Lost in the busy week of transactions last week was my inevitable reaction post to the Romero release. Here it is.
Well, it finally happened. Former 1st round pick Seth Romero finally ran out of rope with the Nationals organization. The team summarily released him yesterday (well, ok put him on unconditional release waivers on the off chance some other idiot GM wants to trade for him) after he got his second DWI of the calendar year.
I thought this would be an excellent time to recap his baseball career.
- Suspended from his Uof Houston team before his sophomore season due to “conduct detrimental to the team.” Also noted that he was in bad shape. But was then Reinstated (the talents always are, see Howe, Steve).
- Suspended a second time mid-way through his Junior season for failing a drug test and missing curfew. Reinstated again because, well, Houston’s coach is paid to win games.
- Summarily kicked off the team after his 2nd reinstatement after getting into a fight with a teammate. This was the last straw for college.
Despite these multiple issues with his college team, the Nats not only took him in the 1st round of 2017 … but gave him an over slot bonus. This, to this day, remains one of the most inexplicable decisions of Mike Rizzo‘s drafting career. Yes he got burned on the Mason Denaburg pick, yes he looks like he blew the Rutledge pick too … but giving an over-slot bonus to a guy who literally had no college team to return to and had zero leverage other than to go play Indy ball and return to the draft a year onwards.
So, now he’s a pro and you’d think he’d grow up right?
- He throws just 22 professional innings in 2017, including six short-A starts with a (short sample size ugly ERA of 5.40).
- He’s sent home from 2018 spring training for “multiple team rule violations,” and misses fully two months of the 2018 minor league season.
- He finally debuts in 2018 in Low-A (a 1st rounder of his stature should have been in at least High-A in his first full pro season), throws 6 starts of 3.91 ERA.
- He hits the D/L in early July, misses another 6 weeks.
- Comes back mid-August, throws 2 innings, is removed from the game … and then three weeks later we find out he needs Tommy John surgery.
- He misses the entire 2019 season recovering from Surgery.
- Somehow the team decides to put him onto the 2020 60-man Covid roster, and he gets called up on 8/13/20. He throws exactly 2 2/3rds innings and gets shelled in the majors (not really a surprise; he had not pitched above A-ball).
- Eleven days after his callup, we find out he has broken his Right hand. The official team word was that he “slipped on a stairway.” Cynics among us (including me) think its more likely he punched a wall.
- In 2021, after not being assigned anywhere after spring training, with an injury that was never really made clear. He bounced around the minors, making 11 starts of varying success.
Ahead of the 2022 season, we learned that he was arrested in early January for DWI.
- In 2022, the team just summarily put him on the 60-day DL with a “calf strain.” He eventually made a few AA 2-inning starts but seemingly had no pathway forward. He was activated in late August, just in time for the minor league season to be complete. He did not get a 9/1 callup (typically a defacto move for any health 40-man roster player, especially on a dead-last team).
And now this week we learned that he got his second DWI of the year, with the added bonus of possessing a “controlled substance.” Finally, finally, after all of this nonsense the team came to its senses and sent him packing.
Career Minor league stats: 31 starts across 4 seasons. 4.33 ERA, 149/44 K/BB in 97.2 innings. 1.39 whip
Career Major league stats: 2.2 innings, 13.50 era, 3.00 whip, 5/3 K/BB.
It is really amazing, honestly, how many chances this guy got. It’s also amazing just how bad he made this front office look for putting up with this for so long.