DALLAS — There’s only so much oxygen available for high-paying Northeast teams that are in crisis despite a largely successful 2024 season. And as always, the Yankees got most of the attention. But don’t underestimate the excitement that has been building since the Fightins’ ignominious four-game NLDS exit in Philadelphia. Dave Dombrowski was rumored to have his fingers in a lot of pots in the first month of the offseason – a change of scenery with Alec Bohm here, a Garrett Crochet blockbuster there – but nothing had yet materialized by the start of the MLB Winter Meetings.

Well, don’t wait any longer. Longtime Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano is headed to South Philly on the Rob Ducey Highway on a one-year, $8.5 million contract.

The bullpen was a strength for Philadelphia in 2024, with Jeff Hoffman and Matt Strahm making the All-Star team, and Orion Kerkering has good reason to do the same. Or I should say, it was a strength until, quite suddenly and emphatically, it wasn’t. As troubling as the Phillies’ offensive failure was, they probably would have beaten the Mets if the bullpen hadn’t been coughed up… Let’s see, I know I have the exact number somewhere… a gajillion runs in the four games of the NLDS.

There’s always been some turnover with the Phillies, with Hoffman and deadline acquisition Carlos Estévez moving on free transfers, but the best solution to a historic collapse is really to throw $8.5 million at a 31-year-old who’s had a slump 6 .59 ERA in 2024?

Fortunately, Romano’s 2024 stats don’t tell the whole story. In fact, I would argue that they could be written off completely. Romano suffered a pulled muscle and was ultimately sidelined with elbow soreness, which ended his season shortly after Memorial Day — not that Romano, a Markham, Ont., native, would know what that meant — and led to arthroscopic surgery in July. That certainly represents an injury concern that contributed to the Blue Jays not trading away their former backup, and Romano had to undergo a physical exam. But when all of his joints are in order, Romano is an excellent relief player.

And a long-time favorite of certain FanGraphs writers. I interviewed Romano in September 2022 and Ben Clemens followed up the following June with an analysis of his repertoire. Both articles focused on a specific – I would say unique – attribute: Romano’s expansion.

“Wait, he just signed a one-year deal with a new team, why are we talking about an extension?”

My mistake. I mean, Romano releases the ball extremely close to home plate. In his last full season, 2023, Romano ranked second in average overtime — out of 479 pitchers with at least 500 pitches. That makes some sense, since Romano is 6 feet tall and has arms like a pinwheel. A non-trivial percentage of my 2022 article could aptly be summed up as: “Damn, this guy is big!”

At the time, I wrote about an obvious advantage of a long extension: Romano releases the ball a foot closer to home plate than most pitchers and two feet closer than some. That gives the batter a tiny fraction of a second less time to read the pitch and react to it, which is probably not news to you, a person who has made it past the break in a FanGraphs article. You’ve probably known about perceived speed for 15 years. And the effect is significant for a pitcher who initially throws 97 miles per hour.

However, Ben noticed another interesting feature of Romano’s talk. A pitcher with his body type and arm angle – 50 degrees, which is on the vertical side of the high three-quarter line – should have what is known as a “tall-and-fall” delivery. Romano is more drop-and-drive. He goes deep, pushes off hard with his back foot and finally lands with his front foot at the very edge of the hill.

Despite his size and arm angle, Romano ranked just 180th in vertical takeoff in 2023. This isn’t just because of his lower posture, but because, as Ben noted, the further forward his foot lands, the lower the hill at that point.

The lower release point – and lower approach angle – emphasized the vertical characteristics of a pitch that already had more “slope” than the average four-seater. So instead of sinking into the batter’s path, Romano can now paint the top of the zone or even work over it to create whiffs and popups. Add in a hard, vertically breaking ball, a pitch labeled a slider — but which Romano told me he considers a curve — and you have the most stereotypical modern closer in existence.

What will the Phillies do with him?

Well, Romano is a veteran who saved 95 games between 2021 and 2023, mostly serving as a one-inning closer. The Phillies tend to have a fairly fluid bullpen model; Last season, Hoffman, Strahm and Kerkering came into play whenever the matchup called for it, as did José Alvarado when it was on the line. Who got the save was of relatively little importance. Eight different pitchers recorded at least one save for the 95-win Phillies in 2024, and no one saved more than 13 games.

Romano could fit into that mix, or manager Rob Thomson could use him the way he used Craig Kimbrel in 2023: as a dedicated one-inning closer for off-commit, high-leverage save situations. However, Romano is a bit cheaper and hopefully he wouldn’t knock the Phillies out of several winnable NLCS games. Fingers crossed.

It remains to be seen how Thomson will use Romano, and the answer is likely to depend on further signings and trades that have yet to be made. What makes Romano an interesting prospect now is his fastball.

The Phillies’ track record of developing talent isn’t bad, but it’s a bit spotty. Other than that, the one thing they do better than anyone else is teaching fastballs. And no four-seaters.

Of the five Phillies starters who threw at least 50 innings last season, four — Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Ranger Suárez and Taijuan Walker — threw three different types of fastball. The only exception, first-time All-Star Cristopher Sánchez, threw sinkers almost exclusively.

Even in the bullpen, where you can get by with two pitches, they prefer a multi-fastball approach. Nine of the Phillies’ top 10 relievers in innings pitched threw a sinker at least 8% of the time. The only exception was Estévez, who joined the team midway through the season. Alvarado threw his sinker to the exclusion of a four-seater, and his only secondary throw, if you want to call it that, was a cutter.

Romano throws hard – which the Phillies like – but he doesn’t throw their signature pitch. So it wouldn’t surprise me if he spent spring training learning a sinker, cutter, or both to fit his unusual four-seater.

Alternatively, Romano could be responding to a criticism of the Phillies’ roster construction – just not with the unity everyone had in mind. If you watched the NLDS, you probably saw the Phillies hitters chase a lot, all the way to ultimate defeat. This is an aggressive lineup despite Kyle Schwarber, and when the entire lineup is so homogeneous, an opponent who recognizes a hitter’s weakness can use this solution against the entire team in a short series.

The Phillies didn’t make any major moves in the offseason to address this offensive weakness – either through trades, free agent signings or building a time machine to bring back the top version of an on-base machine like Darren Daulton or Bobby Abreu. (At least not yet.)

But the accusation of fatal sameness could have been leveled at the bullpen, so it could be that Romano is attractive to this team precisely because he can provide a different look at opponents who might have Alvarado or Kerkering’s sinker-sweeper combination would have expected.

In any case, you don’t have to think about it for too long. Romano was an elite closer for three years before getting injured, he throws in the upper 90s and could be had for a little more than backup catcher’s money. This could end up being a particularly productive player and team combination that represents great value for the Phillies and provides a platform for a Hoffman-like free agency for Romano in 12 months. But at least it’s a reasonable price for a good pitcher.