In less than two months, pitchers and catchers will be reporting to spring training. One pitcher and one catcher will be reporting to new clubs come February.
Austin Romine, who has spent his entire professional career with the New York Yankees, signed a one year, $4.15 million contract with the Detroit Tigers. Drafted in the second round by the Yankees in 2007, he made his big league debut in 2011 but a back injury forced him to miss most of the 2012 season. He became the Yankees back up catcher in 2013, but lost this position to John Ryan Murphy in 2014 and 2015. It wasn't until 2016 that Romine solidified his spot as the Yankees number two catcher first behind Brian McCann and then Gary Sanchez.
In 2020, Romine will be a number one catcher for the first time in his big league career as he must manage a pitching staff on a team that lost a MLB worst 114 games in 2019. It is curious that Romine will now be teammates with Miguel Cabrera with whom he got into a brawl in August 2017. Both men say they have got past the incident, but it will be interesting to see if there are any lingering problems and if Cabrera undermines Romine's standing with his pitching staff and the team. Should this happen can Romine, 31, make the most of his opportunity.
The Cincinnati Reds have strengthened their rotation with the addition of veteran southpaw Wade Miley. The 33-year old signed a two year deal worth $15 million. Unlike Romine, Miley is quite well travelled. The Reds become Miley's seventh big league club. After spending his first four seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Miley has spent the past five seasons with five clubs - Boston Red Sox, Seattle Mariners, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers and Houston Astros. In 33 starts with the Astros in 2019, Miley went 14-6 with a 3.98 ERA. However, he struggled down the stretch posting an ERA of 8.69 in his final nine starts which prompted the Astros to leave him off their post-season roster.
When Miley signed with the Astros a year ago, I compared him to Charlie Morton. This might be a little bit off the mark. But he is a viable starter in the back end of a rotation and the Reds have a very good rotation with Sonny Gray, Trevor Bauer, Luis Castillo and Anthony DeSclafini. Best of all, Miley is reunited with pitching coach Derek Johnson with whom Miley developed a productive working relationship during his brief tenure with the Brewers down the stretch in 2018. Put ex-Brewer Mike Moustakas in the center of that lineup along with that deep rotation and you could have the next NL Central champion.
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