Guardians Sign Jhon Romero To Minor League Deal

The Guardians announced Monday that they’ve signed right-handed reliever Jhon Romero to a minor league contract. He’s headed straight to minor league camp and will appear in a minor league game for them today, per the team.

Romero, 28, has seen brief big league time in each of the past two seasons. He tossed four innings for the Nationals in his MLB debut in 2021 and pitched five innings with the Twins in 2022. In that limited time, Romero has a 4.00 ERA with a 9-to-1 K/BB ratio and a 54.8% ground-ball rate. He made Minnesota’s Opening Day roster in 2022 and looked sharp early on, but he hit the IL after just five appearances due to biceps tendinitis and was never able to get back to the mound. The Twins outrighted him after the season, and he elected minor league free agency.

Romero’s professional career has been limited to 177 1/3 innings, but he’s pitched to an impressive 2.84 ERA with a 27.7% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate during that time. He also pitched for Colombia in this year’s World Baseball Classic, allowing a pair of runs in 2 1/3 innings. It should be noted that Romero has only pitched 7 1/3 innings in Triple-A (in addition to his nine MLB innings), so most of his professional success has come at the Double-A level or lower. Still, he’s averaged 94.5 mph on his heater in the Majors, induced grounders and has a strong track record overall. He’ll add a relatively intriguing arm to a Cleveland system that has a knack for developing pitchers and coaxing big performances out of unheralded arms.