At the beginning of this winter, the armpit of the Oakland A was destroyed by a free agency and four replacements were lost, including their star approaching. However, a late increase in additions ended Sunday night with a more effective pickup.
Sergio Romo, free agent of the A, signs a one-year contract, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. This is a $ 2.25 million deal, adds Jeff Passan of ESPN.
The Romo news comes just 19 minutes after the news was that Oakland had also brought back their own free agent reliever Yusmeiro Petit on a similar one-year contract. On top of that, they bought the left-wing Adam Kolarek from the Dodgers two days ago.
Romo has been one of the better relief in the majors for 13 seasons now. He spent nearly a decade with the Giants and won three rings, including a tournament as an All-Star closer. He earned savings with the Rays in 2018 and with Marlins in 2019, and established himself until the end of 2020 as a trusted setup man for the division winner.
Rome, 2019-20: 3.59 ERA, 80⅓ ip, 83 Ks, 24 BB, 10 HR, 3.84 FIP, .280 xwOBA
For his career, he achieved 134 saves and 188 possessions with just 31 strokes, an excellent 91% success rate. More recently, in the past two seasons, he has converted 52 saves / containers with only four blows (93%). He was also excellent with inherited runners, who were able to achieve a low rate of 26% for his career, although he can be volatile from year to year – for example, he only passed 4-of-20 in 2019, but then all six handed over what he inherited this past summer.
At the age of 38, Romo is still an effective relief for late-innings. He has never been a hard thrower, and he was an average in the 80s with his fast ball as far back as 2012, and even though the number climbed below 86 km / h, he continued to record. This is partly because his primary weapon is his devastating slider, which he threw more than half the time and used last summer to a career high of 64.8%. If you are also changing, he could put hits on both sides of the board and avoid noticeable splits in general.
The A’s bullpen now contains the following names: Jake Diekman, Romo, Petit, Kolarek, JB Wendelken, Lou Trivino and Nik Turley, as well as many more sleeping candidates such as Jordan Weems, Burch Smith and Dany Jimenez, draft of Rule 5,.
However, the 40-man squad was already full before Sunday’s two signings, which means that corresponding moves have to be made to remove two players and make room for Petit and Romo.
Analysis
Another great bullpen addition, at another reasonable salary. I do not like to pay big bucks for lighters, but I do like paying $ 2 million for an experienced late-in-arm who rarely gets hurt and never has a bad year.
The A’s would never replace Liam Hendriks, because there is now really no one closer like him, and if it then apparently cost more than $ 50 million, they managed to replace the compilers Joakim Soria and Yusmeiro Petit. the cheap. They took care of Petit by just bringing him back, and Romo can move into the Soria role, for which he’s a good cast – and probably an upgrade, though Soria is coming in a better 2020. The fourth relief they lost was midfield left-back TJ McFarland, and Kolarek is essentially an upgraded version of McFarland’s profile.
Romo’s surface numbers last year were some of the worst he’s ever offered, and even then he was still better than average. Statcast says he was even better than that, and also all the power he has had over the past half decade, with a low exit speed and a strong rate and wipes. One day he will eventually deteriorate, but that has not happened yet and at the moment he is an addition to the A’s late crew.
For some reason, it always looked like Romo would end up in Oakland. They’ve been linked in rumors before, and he’s the kind of advanced-treasure that is regularly available on what looks like bargain salaries. Now that has finally happened, and he’s here to help a competitive A-team of 2021 – and one whose bullpen suddenly looks pretty good.
If you have an extra $ 5 million to spend, and the bullpen is your greatest need, especially late experience, then Romo and Petit are a great job.