Sometimes, 40-man roster management becomes a game of musical chairs during the Major League Baseball offseason.
Catcher Drew Romo has become the most recent victim of a vicious cycle, in which players are waived to create 40-man roster space, claimed and waived again. Teams are just hoping that eventually, the player will go unclaimed when they return to waivers, and they’ll be able to outright them to Triple-A.
The New York Mets, who claimed Romo off waivers from the Baltimore Orioles, had apparently waived the 24-year-old catcher at some point themselves. And on Thursday, according to the transactions log on his official roster page, Romo was claimed by the Chicago White Sox.
Once a first-round pick for the Colorado Rockies in 2020, Romo’s journey through affiliated ball has been one of ups and downs. He had his best season yet at Triple-A in 2024, earning a brief look in the majors that year, but after a much rougher season this past year, the Rockies designated him for assignment.
That began a whirlwind for Romo, as he passed from the Rockies, to the Orioles, to the Mets and now the White Sox in the span of just over a month.
Romo has not performed well at the major league level yet (.154 batting average, no home runs in his 19 games), but he was ranked No. 9 on the Rockies’ top prospect list from MLB Pipeline a mere two years ago. He’s a switch-hitter with some pop to offer, and his defense is highly regarded as a thrower and blocker.
The White Sox already have two promising young catchers on the major league roster, so Romo might not have a great opportunity to make the big-league team out of spring training for Chicago. The Mets might not have offered him a much better chance to crack the major league roster, but that’s a moot point now.
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