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Padres News: Should The Padres Trade For Romine?

By Andrew Beccarelli

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The 2015 regular season is fast approaching and the San Diego Padres are making moves to finalize their 25-man roster.

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One position that is still up for grabs is the backup catcher position. Going into Spring Training newly acquired catcher Tim Federowicz was expected to fill in the position behind starting catcher Derek Norris. Unfortunately, Federowicz suffered a tear in his lateral meniscus that required arthroscopic knee surgery to repair. His recovery is expected to keep him out until after the All-Star break.

We’ve speculated here on Friars On Base on who should take over as the top backup catcher for the Padres. However, with Austin Hedges recent reassignment to the minors camp earlier this week, it’s looking like veteran backstop Wil Nieves will be the number two man behind the plate.

While it looks like the Padres are going with Nieves, that doesn’t mean general manager AJ Preller is going to stop looking for a better option.

Recently George A King III of the New York Post reported that the Padres are interested in Yankees catcher, Austin Romine.

Romine has only played 76 games in his three appearances with the Yankees (2011, 2013, 2014) and has a career .204 batting average. While the young catcher (26 yrs.) doesn’t exactly impress with his bat, he is regarded as a good defensive catcher, which may be all the Padres want from him.

As our friends over at Yankees Go Yard reported earlier this week, Romine is currently in a battle with John Ryan Murphy for the backup catcher role. The Yankees can’t send Romine down to the minors without exposing him to waivers, so they may prefer to make a trade with  their new regular trading partners, the San Diego Padres, rather than lose him and get nothing in return.

So, is Romine a better option than Nieves? So far this Spring Romine is slashing .182/.250/.227 compared to Nieves’ .200/.292/.250. Defensively there may be an argument, but I’m honestly not familiar enough with either catcher to have an opinion.

I recently got to watch Nieves catch for the Padres live in Peoria and he looked fine behind the plate. So, unless the Padres are really interested in Romine for his youth, then I would see any trade for him as unnecessary busy work.

What do you guys think? Is Romine worth the Padres trying to acquire or should they just stick with the catchers they have?

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