What’s next for the Phillies after Jordan Romano signs? – NBC Sports Philadelphia

DALLAS – The Phillies lost two of their top four relievers to free agency, but filled one of the voids Monday afternoon by signing former Blue Jays closer Jordan Romano to a one-year contract.

Maybe it’s their only high-profile bullpen move this offseason?

“We feel comfortable where we are,” Dave Dombrowski said from the Phillies front office’s suite at the Hilton Anatole. “I’m not saying we won’t add. I never know what’s going to go, I never know. But we’re comfortable where we are right now. If we feel we can help our club on other ways if there’s something out there that makes us that much better we’re still open to it but we feel good where we’re at in our bullpen.

The Phillies didn’t promise Romano the closer’s role, but he will see plenty of ninth-inning opportunities. High leverage was the description used. That mix will include right-handers Romano and Orion Kerkering and lefties Matt Strahm and Jose Alvarado.

Is that enough?

“We like our guys,” Dombrowski said. “We think Kerkering is ready to take another step forward, we’ve got Strahm, we’ve got Alvarado, so really you’ve got four back-end guys. We like Tanner Banks. (Jose) Ruiz did a good job for us. I’m not saying we’d never add another guy, but I think if you have four high-leverage relievers like we do, that’s pretty good.”

Romano didn’t pitch after May 29 last season because of an elbow sprain. He received two cortisone shots and then had arthroscopic elbow surgery on July 3.

The Phillies put him through a physical Monday morning in Philadelphia and it checked out.

“We felt very comfortable,” Dombrowski said. “It wasn’t like a full Tommy John thing. We felt very comfortable with it, we had access to all the doctors.”

The injury was the only reason Romano was available in the first place. The Blue Jays waived him in late November instead of paying him an expected $7.75 million through arbitration. The previous four seasons, he posted a 2.29 ERA for Toronto with 97 saves and a .172 opponents’ batting average.

When he’s right, Romano is one of the best relievers in the game. If the deal goes through, the Phillies might replace the production of Hoffman at a fifth of the price.

“We like him a lot. We think he’s one of the best back-end, high-leverage guys in baseball,” Dombrowski said. “Our medical on him has been very good. He had surgery that worked well for him and he’s been throwing. He was throwing last week. We got a video of him, which I’m sure some other clubs did .He’s already throwing in the mid-90s at this point, and so we feel very good about having a chance to sign him (Assistant GM Ned Rice) did a really good job of getting it done for us.”

So what’s next for the Phillies this week at the winter meetings? You can bet they will continue trade talks and negotiate with outfielders. The top two available outfielders, Teoscar Hernandez and Anthony Santander, may not be a perfect fit. Both rejected qualifying offers from their former teams, meaning the next team that signs them will be stripped of a high draft pick and international bonus pool money. That’s a tough penalty you only want to pay for a free agent you feel strongly about.

“I’m not saying we wouldn’t sign a qualifying offer, but yeah, that’s always a factor in what you do,” Dombrowski said. “I don’t really want to give up draft picks and signing bonus money if I prefer.”

It’s been well established this offseason that the Phillies will consider trading for players like Alec Bohm, Ranger Suarez and Nick Castellanos, but they’re also not going to make a move for the sake of making a move.

“You’re always looking to get better and improve yourself, but if you told me we went in with the same players we have right now, I still think we have a good offensive club,” Dombrowski said. “We’re not going to force things to happen just to get them done. But what were we in … in a lot of places, a top-five offense in baseball last year. It didn’t look like that the last four games of the season necessarily, but we’ve a good offensive team as it is, but we also want to continue to improve and we’ve had a lot of conversations with clubs and I’m sure we’ll continue to do that over the next few days.”