Trades Ten Years Later - Andrew Romine for Jose Alvarez
A mutually-beneficial shuffling of talent that ends tragically (testicular contusion).
The Names: Los Angeles Angels receive: Jose Alvarez. Detroit Tigers receive: Andrew Romine.
The Team Context: At the 2013 trade deadline, there was an absurd three-team trade that, for our present purposes, sent Jose Iglesias from the Boston Red Sox to the Detroit Tigers. Iglesias was a young infielder who could play an excellent shortstop, but had been stuck at third base for Boston. His hitting declined from its unsustainable heights after the trade to Detroit, but he still finished second in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2013 (a year where there were at least five NL rookies better than any AL rookie, but still a neat accomplishment). The Tigers were a competitive juggernaut at the beginning of the decade, following a World Series appearance in 2012 with an ALCS appearance in 2013. Keeping the team’s core viable was tough as its members seemed poised to exit their primes, but Iglesias promised to be a solution at shortstop for today and tomorrow.
Detroit’s best-laid plans for the 2014 season had already gone awry by March 17, when Iglesias confirmed that his lingering leg pain actually turned out to be from stress fractures in each leg. He said he would miss “half and maybe ‘most’ of 2014,” which would eventually turn out to be the entire season in short order. Suddenly, the Tigers had to scramble to figure out who was playing shortstop for them on a 2014 team that had planned on winning the World Series and did not want to reschedule.
The Player Context: Yesterday, I disparaged the 2007 Angels draft class by saying “Ryan Brasier has had the most successful career, and it’s not particularly close.” If it were particularly close, the next man up on the ladder of career success would be Andrew Romine, the Angels’ 5th-round pick that year. Romine came to Anaheim after a successful college career at Arizona State University, culminating in a Pac-10 championship and appearance in the College World Series. Of course, that never officially happened, as Arizona State’s recruiting violations resulted in NCAA sanctions that officially vacated 44 of the baseball team’s 49 wins in 2007. This was Arizona State’s ninth NCAA case that featured “major infractions,” a startling number that continues to grow.
Since the main subject of yesterday’s post was nepotism, I would be remiss to not mention Andrew Romine’s MLB bloodlines. Andrew is the son of former Boston Red Sox (and Arizona State) outfielder Kevin Romine, as well as the brother of journeyman catcher Austin Romine. By some measures (and most accurate ones), this is an extraordinarily successful baseball family, featuring a father with seven MLB seasons and two sons that each have more than a decade of MLB experience. But if you wanted to make fun of them, you could point out that the family of three combined for -2.1 WAR during their MLB careers, with all the positive value coming from Andrew’s 0.6 WAR. At least they’re better at baseball than the Gretzkys.
Romine (Andrew) worked his way through the minor leagues with the Angels as a strong defender who probably lacked the hitting ability to have a sustained career at the major league level. Romine’s first taste of MLB action came in 2010, when he knocked one hit across twelve plate appearances, but the cups of coffee he received in subsequent years were more like shots of espresso. He played parts of four seasons with the Angels prior to this trade, but that only amounted to 174 plate appearances across 74 games. He turned 28 over the offseason, and it was clear that the Angels viewed him as more of a AAA than MLB player. Considering that Romine had no minor league option years remaining, his future in Anaheim was likely nearing its finish line.
Jose Alvarez had yet to turn 25, but was a longtime professional after signing his first contract with the Boston Red Sox in 2005. He got traded for the first time in 2009, when the Red Sox sent him to the then-Florida Marlins along with Hunter Jones in exchange for Jeremy Hermida. The Marlins continued Alvarez down his ongoing development track as a starting pitcher, and he threw 108.0, 147.2, and 136.1 innings in his three minor league seasons in Miami. Alvarez was released after the 2012 season but quickly scooped up by Detroit, where he excelled as a member of the AAA rotation and was named the organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 2013.
Alvarez made his MLB debut in 2013 too, and while it wasn’t excellent, he seemed to have enough promise to earn another look in the majors. But this was a Detroit team that had just traded away Doug Fister as surplus. They were going to rock a 2014 rotation of Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Rick Porcello, Anibal Sanchez, and Drew Smyly. In a few months, they were going to trade for David Price (stay tuned!). There was not a great opportunity for a fringe-MLB starting pitcher to get his reps in Detroit.
The Trade: The logistics of this move were perhaps best-summarized by Reddit user me_coopsta, who succinctly summarized that “[the Angels] need more lefties in the bullpen and the Tigers just took a hit a[t] short.” Fans of both teams tended to be unimpressed both with what they gave up and what they received in return, with slightly more disappointment on the side of Tigers fans. In fairness, Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski was not exactly giving them much to be excited about in his comments to media about the trade. “We talked about having a shortstop [who] can catch the ball and run a little bit. He fits that description,” Dombrowski said, clearly not auditioning for work in advertising.
This sort of trade is sports business at its most brutally beautiful. Andrew Romine grew up in Southern California, went to college in Arizona, and had spent the past seven seasons in the Angels organization. In most industries, this is not the sort of employee that you can decide to send to Detroit just because their employee Jose would improve your organization’s odds of success by a fraction of a percent. But doesn’t it work out nicely for everyone to have these two teams work out a trade that distributes baseball talent a little bit more optimally across the league? It was undeniably a better fit to have Romine in Detroit and Alvarez in Anaheim. Sure, it’s probably not ideal for the guys who have to move to a new team two weeks before the season starts. But doesn’t it work out nicely for everyone else?
The Results: This trade worked out pretty well for both teams, if slightly better for the Angels. Andrew Romine got an extended run in the majors, sticking on the MLB roster in Detroit for the next four seasons. He proved to be the best of several bad options at shortstop in 2014 until Eugenio Suarez began to show some upside later in the season. But Romine was demonstrably bad at hitting, with such little pop that when he hit one of his eleven career MLB home runs, the league immediately ordered a drug test (in numeric terms, this works out to a .313 slugging percentage in his Tigers tenure). When Jose Iglesias returned with healthy shins in 2015, Romine moved into more of a utility role. His versatility continued to grow to a fitting crescendo when, for the penultimate game of the 2017 season, Romine played all nine positions in a 3-2 win over the Twins. For Romine’s stint on the mound he faced Miguel Sano, got him to ground out on five pitches, and then moved to first base, where he replaced a fellow member of the 2007 Angels draft class, 50th-round pick Efren Navarro. This was a fitting final act for the four-year Tiger, who was waived that November.
Jose Alvarez started seven games in the Angels organization in 2014. Those were the last games where he was used as a starter in his career – he made his debut in the Angels bullpen in 2014 and was a solid contributor for each of the next five seasons, much of which came as the best (or only) left-handed reliever on the team. Like most “decent” relievers who spend a long time in one baseball town, Alvarez was not a fan favorite. There’s an imbalance of expectations between a utility infielder like Andrew Romine and a relief pitcher. No fan expects the bench infielder to get a hit, let alone an extra-base hit, so when he hits his biweekly double it’s cause for celebration. But the relief pitcher (particularly a lefty prior to the three-batter minimum) comes into the ballgame suddenly and with the express purpose of getting outs immediately. When they fail to do so, the mistrust lingers.
Perhaps just to keep things fresh for both fanbases, the Angels traded Alvarez to Philadelphia after the 2018 season for fellow generically-named reliever Luis Garcia. If the Angels didn’t win the trade by virtue of Alvarez’s superior on-field performance, they definitely won on the basis that Alvarez was traded for another guy instead of just waived.
The Aftermath: Andrew Romine played precisely 100 more MLB games after leaving Detroit, with the remainder of his career divided among Seattle, Texas, and the Chicago Cubs. He retired after the 2021 season and moved to Queen Creek, Arizona, where he opened up the “All9Romine” Baseball Academy (the name of which was stolen from a fan that asked for an autograph after his nine-position MLB game for Detroit). There’s a pretty good amount of positive testimonials when you consider that he’s only been at this a couple of years. Apparently, MLB teams took notice of his fine work at the All9Romine Baseball Academy – he’s beginning work this season as the bench coach for the Arizona Complex League team of the Cleveland Guardians. I’d like to conclude my Andrew Romine discussion by praising the “All9Romine” logo, which I can’t stop looking at:
Jose Alvarez played out his years of team control in Philadelphia. His most infamous moment as a Phillie came in the 2020 season, when a 105.3 mph line drive was aimed as unfortunately as possible and resulted in a testicular contusion that ended his season and ultimately, his tenure in Philadelphia. There was a joke written here, but not one so funny that it’s worth making a joke out of the nightmare that must be a “season-ending testicular contusion.” Alvarez signed a one-year contract with San Francisco for the 2021 season that included a club option for the 2022 season. Like so many San Francisco Giants, Alvarez was great in 2021 and the option was exercised, but like so many San Francisco Giants, things went off the rails in 2022 when his elbow began acting up and culminated in Tommy John surgery that September. Alvarez signed a minor league contract to return to the Tigers and rehab his injury in 2023, but he was cut a few weeks ago and there’s no word on the next steps in his career.
Miscellaneous: Andrew Romine and Ryan Brasier recorded a podcast in March 2022 on Overcoming Adversity, which has 18 views at the time of this writing – it’s not great quality, but I did watch it. Andrew Romine went to Trabuco Hills High School, which had four players get drafted between 1999 and 2004 and none before or since (including Austin Romine, who went to a different high school).
March 22, 2024:
Raiders receive: Matt Schaub
Texans receive: 2014 6th-round pick (#181, Alfred Blue)