Will Ricky Romero Continue to Succeed?
Over the past few seasons one of the constants for the Blue Jays franchise has been to seemingly always be in need of help in the starting pitcher. We discussed Marc Rzepczynski a few days ago (click here to view), but today it’s not just a potentially flash in the pan former first round draft pick. Ricky Romero, who hasn’t lost in his last six starts, has been a tremendous surprise for the team, posting a line of:
87.0 Innings
3.00 ERA
1.26 WHIP
69 Strikeouts (7.14 K/9)
30 Walks (3.10 BB/9)
.281 BABIP
Before we dub him a must use option in all formats, there’s a few things that need to be considered.
First of all is his success against the rest of the AL East:
- Orioles - 13.1 IP, 9 ER, 18 H, 4 BB, 6 K
- Red Sox - 4.0 IP, 5 ER, 6 H, 5 BB, 5 K
- Yankees - 6.1 IP, 3 ER, 7 H, 3 BB, 5 K
- Rays - 8.0 IP, 0 ER, 5 H, 2 BB, 6 K
Outside of that start against the Rays, those numbers really haven’t been too impressive, have they? It totals a 4.62 ERA and 1.60 WHIP to go with a 6.35 K/9 and 4.04 BB/9, numbers considerably worse then those for the entire season.
You can argue that two of the starts (against Baltimore and Boston) came in May, when he was struggling. Those were his two worst starts of the season to date, the only times he has allowed more than three earned runs in an outing. They are also the only starts where he failed to last six innings.
Is it a coincidence and he would have struggled no matter whom the opponent? It’s possible, but I’m not completely buying it. The AL East is a tough place to pitch and until he proves that he can do it against the top teams, I’m going to remain skeptical and one start against the Rays just isn’t enough for me to go on.
Over his minor league career he went 16-22 with a 4.42 ERA and 1.47 WHIP over 430.0 innings pitched, certainly not numbers that lead us to believe that he’s going to be able to successfully maneuver his way through the likes of the Red Sox and Yankees. Yes, he had a 3.37 ERA over 42.2 innings at Triple-A in 2007, but that’s a small sample size. Consider his 4.96 ERA over 121.2 innings at Double-A that season as evidence.
He is a former 2005 first round pick and has consistently been ranked among the Blue Jays Top 10 prospects by Baseball America since, despite his struggles on the mound.
He was #8 heading into this season, saying “Romero may not be ace he was in college, but his stuff still will play in the big leagues if he throws more strikes with it. He pitches at 91-92 mph and touches 94, but he struggles to command his fastball for strikes. His power curveball usually arrives in the high 70s and features sharp downward break, while his power changeup has enough separation and sink to fool batters.”
Finding the strike zone is something he has been doing consistently well this season, outside of his starts against the AL East. He’s posted a BB/9 of 2.61 in those starts, helping to lead him to an ERA of 2.12 and a WHIP of 1.09. You could see in the start against the Rays, when he walked just 2.
When he controls his pitches, he can be successful. When he losses a little bit of sight of the strike zone, things start to slip away from him a little bit.
While it’s possible that he is undergoing a renaissance season of sorts, I’m not buying it. His minor league track record and his struggles against the AL East pose significant risk, as does the fact that he’s a rookie pitcher. Rookie pitchers are generally inconsistent, and with ample opportunity to struggle against his biggest rivals, I’d be concerned moving forward.
Looking into selling him high, depending on what you can get, definitely is something that I would investigate. His overall numbers are extremely impressive, but a significantly worse second half could certainly be in his future. I wouldn’t bet on him continuing his impressive first half success.
What are your thoughts on Romero? Is he a pitcher you are looking to sell? Are you willing to depend on him in the second half?
To read the previous article, click here.
Dude, Romero is ridiculous….forget about his DOUBLE A stats…Learn about the sport, and trends. The starts you are talking about were when he came directly off the DL. Stop bein a hater.
As a Romero owner I must disagree. You said a few times that he only had 1 good start against the AL East but 8 shutout innings shouldn’t be the qualification for a good start. That 6.1 3 ER 5K outing in Yankee stadium impresses me too. Also those 2 bad starts were the 2 immediately after he missed a month b/c of injury. No more than 3 ERs in any other start as you said. I agree that his minor league numbers do not show that he should be this good, but it seems as if control was a problem in the past. His changeup and curveball are devastating. It would be hard to expect a repeat performance from him but to say that because of his AL East numbers he won’t continue his success is tough. What AL East pitchers besides Roy Halladay really has great careers against the Yankees and Boston? This guy is good and is consistent. If I see even a sign of him getting worse I’ll agree its time to sell and use his numbers as trade bait, but if he keeps doing what he’s done every start but 2 this year he’s a great asset.
I agree that those starts did come immediately after his injury, that’s a fair point and one to be taken into account. While 3 Er in 6.1 innings is alright, it’s still an ERA of 4.43 and he posted a WHIP of 1.64. I know it was in Yankee Stadium, but those are far from usable numbers.
He was great against Tampa Bay and good against Baltimore, but I need to see him succeed more in the AL East.
I can’t simply ignore his minor league numbers, because this is still a relatively small sample at the major league level. Plus, you could go by the old adage of a rookie is a rookie is a rookie.
What would you have said about Trevor Cahill prior to 6/27, when he was sporting an ERA of 3.68 and had only allowed more than 3 earned runs twice? He’s been bombed in his last three starts and now looks unusable.
I’m banking on him being drafted 6th overall by Toronto to mean something. He battled shoulder problems his next two years and 2008 I think he was trying to find himself - and he struggled some. Now healthy, I think Romero is confident. Also, even if he hasn’t pitched his best against AL East opponents, Girardi said (of his last start against NYY) that he reminded him of Santana- excellent changeup off of a mid-low 90s fastball. While I know Santana is world’s better, it’s still a pretty nice complement.
I’ve been looking to deal him, big time. Looking at his mediocre minor league numbers and 85% LOB rate… I’m not expecting good things in the second half. Currently I have an offer for Burrell. I’m thinking of getting him for Romero in case he tanks.
It’s a gamble either way, b/c Burrell might not pick it up, and Romero might keep going strong. My league uses OBP, BB and slugging, and Burrell (against lefties, I have a lot of OFs I can swap in and out depending on matchups) is very intriguing.
What do you all think?
Drew, I like the idea, but I think you may be able to get a little bit more than Burrell overall. With the way Romero has pitched this season I’d probably set my sights a little bit higher then him, but use Burrell as a fallback option.
What does everyone else think?
I definitely agree with you - I thought I could score higher, too, but no luck. Tried to get Branyan from the same guy, but he wanted to do Burrell. Then I tried to unload Randy Wells for Burrell and he wouldn’t do it.
I’m confused by your post. It seems you are weighting his earlier numbers more than his recent numbers in citing your advice to sell high. Ricky has thrown 8 straight quality starts (record 6-2) which came against bal, nyy, tb, phi, was, phi again, tex, and kc. Ok, I will give you kc, throw that out and you have 7 straight quality starts against top offenses ranked by OPS. In fact, 4 of those starts came against top 5 ranked teams by OPS.
Yankees top rated team in OPS at .828
Tampa Bay ranked 2nd in OPS at .806
Phi ranked 4th in OPS at .793
Tx ranked 7th in OPS at .772
Was 14th at .753
Bal ranked 16th at .746
In addition during his last start against the Yankees, he had given only 1 run going into the 7th and was lifted when his pitch count exceeded 100 and Brandon League came in and allowed 2 inherited baserunners to score. I thought he pitched very well vs. Yankees.
Tampa Bay was a shutout and in 2 starts totaling 14 innings against Phi, he allowed 3 runs 1 game and 0 in another over 14 innings.
He looks like a pitcher that is starting to figure things out to me. It is so hard to predict pitching. Look at the case of Edwin Jackson, none of the projection systems pointed to the season he has put up to date but make no mistake about it, Jackson is breaking out.
How is this for a stat. Ricky has thrown 11 of 13 quality starts this year while Roy Hallady has thrown 12 of 17. Furthermore, Ricky ranks 2nd only to Dan Haren in the majors for quality starts among pitchers with 80 innings or more. The only 2 starts he did not have a quality start was coming off injury back in May as you pointed out.
Quality Start %
Dan Haren 94%
Ricky Romero 85%
Josh Johnson 84%
Zack Greinke 83%
Tim Lincecum 83%
Cliff Lee 79%
Billingsley 79%
Edwin Jackson 78%
Felix Hernandez 78%
Johan Santana 72%
Josh Beckett 73%
Ricky has top quality stuff, he just has not been effective in minor league innings. I do agree with you on this point that I would like to see improved command and control lead to a lower bb/9 as well as higher k/9. From a rookie pitcher, I expect some inconsistency in this area but Ricky so far this year has been proven to be one of the more consistent pitchers from QS% as I have illustrated. If he can continue improvement in command and control, Toronto’s offense will give him plenty of run support and he could win a surprising amount of games. Even if his quality start % were to drop to 50% in 2nd half, he could win another 8 games or so. Even if his ERA were to rise by half a run to 3.50 in second half, he could be extremenly usable if his k/9 increases or stays the same.
The glass half full or half empty, that is what is so fun about this. You look at numbers and tell 1 story and I look at the numbers and reach a different conclusion. BTW, I rally enjoy the site and posts by you and I also think Jimmy Hascup does a great job.
Thanks Jon for the complements and the analysis. I am a Ricky Romero fan, so I’m hoping the success continues!