The Nationals take former UH pitcher Seth Romero.
Seth Romero, the ofttroubled lefthander who was kicked off the University of Houston baseball team this season, was selected by the Washington Nationals in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft Monday night.
Once projected as a top10 pick, Romero’s off-field issues caused him to slip but not entirely out of the first round as the Nationals took him with the No. 25 overall pick. The fall to late in the first round likely cost Romero about $2 million in signing bonus, according to draft pool figures.
Romero, the Cougars’ top pitcher for most of the last two seasons, was suspended twice in a 14-month span before ultimately being dismissed from the team in early May.
A hard-throwing lefthander, Romero was suspended for two starts as a sophomore in 2016 due to a lack of effort regarding conditioning. He was limited to seven starts this season after being suspended a month for rules violations — among them, sources said, a missed curfew, failed drug test and posing for a picture in uniform holding a bong — and was kicked off the team for fighting with a teammate just 10 days after being reinstated.
“They won’t correct his problems unless Seth wants to correct his problems,” said MLB Network analyst Dan O’Dowd, the former general manager of the Colorado Rockies. “To me, it’s a risk, a gamble. He does have ability, there’s no doubt. Everyone saw that along the way. But if he doesn’t correct his problems this draft goes from somebody with upside to somebody that is a constant distraction to your development process.”
Romero went 4-5 with a 3.51 ERA in 10 appearances this season