Cubs sign catcher Austin Romine

Earlier Friday, I wrote this article noting some players the Cubs could actually afford to sign, given that they are apparently limiting 2021 signings to $1 million or less. The article was partly serious and partly tongue-in-cheek.

One of the players I listed in the article was Austin Romine.

Uh... the Cubs just signed Austin Romine:

Here’s what I wrote about Romine in the earlier article:

He’s 32 and had some decent years for the Yankees, including actually appearing in three postseason games. He didn’t hit well for the Tigers in 2020 (.238/.259/.323 in 135 PA), so could probably be signed for around $1 million. Ranks 47th of 62 catchers in pitch framing, per Statcast.

No contract terms for Romine have yet been revealed, but I’d guess it’ll be somewhere in the $1 million range. Mark Feinsand’s tweet seems to indicate this is a major-league deal, though there has not yet been a press release from the Cubs.

It was noted in the comments to my earlier article that one tack the Cubs (or any team) could take in signing free agents is to look at guys who had good years in 2019, but not so much in 2020. This is a logical viewpoint. The 2020 season was so weird, bizarre and crazy for so many reasons that it’s reasonable to assume that players could return to a previous level of performance in 2021. (We hope that’s the case for Cubs such as Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Anthony Rizzo, too.)

This seems a reasonable signing to back up Willson Contreras. Romine’s brother Andrew and father Kevin also played major league baseball.