photo: Drew Rom (Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports)
The Cardinal Nation’s Top 50 prospect countdown for 2025 reaches no. 45 with a lefty who debuted with St. Louis and made eight starts in 2023 before missing the entire 2024 season.
Position: Starting pitcher
Age: 24 years old
Bats/Throws: L/L
Height/Weight: 6’2, 215 pounds
Acquired: Acquired from Baltimore with Cesar Prieto and Zack Showalter for Jack Flaherty on August 1, 2023. Originally drafted by the Orioles in the fourth round in 2018.
Hometown: Fort Thomas, KY
College: none
Opened 2024: St. Louis Cardinals (MLB – injured list)
Primary team in 2024: St. Louis Cardinals (MLB – injured list)
Finished 2024: St. Louis Cardinals (MLB – injured list)
Prior Top 50 rankings – 2024 #29
Click on the above photo to be taken to Rom’s player page at The Cardinal Nation, with additional biography and history information.
2024 highlights
Injured – did not pitch
Blake Newberry’s scouting report
Blake’s ranking – no. 47
(current grade/future grade)
| FB | CB | SL | CH | Command | FV |
| 40/40 | 40/40 | 45/45 | 45/45 | 45/45 | 35 |
Drew Rom looks like something of a tweener. He has below average stuff across the board because of his extremely limited velocity and he doesn’t have the pinpoint command that is needed for his kitchen-sink kind of profile to play effectively.
Rom has two fastball shapes with his four-seamer sitting 90-91 and his sinker sitting 87-88. The four-seamer has some mild cut/ride shape, but it doesn’t have enough movement in either direction to make up for the lack of velocity and the pitch tends to get hit pretty hard.
The sinker has a lot of depth but a good portion of that comes from the lack of velocity and Rom’s willingness to drop his arm when he throws the pitch. Much like Rom’s four-seamer, the pitch doesn’t do enough to overcome its lack of velocity.
Rom’s slider gets a lot of sweeping action but doesn’t miss a ton of bats because it sits at only 79 mph. The lefty’s splitter is actually my favorite pitch, but he only throws it to righties, and it was just his fourth most used pitch against them.
Rom does a great job of killing the spin on the splitter, which gives it good depth, and the lack of arm side run makes it look like something of a straight dropper which can give hitters a different look. I have the pitch at a 45 grade because Rom seems to lack conviction with it but better feel and increased usage could make it a solid pitch.
When taken as a whole, this is an underwhelming arsenal, and it appears that Rom really tries to get by with deception and arm slot manipulation. The problem with the latter is that Rom doesn’t change his arm slot universally, he does it on a pitch-by-pitch basis. His four-seamer comes out of a high release and his sinker out of a low release with the two release points differing by a full foot. That makes it easy to identify which pitch is coming out of the hand.
Rom’s slider and splitter have release points almost exactly in between the two fastballs which can also be a dead giveaway that a non-fastball is coming.
Now, I’ve been hard on Rom to this point but even if he is a tweener long-term, he still deserves a spot on this list as someone who has been able to miss bats at a decent clip in the minors and has already worked his way to the majors. He may not be the most exciting arm but he’s a guy who can cover multiple innings and give hitters a different look and he still has some potential to improve if he can improve his feel for his splitter and limit his fastball usage a bit.
Summary: Rom is a deceptive lefty with a below average arsenal who has missed bats in the minors and still has some potential growth ahead of him.
Brian Walton’s environmental impact report
Update: On November 19, 2024, Rom was outrighted off St. Louis’ 40-man roster. Reaching the majors again is not impossible, but the size of the challenge has increased.
Brian’s ranking – no. 43
Because Rom had 44 days of major league service time coming into 2024, he barely retained his rookie eligibility. Though he hasn’t pitched since, he accrued a year of MLB time while on the injured list and technically should no longer be considered a prospect.
Background
The 6-foot-2, 215-pounder was the Orioles fourth round draft selection in 2018 from Highlands High School in Kentucky. As a prep star, Rom fanned 116 in just 60 innings and had accepted a scholarship to the University of Michigan. Baltimore changed that plan with a $650,000 offer, $220,000 over slot for their fourth rounder.
Just 18 years old, Rom joined the rookie-level Gulf Coast League Orioles for his professional debut, where he logged a 1.76 ERA. For 2019, he jumped to full-season Low-A. With Demarva, he posted a 2.93 ERA and 122 strikeouts and 33 walks in 95 1/3 innings and was a Sally League All-Star.
An interesting side note is that Rom toggled between starting and relieving in 2019. Though he converted just one of his four save opportunities, his ERA out of the pen was 1.96, compared to 3.24 as a starter. It was a small sample size of 23 innings, but Rom’s strikeout rate as a reliever was a career-best 12.5 per nine innings.
Post-COVID, Rom moved up again, to Aberdeen to open 2021. He dominated High-A, with an 8-0 record, 2.79 ERA and career-best 54.8% ground ball rate in 14 appearances including 13 starts.
In late July 2021, Rom was promoted to Double-A Bowie. For the Baysox, he appeared in nine games including seven starts, posting a 3.83 ERA. After the season, Rom was named an Orioles Organization All-Star by MiLB.com.
Rom returned to Bowie to open 2022. In 19 games, 18 starts, he went 7-2 with a 4.37 ERA, 101 strikeouts and 29 walks in 82 1/3 Double-A innings.
The Orioles promoted Rom to Triple-A in August 2022. At his new level, the lefty made seven starts, some good and others bad, resulting in a 5.46 ERA. However, his FIP was considerably better at 3.16.
As had been the case at all stops in his career, Rom kept his strikeout rate well above one per inning, but his walk rate rose to a career-high 4.3 per nine in his Triple-A debut.
In November 2022, Rom was added to Baltimore’s 40-man roster to shield him from the Rule 5 draft. Among MLB Pipeline’s top 30 Orioles prospects, a loaded system, Rom had consistently been ranked in the upper teens.
Over the 2022-2023 offseason, Rom worked with Tread Athletics to increase his fastball velocity and improve consistency with his changeup.
In Orioles 2023 spring training, Rom received only the shortest of looks, with a two-inning start his only appearance before being sent down to minor league camp.
Rom returned to Triple-A Norfolk to open the 2023 season. Through the end of July, he went 7-6 while striking out 100 against 46 walks in 86 innings in 19 appearances, 18 starts. His ERA was 5.34 with a FIP of 4.19. Rom was briefly called up to Baltimore in May but did not enter a game.
After the Cardinals placed impending free agent Jack Flaherty on the trading block, the Orioles acquired him on August 1. Rom, along with reliever Zack Showalter and infielder Cesar Prieto, all minor leaguers, joined the Cardinals organization. Rom was assigned to Memphis.
On August 20, the Cardinals called Rom up from Triple-A. He stepped into St. Louis’ rotation after Matthew Liberatore experienced back soreness from weightlifting.
In his two starts with Memphis between the trade and his MLB debut with St. Louis, Rom looked great, allowing just one earned run on two hits and four walks with 18 strikeouts over 11 innings.
The going was considerably tougher in the bigs, however. Remaining in the Cardinals rotation through the end of the season, Rom made eight starts but did not impress. He barely averaged four innings per outing while posting an ERA of 8.02 and a 5.75 FIP.
Of concern was a walk rate of 5.1 batters per nine as was his opposing batting average against of .340. That led to a lot of baserunners as evidenced by an ugly WHIP of 2.08. His strikeout rate of 8.6 per nine was a career low.
I asked a professional scout about Rom. “He wasn’t good in any of the three starts I saw,” the scout said. “He is a depth piece.”
2024 recap
Rom’s first full season as a Cardinal was a complete washout.
He suffered discomfort in spring camp due to left biceps tendinitis and because he had not yet been optioned to the minors, he opened the season on St. Louis’ 15-day injured list.
By the end of April, he had not responded well to plyometric exercises and visited a Dallas-based specialist. The decision was made for Rom to have season-ending arthroscopic surgery on his left shoulder. He was moved to the 60-day IL, where he remained for the rest of the season.
A positive for him is that he received an entire season of MLB service time. He did not exhaust a minor league option in 2024, so has two remaining.
2025 outlook
Rom is a seasoned Triple-A pitcher. He has already accumulated 134 2/3 career innings at the highest level of the minors over parts of two seasons with a 4.75 ERA.
Though his elapsed time as a healthy Cardinal has been relatively short, I am not sure how much more time he will be given to experiment with his offerings. He is at the point of his career when immediate results are expected.
However, he is not in a great spot right now. Considering his 2023 MLB results, 2024 injury and the quantity of starters competing for a spot with St. Louis, Rom is almost certainly not going to compete for a rotation spot with the major league squad in spring 2025.
Realistically, he is far enough down the pecking order that he may not even make the Triple-A rotation. There are at least eight legitimate candidates who may be ahead of him. They include returnees Gordon Graceffo, Ian Bedell, Sem Robberse, Adam Kloffenstein, Zack Thompson and system-wide Pitcher of the Year Quinn Mathews. Plus, prospects Tink Hence and Tekoah Roby will be coming up from Springfield, if healthy.
In other words, Rom’s future home may very well be long relief.
Like most lefties, Rom is better against same-sided batters, but he is not terrible against right-handed hitters. I could see him playing the Liberatore multi-inning relief role for St. Louis, though that may have to wait. With full health in the spring, the Cardinals’ 26-man active roster will almost certainly not have room for Rom, and there is no assurance he will be 100% healthy himself.
Most likely, a return to Triple-A is ahead for Rom while he completes his return from injury and perhaps adapts to a new role. A semi-regular spot on the I-55 Shuttle between Memphis and St. Louis could be his best-case scenario for 2025.
Future outlook
Future Value: 35
Role: Up/down depth/middle relief
Risk: Moderate
With all the Cardinals 2018-drafted pitchers having already washed out (Griffin Roberts, Steven Gingery, Edgar Gonzalez, et al), the organization has one last chance with the imported Rom.
As noted, Rom has two minor league option years remaining, so there is no immediate pressure with him. However, given his lost 2024, the uncertainty of how he will perform post-surgery and others coming up from behind, his hold on his 40-man roster spot feels increasingly tenuous.
Rom’s longevity on the 40-man is going to depend on his ability to carve out an effective role, first with Memphis, and then, to carry it over to St. Louis, whenever he receives another extended chance in the majors.
MLB debut: 2023
Minor league options remaining: 2
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50 Days, 50 Nights, 50 St. Louis Cardinals Prospects for 2025
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Brian Walton can be reached via email at brian@thecardinalnation.com. Follow Brian on X/Twitter.
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