Blue Jays' decision on Jordan Romano not as cut and dried as it seems

ATLANTA – Just as Bo Bichette’s late-season push to rejoin the Toronto Blue Jays is picking up, with a rehab assignment slated for next week, Jordan Romano’s is shutting down, a slower-than-expected recovery leaving him without enough runway to build up in time. 

“The hope was to get him back, obviously, kind of like what we're doing with Bo,” manager John Schneider said Friday afternoon, before a 3-1 loss to Atlanta in the opener of a three-game series. “And he wanted to get back. It just didn't work out with the number of games we have left and what he is going to have to check off the list in order to get back. It'll be nice for him to have a regular off-season. I think that'll be a little bit comforting for him and for us and get him back for next year.”

That may not be as cut and dried as it seems given that the two-time all-star closer, who made $7.75 million this year, is likely to command a salary in the $8 million range in 2025, his final season of arbitration eligibility before free agency. 

Seeing him pitch even a small handful of games in the final weeks of this trying year would have offered the Blue Jays a useful data point in deciding how to approach tendering Romano this off-season. 

If healthy, there’s no doubt he’s worth the money. But after the 31-year-old twice received cortisone shots in his elbow before undergoing surgery to repair an impingement, they need be sure his health issues are behind him, especially since they must rebuild a bullpen that was among the primary causes of their collapse this year. Toronto also only has a finite amount of money to plug those, and other, roster holes.

To that end Friday’s recall from triple-A Buffalo of righty Luis Frias, one of five external relievers picked up since the trade deadline, is part of the club’s attempt to find some value arms for next year’s bullpen makeover. 

Frias was claimed off waivers from Arizona on Aug. 10, three days after righty Thomas Nance was acquired from the San Diego Padres for cash. Three more claims – lefty Easton Lucas from Detroit on Aug. 19, righty Dillon Tate from Baltimore on Sept. 1 and righty Emmanuel Ramirez on Thursday from Miami – followed and while it may seem like the club is simply throwing darts on the board in the hopes of finding a bull’s-eye, it’s more deliberate than that.

In each case, the Blue Jays either identified a skill-set they really like, or felt like they had a fix that could help the player.

With Nance, for instance, who threw a clean seventh Friday, they really liked his curveball and have urged him to up the usage on the offering, which he’s done to some success.

Frias, meanwhile, has a big fastball that sits 96 and gets up to 98 along with a solid cutter he throws about half the time, complemented by a curveball he mixes in sparingly. The challenge for him is in his command and the Blue Jays’ early messaging to him has been to “make sure to execute my pitches and location, keep working on that,” Frias said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “But other than that, we haven't talked about any major changes.

Tate, a reliable part of the Orioles’ bullpen the past few seasons, may be the most intriguing name of the bunch. After missing last year with elbow/forearm injuries, his velocity is down about two m.p.h. this year from where it was in 2022, when logged 73.2 innings over 67 games with a 3.05 ERA.

He threw his first inning, a three-up, three-down frame, with Buffalo on Thursday, and an ideal scenario is that he can briefly join the Blue Jays for a look before the season ends.

“Down the stretch here you're looking at guys (that) when you're making decisions in the next year, who can help you, either bringing guys up internally and externally, and what they bring to the table,” explained Schneider. “There will be decisions to be made at the end of the year. And, I do think the guys that we have acquired, we've done a good job of identifying one or two things that they do really well or have done really well and hopefully they can re-establish those things and you add them to hopefully what looks to be a little bit of a different bullpen. You bring Jordan back into the mix and see where you're at.”

All of that is needed to better support a rotation that could be a strength again next year.

Kevin Gausman, looking to finish an uneven year strong, allowed three runs in a gruelling 39-pitch second but held the line there to go six innings despite lacking his best command.  Max Fried largely kept the Blue Jays offence in check, allowing only Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s run-scoring groundout in the third, over seven overpowering innings.

“That inning just kind of got away from me," Gausman said of the fateful second, which included three hits and three walks. “There really was nothing different that I needed to do. They found some holes. Base hit up the middle by (Travis) d'Arnaud, that's a double play in a lot of (situations), so it’s tough. I didn't feel like we needed to really change much, just needed to throw more strikes, and that's what I did.”

Over his last six starts, Gausman has pitched to a 2.56 ERA over 38.2 innings while locking in a more consistent delivery, which has led him to better command of his fastball at the top and bottom of the strike zone, Friday aside. 

That’s something he’ll try to carry into 2025 and several of his teammates are looking to build on different elements they can use for next year, as well. 

Frias is among them, with pitching coach Pete Walker saying that the Blue Jays “have a little bit of a plan up here with him as far as how we're going to use his stuff. It comes down to him executing a little bit, but also just really just pounding the zone and trying to utilize that cutter.”

The 26-year-old said he was “very excited, very happy” when he learned that the Blue Jays had claimed him, calling this a “second chance, which I appreciate. I'm trying to take advantage of that and do the best I can to try to help the team.”

With so much uncertainty about Romano’s future and the bullpen as a whole, if Frias and others can seize the opportunity before them now, they’ll be helping the Blue Jays in more ways than one.