The Mariners were recently linked to JoJo Romero of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Last week, the Seattle Mariners were linked to left-handed reliever JoJo Romero on the trade market. Romero, currently playing for the St. Louis Cardinals, is in the final year of his contract and expected to be moved by the rebuilding Cardinals. They've already traded away Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras and Nolan Arenado, and are expected to move Brendan Donovan as well, with the M's strongly interested on that front.
I made the case on a recent 'Refuse to Lose' podcast that I wasn't sure the M's needed a third left-handed reliever to pair with Gabe Speier and Jose Ferrer, who was acquired earlier this offseason.
Well, ESPN MLB Insider Buster Olney is in favor of the move, and doesn't see three lefties as too much positional redundancy for the roster. He made the comments on Thursday's edition of the podcast.
"Yes, I think elite teams, if they have the ability to do that, should do that. Now it would be, in a sense, a luxury item. But think about where the Mariners were in the postseason last fall: Where we went into every game wondering, 'okay, if you've got, you know, three, four batters, five batters for Speier to face, where is Dan Wilson going to use him? And it was like the one magic bullet that he had, left-handed bullet coming out of the bullpen. And to have three? It would be such a great thing from a manager perspective. And you know, the old saying goes, that in the postseason, what wins is bullpen and bench. And I think if the Mariners, in fact, pull that off and they get JoJo Romero, I mean they would go into next season with a really deep bullpen, another reason to believe that 2026 could be a great season for them."
About Romero
Now 29 years old, Romero is a California native who played his college ball at Nevada and Yavapai College. He was a fourth-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Phillies in 2016 and made his major league debut with Philadelphia in 2021. Acquired by the Cardinals in 2022, he's gone 15-11 lifetime with a 3.55 ERA.
He appeared in 65 games last season for St. Louis, striking out 55 over 61.0 innings. He's actually made 65 appearances in consecutive seasons.
The Mariners figure to head into 2026 with two open spots in the bullpen as of now. Andres Munoz, Matt Brash, Eduard Bazardo, Speier, Ferrer and Carlos Vargas all seem likely to have spots solidified.
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