
Sal is a great guy, missed by all of us Reds fans.
Asher, we hardly new ya
Knew
We knew enough. Another 4A guy.
On a positive note, he had a 0.00 ERA last year.
Dear Prospective Pitcher,
We would like to offer you the opportunity to start a game for the New York yankees. If you are able to strike out 27 batters on 81 pitches and we are able to score one run, you may get the opportunity to stay on the team. However, we are already paying our players 16 million billion trillion dollars so you’ll have to play for minimum wage. Any performance short of absolute perfection will lead to your release as we have a long list of prospective candidates for this highly sought after position. Thank you for your service,
The management
And we will keep your resume on file…..
Steve Nebraska has interest. The fictional player not the commenter
Awesome post ! Remember, “minimum wage” is over $500k, so even pro rated, it’s not bad.
However, I agree 100%. He didn’t stink up the joint, it seemed a pretty cold move…
Sal Romano? I thought he was an owner of a pizzeria on Long Island? The “Syosset Kid” comes home.
I don’t understand why the Yanks don’t give Weissert and Lane a chance and keep going back to the likes of Kriske and Nelson who have performed so poorly every time they pitch even though Kriske did well last night. Nelson should DFA’d by now.
I don’t understand why Gil and Cruz insist on walking half of AAA and forfeiting opportunities to pitch on the 26 man. They picked the wrong year to suck.
Before the parade of fools all saying the same thing comes in, Romano just like Woj will likely be DFA’d in a couple days. He’s just a fresh arm until the regulars return from the COVID IL
Still waiting for Adam Warren to get back to the Bronx.
The Fact that Cashman choose to keep Kriske over Whitlock is a fireable offense.
My guess is that they’re currently only adding pitchers to the 40 man who will be DFA’d just as quick as they get here so they don’t take up a roster spot once everyone is healthy. Maybe Warren is being saved for later in the year in case there’s a serious injury to one of the regulars in the bullpen. As for protecting Kriske over Whitlock you won’t catch me defending that decision. Sure Whitlock was coming off of TJ surgery but he had a lot more upside than Kriske. I had always been a fan of Whitlock and was honestly surprised when the Orioles didn’t insist on him being part of the Britton trade in 2018
I went and found the article from when the Yankees acquired Britton. There’s a lot of comments but if you scroll down a bit you’ll see mine. Also not to toot my own horn but I was 100% right about the Orioles getting nothing in that trade
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/07/orioles-trade-zach-britton-yankees-dillon-tate.html
I read that headline too fast and thought that the Yanks called up Sal Fasano… the return of the ‘stache!
Gosh, fellas.
& they say arms don’t grow on trees.
Once I finish building this new shed I might have supper, bro.
Oh – and maybe – have an interesting cup of tea.
Cheers, fellas.
sounds like you have had your fill of drinks for the day
I quoted in earlier post he’d be DFAed in a day. I was wrong he was DFAed in 20hrs
Romano’s average 93.3MPH fastball isn’t much cheese. I hope he doesn’t throw a lot of meatballs.
He’s not fooling me. It’s Sal Fasano sans signature stache.
Have you ever seen them in the same room together? Exactly, they’re the same person, I rest my case.
I was thinking it was Sal Bando reincarnated.
Yankees are a joke….. They need to clean house. Way to many over priced players….. Many poor decisions are catching up on them…..
Not that long ago people were saying the same thing about your Giants and they were in a more dire position than the Yankees are now. I bet you’re glad they didn’t listen and stayed the course
Thanks, Woj.
Gave us 4 decent innings. Good hunting.
Another victim of hard consonant discrimination. He should sue.
Get a hair cut.
Kriske is pathetic can’t even throw w/I bouncing the ball and Nelson is just as bad. How many more chances are they going to get??? If they don’t use other homegrown players they won’t know if they are of use or not and might end up trading them like Clippard and Melancon to name few.