What’s next for the Phillies after signing Jordan Romano? – NBC Sports Philadelphia

What’s next for the Phillies after signing Jordan Romano? – NBC Sports Philadelphia

DALLAS — The Phillies lost two of their top four relievers to free agency, but filled one of the holes Monday afternoon by signing former Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano to a one-year deal.

Could this be their only high-profile bullpen change this offseason?

“We feel comfortable where we are,” Dave Dombrowski said from the Phillies front office suite at the Hilton Anatole. “I’m not saying we won’t add anything. I never know what’s going to happen, I never know. But we feel comfortable where we are right now. If we feel like we can help our club in other ways, if there are any.” Something out there that makes us so much better, we’re still open to that, but we feel good about where we are in ours Bullpens are.

The Phillies haven’t promised Romano the closer’s role, but he will see plenty of opportunity in the ninth inning. “High leverage” was used as the descriptor. That mix includes right-handers Romano and Orion Kerkering and left-handers Matt Strahm and Jose Alvarado.

Is that enough?

“We like our guys,” Dombrowski said. “We believe Kerkering is ready to take another step forward, we have Strahm, we have Alvarado, so you really have four back-end guys. We like Tanner Banks. (Jose) Ruiz has done a good job for us. “I’m not saying we would never add another guy, but I think when you have four highly effective relievers, which we think we have, that’s pretty good.”

Romano was unable to pitch after May 29 of last season due to an elbow injury. He received two cortisone injections and underwent arthroscopic elbow surgery on July 3.

The Phillies gave him a physical on Monday morning in Philadelphia and it came up fine.

“We felt very comfortable,” said Dombrowski. “It wasn’t a full-blown Tommy John thing. We felt very comfortable, we had access to all medical medications.”

The injury was the only reason Romano was even available. The Blue Jays non-tendered him in late November in lieu of paying him a projected $7.75 million through arbitration. Over the previous four seasons with Toronto, he posted a 2.29 ERA with 97 saves and an opponents batting average of .172.

If he’s right, Romano is one of the best rescuers in the game. If the deal works out, the Phillies could replace Hoffman’s production for a fifth of the cost.

“We like him a lot. We believe he is one of the best back-end, high-leverage guys in baseball,” Dombrowski said. “Our medical care was very good. He had surgery that went well for him and he threw. He threw last week. We made a video of him, as I’m sure some other clubs have done. He’s already pitching.’ We’re in the mid-90s at this point, so we feel really good that we had the chance to sign him. (Assistant GM Ned Rice) did a really good job of taking care of that for us.

So what’s next for the Phillies in the Winter Meetings this week? You can bet they will continue to have trade talks and negotiate with the outfielders. However, the two best outfielders available, Teoscar Hernandez and Anthony Santander, may not be an ideal fit. Both declined qualifying offers from their former teams, meaning the next team that signs them will be deprived of a high draft pick and international bonus money. That’s a hefty penalty you’d only want to pay for a free agent you care about.

“I’m not saying we wouldn’t bring in a qualified provider, but yeah, it’s always a factor in what you do,” Dombrowski said. “I don’t really want to miss out on draft decisions and signing bonus money if I prefer.”

This offseason, it’s clear that the Phillies will consider trading players like Alec Bohm, Ranger Suarez and Nick Castellanos, but they also won’t make a move for the sake of a move.

“You’re always striving to get better and improve yourself, but when you tell me we’re playing with the same players we have now, I still think we have a good offensive club,” Dombrowski said. “We’re not going to force things just to get them done. But where were we? We were a top-five offense in baseball in many places last year. It didn’t look like it in the last four games.” The season definitely has to be over, but we have a good offensive team anyway. But we will continue to try to get better and we have had a lot of discussions with the clubs and I am sure we will continue to do that in the next few days.

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