The Cubs have signed right-hander Tommy Romero to a minor league deal, according to the transactions tracker on Romero’s MLB.com player page.
Romero, 27, was a 15th-round pick by the Mariners back in 2017. He was traded to the Rays shortly thereafter as part of the Alex Colome deal back in 2018 and spent years in the Rays organization before finally making his big league debut in 2022. Unfortunately for Romero, that debut did not go especially well as he was torched to the tune of a 7.71 ERA in 4 2/3 innings for Tampa. He was designated for assignment not long after, and while he was plucked off waivers by the Nationals he fared even more poorly in D.C. with eight runs (six earned) allowed in just 3 2/3 frames. The Nationals kept him on the 40-man roster through the remainder of the 2022 season but non-tendered him that November.
That wasn’t the end of Romero’s time with the organization, however, as they re-signed him to a minor league deal just a few short months later. He pitched as a swingman for the Nationals at the Triple-A level in 2023, but did so with lackluster results as he posted a 5.44 ERA with an untenable 15.2% walk rate. Romero caught on with the Giants last year and pitched much more effectively there, however. In 72 2/3 innings for the club’s Sacramento affiliate, Romero posted a 3.14 ERA with a 22.1% strikeout rate against a 12.4% walk rate. Those numbers are solid enough on paper but become all the more impressive when you consider Romero was pitching in the Pacific Coast League’s inflated offensive environment. That season added to an overall strong body of work for Romero at the minor league level; he has a career 3.08 ERA in the minors, and 2023 was his only season where he posted a figure higher than 3.24 at any level.
Despite that generally strong track record and a solid platform season, Romero did not return to affiliated ball for the start of the 2025 campaign. Instead, he headed for the Mexican League and pitched for the Guerreros de Oaxaca, though he was lit up for a 7.27 ERA across two starts with them. After that brief sojourn to the south, Romero is back in affiliated ball with the Cubs and could theoretically be part of the club’s starting depth going forward. Expecting a minor league journeyman to replace the production of injured front-end arms Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga would be foolish, but the club has also lost depth options like Javier Assad and Brandon Birdsell to the injured list this year who Romero could more plausibly fill in for. What’s more, top prospect Cade Horton and veteran starter Chris Flexen were both recently promoted to the major leagues, creating vacancies in the club’s Triple-A rotation.
Perhaps one of those vacancies will be filled by Romero, who could certainly pitch his way into an opportunity with Chicago if enough injuries crop up. Currently, the club’s rotation options on the big league roster are Jameson Taillon, Matthew Boyd, Ben Brown, Colin Rea, Horton, and Flexen. It’s a group that features a number of veteran arms with lengthy injury histories, as well as two young pitchers who figure to have their innings managed after missing most of last season. That creates plenty of room for depth arms to get play at the big league level for the Cubs, although options like Jordan Wicks and Connor Noland will likely land ahead of Romero on the club’s depth chart.
Break glass insurance option to eat innings if necessary and then DFA.
The Cubs now have 9 against the Marlins and White Sox. If Tucker starts hitting again, I think they will do well. If he doesn’t, I think they will do surprisingly poorly in those 9. So let’s hope he starts squaring up pitches again, as he did earlier.
It’s a contract year, so odds are that he soon starts squaring ’em up again.
Define surprisingly poorly, Alan….is 5-4 poor? Or 7-2?
To me 4-5 is bad….6-3 is what they should be…7-2, the outcome goal.
…..and that is whether or not Tucker hits again……
@Cubby, I define poorly as losing more of the 9 than they win. I watched the Fish and the Sox this weekend, and both have some “pesky” hitters of the sort the Cubs have problems with.
Thanks Alan…4-5 (or worse) would certainly fall in the poor column.
Yep, you’re saying if he doesn’t hit then the teams performance is entirely his fault so then the other 24 are meaningless.
@Bruce: No, I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is that he seems to be the proverbial straw that stirs the drink in this lineup, and that his recent slump–he has been rolling over a lot of ground balls and leaving a lot of men on base–has hurt the offense. (Suzuki’s predictable cold spell, happening at the same time, has made things worse.)
While we’re on the subject of Tucker: Look, I think he’s a good hitter, a very good hitter–but as far as this “top 5 in baseball,” “superstar,” “everything he’s been advertised and more” stuff that Alex Cohen and the egregious Brett Taylor and others have been spewing about him–I just don’t see it. Would that it were so, but it isn’t. Except for the first couple of weeks of the season, when every contact he made was solid, that has not been him. He’s looked more like a lefty with a longish swing and inconsistent contact. He’s looked like a somewhat better Cody Bellinger. He has not earned the rapturous encomia that some have given him. I hope he starts to.
Most teams build a bullpen from the top down. Cubs build theirs from the bottom up. And when I say bottom……….
Give it a rest Mike, every team is (or should be) scrapping the trash for any usable arms to have as depth in case of emergency this time of year.
Mike, don’t give it a rest. Go back to the Cade Horton promotion thread and understand you were dead wrong on every point you made (don’t pitch him until they play Mia, what kind of leader starts Keller, don’t give the rotation an extra off….etc, etc, etc). You just keep going and like a blind squirel….sooner or later….
…Ben Brown has four pitches, Quintana is below average……some things on the internet are actually not true.
No Cardinals articles today? 8 wins in a row hottest team in baseball. Surely there is a rumor about teams interested in Helsley.
There’s not one pitcher in the minors that can fill a spot over this guy?
If cubs and Tucker scuffle like they did against the likes of giants and Mets not scoring bunch of rooms, they look very ordinary with their top pitchers Boyd and Rea 1,2. How much longer do we have to tolerate the no hit defenively challenged 3rd base 3some berti, Lopez and brujan?
What do you propose they do about 3rd base???
Maybe he wants to pull a Rafa Devers move and force Seiya to learn 3rd base on the fly…
@Bruce: And more generally, how long do we have to go with a bench of Lopez, Brujan, and Turner? Surely there are better options available even in May. (For instance, Hoyer should have found a way to trade for Connor Joe before the Reds did; as usual, Hoyer is a move or two behind his counterparts with other teams.,)
Yep, any option like Joe better than what we currently have but his excuse will always be we can’t do anything because of the trade deadline!
When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth
Cubs continue to waste money on scraps without making big splurge with holes all over this team!
Why wouldn’t it be great time to make solid aggressive play for devers who obviously needs change of scenery. I know his defense sucks but he could be also dh when not playing 3rd and could be also replaced at 3rd for defense later in games. Berti and or Lopez no regulars!
@Bruce: I agree re/Devers. Some here have ridiculed the idea in terms of the financial commitment it would entail for years going forward, but I find that kind of thinking specious and pretentious. I’m not the owner. It’s not my money. I’m not the GM or the POBO. I am a fan, and I want my team to be better THIS YEAR, which is in fact the only one we ever have. And Devers would make my team better.