The Mets have claimed catcher Drew Romo off waivers from the Orioles and, in a corresponding move, designated left-hander Brandon Waddell for assignment, per a team announcement. Baltimore designated Romo for assignment last week.
The 24-year-old Romo was the No. 35 overall draft pick by the Rockies back in 2020 and previously ranked not only as one of Colorado’s best prospects but one of the top 100 prospects in Major League Baseball. He’s a well-regarded defender with a cannon of an arm, but Romo’s bat stalled out after a solid 2023 season split mostly between High-A and Double-A. His offensive output has declined in consecutive seasons. After a league-average offensive showing at Triple-A in 2024, his bat dwindled in 2025 as his strikeout rate ballooned from 17.8% to 25.8%.
Romo has gotten some brief looks in the majors with the Rox but has just 56 plate appearances under his belt. He’s a .167/.196/.222 hitter with a 37.5% strikeout rate in that minuscule sample. Romo carries a solid-looking .286/.337/.466 slash in parts of three Triple-A seasons, but that’s propped up a bit by his stronger 2024 performance. In 2025, he hit .264/.329/.409 with the Rockies’ top affiliate. Again, that looks solid on the surface, but given the immensely hitter-friendly environments in the Pacific Coast League — Albuquerque, in particular — Romo was actually 25% worse than a league-average hitter, by measure of wRC+.
Romo still has a pair of minor league option years remaining, so he’ll give the Mets some flexible depth behind the plate. He has a long way to go in terms of offensive development, but a good defender with a plus arm is a nice third or fourth catcher to be able to stash in Triple-A alongside Hayden Senger. Francisco Alvarez, of course, is the starter in Queens and is slated to be backed up by journeyman Luis Torrens in 2026.
Waddell, 31, tossed 31 1/3 innings with the Mets in 2025 — his first big league look since 2021. That came on the back of a three-year stint with the Doosan Bears of the Korea Baseball Organization, where he generally pitched well out of the Bears’ rotation. Waddell’s MLB return produced a nice 3.45 ERA, though his poor strikeout rate (16.4%), good-not-great command (8.2% walk rate) and good fortune in terms of both strand rate (82%) and balls in play (.260 BABIP) caused metrics like SIERA (4.64) and FIP (4.54) to take a more bearish outlook.
Waddell is out of minor league options. He sat 90.7 mph with his four-seamer last year and coupled the pitch with a sinker of comparable velocity and a changeup and slider in the low 80s. The former fifth-rounder out of the University of Virginia tossed 244 2/3 innings of 2.98 ERA ball during his time in the KBO and also had a nice 12-start run in Taiwan’s CPBL in 2023. He’s spent parts of five seasons pitching in Triple-A and has an ERA north of 5.00 there, although that was skewed by a 2019 season in which he yielded 59 runs in 61 frames. He’s posted a 4.22 ERA at the Triple-A level since.
Waddell will be traded to another club or placed on outright waivers within the next five days. Waivers are a 48-hour process. His DFA will be resolved within a week’s time.