Mariners have signed Sergio Romo to fill opening in bullpen

Earlier in the Spring, news came out that the Mariners were going to be without Casey Sadler for the entirety of the 2022 season. Enter Sergio Romo to replace him.

Obviously, we can’t expect someone to come in and replace the numbers of 40 innings and a 0.67 ERA. If you thought Sadler himself was going to do that, you’ve got some unrealistic expectations.

Sergio Romo is still good at 39, and makes for a nice addition to the bullpen for the Mariners

This will be the 7th team that Romo has been on, and it looks like he still has it. In 2021, he finished the season with a 4.24 FIP across 66 appearances and 61.2 innings. What the Mariners are getting is a solid guy who can make consistent appearances throughout the year, and bring leadership and experience to the pen.

Remember, a lot of the guys in the Mariners pen are either young or don’t have a long track record of success. Romo has thrown in 798 games over 14 years. It’s an incredible amount of experience, and it should help the Mariners out, especially their starters, to know there is a career guy down there to help out.

There was also an interesting stat that I saw this morning on Baseball Savant. Romo was in the top 1% for weak contact off his fastball. When you can place the ball well, it doesn’t really matter how hard you throw. That should hopefully be further amplified by putting Romo in there amidst a bunch of flamethrowers, throwing off batter’s timing a little bit. When you see Munoz pumping 101 and then Romo at 85, it’s a massive difference.

As long as he can keep locating his pitches and has the ball dancing and moving around, he’s gonna succeed for quite a while. I’m not saying he is going to be Jesse Orosco, but Romo definitely has gas left in the tank.

The Mariners got a reliable and sneaky good reliever when they signed Romo. Once again, the team seems to have snuck past most reporting and fans to snag a good player. Romo is a fun guy to watch, and should make the Mariners bullpen stronger throughout the year.