The Blue Jays non-tendered closer Jordan Romano, tweets Jeff Passan of ESPN. The two-time All-Star had been projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $7.75MM salary in his final season of arbitration. He goes directly into free agency without landing on waivers.
That lofty projection made Romano one of the more obvious high-profile candidates to be let go. His 2024 season was wrecked by injury. The 31-year-old righty pitched in 15 games, allowing 10 runs over 13 2/3 innings. In early July, he underwent arthroscopic surgery to address an impingement in his throwing elbow. That ultimately proved to be a season ender. While the Jays initially expressed hope that Romano could return in September, they fell out of the playoff race and had little reason to rush him back to action.
The Jays weren’t comfortable risking a near-$8MM salary on a rebound. Romano nevertheless becomes one of the most intriguing buy-low targets for teams looking for bullpen help. He was an elite back-end weapon between 2021-23. Romano has recorded 103 saves over the past four seasons, including consecutive 36-save performances in 2022 and ’23.
He topped 55 innings in each of the three seasons preceding this year and turned in a sub-3.00 ERA showing in each year. From 2021-23, Romano posted a 2.37 earned run average through 186 innings. He struck out more than 30% of opposing hitters against a tolerable 9.2% walk rate.
Toronto already needed to address the bullpen, which ranked 29th in the majors with a 4.82 ERA. Only the Rockies had a more troublesome relief group. Moving on from Romano, while understandable, simply adds to that urgency. The Jays also non-tendered Dillon Tate, opening a second bullpen spot. Erik Swanson and Chad Green project as the top in-house options for leverage work. GM Ross Atkins and his staff will certainly look for at least one, and quite likely multiple, back-end arms during the coming weeks.
Totally expected. The free agent market is full of decent back end relievers
Baby got back
Ryan Pressly to the Blue Jays incoming??
Pressly ain’t nuthin but a hound dog
Viva Toronto
Ironic if Pressly is the replacemat since they loved me non tendered his predecessor
If Romano’s elbow is swiss cheese then I can understand this non-tendering. Otherwise not.
We must remember that it is Atkins and Shaprio making these decisions.
Just cause you non tender him doesn’t mean you can’t bring him back. They could offer him a contract at a lower salary if there’s mutual interest in sticking around.
@Harrison Butker’s Mount Rushmore Worthy Speech
If they offered a contract at a lower amount he obviously refused it. Seeing he didn’t sign a new contract. I’m sure Romano will be in a new uniform next year. Good on him.
He could be in a new uniform next year
He could also look at the market, find deals that are less than what the jays offered, and come back to the original deal the jays offered if it’s still on the table.
Time will tell
Who knows anymore?….hopefully (for his sake) he latches on to a winning team who figures him out and rides him to the finals next year. Recent history on the pitching side had a Kikuchi flourish with different coaching as well as Hicks perform unexpectedly ok with a different coach. Hmmm…maybe the Jays coaching needs help?
But yes, there is unknown medical stuff, and this situation is a costly risk…
Too much of a gamble to take at that price. 4-5 million- sure, but there’s lots of late inning relievers on the open market to help in 2025
@Skell 2
He wasn’t just a late inning reliever, he was a closer. Big difference.
But was s shaky closer, not lights out.
There’s literally no difference and there isn’t a gm in the league that thinks like that.
@ThatsIT
Higher Leverage index number, higher WPA, saves, et al… Big differences
Specifically, which GM’s think that. I’ll wait.
Not a single one. This isn’t 2002.
Make sure in the future when you attempt a gotcha moment do it to a non baseball savant who you know more about the subject. You’re badly outclassed here.
@ThatsIT
“There’s literally no difference..”. I literally named 3 differences between closers and regular relievers.
“…and there isn’t a gm in the league that thinks like that.” You have yet to provide the name of a single GM. I’ll continue to wait for that GM’s name, but my patience isn’t infinite.
Like I said no difference and every single gm all 30 of baseball think like that. Source? Find me an interview of any of them saying different. There’s a reason why “closers” are being used in the 6,7 and 8th in playoff games. They’re out getters when the biggest games of the year matter there brought in when the game is on the line way before the 9th. Try understanding how baseball is played in 2024
ThatsIT
“Find me an interview of any of them saying different.”
It’s not my responsibility to do research to prove your point. I’ve already demonstrated using stats that there are differences. Name a GM and provide the source of them saying that there is no difference. If you can’t, and you can’t, then you have no facts supporting your claim.
Unless you’re the Red Sox all that moolah for maybe half season of Liam Hendrix. Unless he plays the star bangled banner on his keytar on off days then he’s totally worth it
Anyone better than Romano is going to get a heck of a lot more than 7.5 million
I’ll wait to see what the reason for non-tendering Romano was before passing judgement. I’m sure it’s something along the lines of Atkins locking himself in his car. Or over lunch Shapiro said he didn’t want any romano in his Italian meal and Atkins took it to mean… *facepalm
I’m sure you thought this was funny when you typed it.
Romano is not a $7.5M pitcher. Full stop. May not even be playable right now, depending on health. But he is, in any event, not a $7.5M pitcher.
It’s so interesting when someone is this confident in an opinion but so wildly incorrect
From 20-23 Romano accumulated 8.4 WAR, 2.29 ERA, 251 SO in 200 innings, and a 185 ERA+.
That’s one year removed from a dominant 3 year stretch in which he was a top 10 reliever in the game.
In what world is that not worth 7.5 on a 1 year deal?
The simple reality is that the jays FO have built an expensive lemon and need to save the money to improve in other areas. Zero % chance the jays or any team make this decision if it wasn’t to avoid luxury tax implications
We don’t know the severity of that elbow. I’m going to bet it ain’t good
They had plans to bring him back last season if they played meaningful games down the stretch
There is also the issue of the Canadian dollar dropping when paying players in USD. Money is going to be an issue.
Rogers hedges against currency so no.
It’s going to be an issue because they have a bloated payroll with holes everywhere, so have to use the 7.5 mil elsewhere
Rogers hedges against currency so no.
====================
In my experience, hedges can be a huge waste of money.
How much of the exchange rate risk does he hedge?
Rogers has a float of USD they hedge at a 1.25 exchange rate.
After this election, I would expect the Canadian dollar to gain on US.
Well so far it’s sunk based on speculation, Canada has been lighting its cash on fire and torching its biggest industries.
Most banks are projecting the dollar to fall another 10-15%
Swanson is not a $3M reliever or a closer. Yet the Blue Jays brought him back. Bet Blue Jays fans would trust Romano at $7.5M with the ball over Swanson at league minimum.
That’s not a lot of money for an elite reliever when healthy, maybe he Jays budget is tighter than we expected.
Or you know, they have his medicals
Yes, let’s all give the front office that’s butchered everything the last 3 years the benefit of the doubt
Same front office that gave Kirby Yates $8 million to miss a whole season. Romano has earned another shot with his track record.
Romano will have to prove health and get back on track. He had been elite prior to this year. Someone will grab him though.
Would love to see the Pirates take a shot here for about 6 mill
Oh AA, here’s a high leverage arm to replace Jimenez and it won’t cost an arm and leg. Unless there is something in his medicals that would cause this. I mean a three year track record of success will get him a few offers in the open market.
Rubber arm, glad he is gone.
Erik Swanson and Chad Green as your two best option is not a good plan.
Yea and it’s a shame the off-season is over. That was their chance to get better.
A better bullpen option than Swanson who looks finished.
This guy has Dodgers written all over him. Friedman’s dream of a pitcher (huge upside with injury history). Expect Gagne to reach out and give Romano a call this winter 😉 LA needs all the bullpen arms it can get with half the pitching staff in recovery this coming season.
Pretty much any team will kick the tires on a buy low high reward reliever like this.
FWIW, the only thing that means anything are his medicals. And I am pretty sure that the FO has looked at them. If they don’t trust them, I wouldn’t trust them.
Jacob Webb, come on down (well up from Baltimore)!