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October 17, 2006

Transaction Analysis

September 29-October 16, 2006

by Christina Kahrl

ANAHEIM ANGELS Team Audit | Team DT Cards | Team Articles | Team Statistics

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Declined to pick up the 2007 option on LHP J.C. Romero, making him a free agent. [10/6]

Before this season, the Angels had been more than a little haphazard about getting with the situational program and employing lefty specialists with any regularity. To their credit, they seemed to recognize there are better ways to put the last spot in a bullpen to use during a regular season, and that there's no point to employing Mike Gallo or the like as a talon-less tactical catspaw. (Say that five times fast.) But this year was different—this year, the Angels made a point of going out and getting Romero from the Twins just as he started getting too rich for Terry Ryan's blood: $2.2M in '06, with a $2.75M option for '07. On one level, he succeeded as the team's token situational lefty, holding the southpaws he was supposed to ice to .202/.298/.303. Unfortunately, even with that going for him, he really wasn't an asset for the Angels' pen. He seemed to fall out of favor with manager Mike Scioscia before the All-Star break, and his walk rate—already a barely-tenable four unintentionals per nine from 2003-05—spiked to almost five while righthanders clobbered him for power for the third year of the last four, making it look more and more like he's pitched his way down into marginal utility where he was once a pretty rubber-armed and more generally handy lefty. He still boasts a solid groundball tendency, so I wouldn't count him out, certainly not with the right infield, but there was no way picking up his option made sense.