Living in Toronto, I have no choice but to follow the Blue Jays, which I suppose is better than being a Montrealer who was an Expos fan. Occasionally, I’ll get to catch my Athletics if they’re playing the Mariners on Sportsnet Pacific, but for the most part it’s all-Jays, all the time. This my friends — has almost nothing to do with fantasy baseball. Proceed!
Drafting Romero
Either way, Ricky Romero, the Jays’ first round pick in 2005, has looked solid, if not spectacular, in his first two starts. Romero was one Ricciardi’s first picks, after being brought on in 2002.
J.P. Ricciardi had made a habit of drafting college pitchers, as per MoneyBall-Theory, with Zach Jackson (currently with the Indians) and David Purcey (Blue Jays #2 Starter) coming off the board as Blue Jays first rounders in 2004. With Ricciardi’s first two picks in 2002 and 2003, two shortstops came off the board: Russ Adams (2002) and Aaaron Hill (2003). All of this brings us back to Romero, and this quote by Jays’ GM, Ricciardi:
“We had two guys targeted — Romero and Tulowitzki. It worked out perfect for us,” said J.P. Ricciardi, Toronto’s general manager. “With Adams and Hill already here, we want to lean more toward pitching.” — MLB.com
Drafting a college pitcher, Romero’s a Cal State Fullerton grad, is at least theoretically supposed to put you on the fast-track to getting a MLB-ready pitcher. It certainly worked for Oakland, who selected Mark Mulder and Barry Zito in consecutive years and had them in the show by 2000, less than 2-full years after selecting them in ’98 and ’99 1st-year player drafts, respectively.
Didn’t work quite so well for the Blue Jays, with Romero finally reaching the show in 2009. The Highschooler’s that Ricciardi passed up to get Romero?
- Cameron Maybin, selected 10th overall by Detroit
- Andrew McCutchen, selected 11th overall by Pittsburgh
- Jay Bruce, selected 12th overall by Cincinnati
- Chris Volstad, selected 16th overall by Florida
- Colby Rasmus, selected 28th overall by St. Louis
There’s also the College Players that J.P. passed up:
- Mike Pelfrey, selected 9th overall by New York
- Jacoby Ellsbury, selected 23rd overall by Boston
- Matt Garza, selected 25th overall by Minnesota
- Clay Bucholz, selected 42nd overall by Boston
…and these are all just first rounders or compensatory picks, selected behind Romero. There’s also plenty of talented youngsters in the pipeline that I omitted (Travis Buck, Jed Lowrie, Cliff Pennington, Joey Devine, etc.)
Needless to say, uber-genius Keith Law disagreed with Ricciardi on Romero’s selection. Romero had experienced shoulder trouble on-route to posting a very solid 2.89 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, 9.3 K/9, 2.3 BB/9 line as a 20-year old at Cal State Fullerton.
Romero in 2009
- vs. Detroit: 6 IP, 2 ER, 2R, 7 H, 2BB, 5K
- @ Minnesota: 8 IP, 2ER, 2R, 8 H, 0 BB, 2K
At the very least, Romero’s looked sharp against both clubs, on route to his 2009 line of: 2.57 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 7K and 2BB
Romero does have a solid repitoire of pitches, yielding a 91-94mph four-seamer, a 88-90mph cutter, a 76mph curve, an 81mph change, and an 82mph slide-piece.
After the latest Brett Anderson-MLBGAMEDAY-HATES-ME fiasco, I’m starting to feel like MLB Game Day is not a fan of left handers, me, or efficient use of your cpu.
Anyways, Romero exhibited solid control last night throwing 70 of 106 pitches for strikes. He didn’t have his bestest of stuff, but still got 12 ground-outs compared to 9 fly-outs. Solid. On the year, Romero’s sporting a delicious 1.50 GB:FB ratio, and better yet has only allowed 9% of the balls to be hit for line-drives.
Romero’s Cutter: This is proving difficult, as I’m not even certain whether or not the pitch is cutting, it is however dipping. It may be that the camera’s b0rked, or that he’s actually throwing a two-seamer at 88-90mph — at this point, I’m not going to lean one way or the other. Fangraphs.com doesn’t have the pitch listed as a cutter, but rather as almost 50% of the pitches being unidentifiable. The pitch however isn’t breaking like his 4-seamer, which does have some life on it (92-93mph, 3-5″ break, 10-15″ pfx)
My Problem With The Jays Love Of The Cutter:
The Cutter is a devestating pitch that’s made the Blue Jays pitching staff dominant. Everyone’s throwing it, with the exception of McGowan, who merely dabbled in the art of the cutter.
Alas, this damn pitch is killing our pitchers — dead.
I say this, because I have played a doctor on, probably 6 Canadian produced television shows. I just have the doctor look — Tall, Dark, Handsome — a compulsive liar.
Marcum, Doc, Litsch, and Romero all throw this damn pitch, and all of them are rather massive injury risks. Litsch just went on the 15-Day DL, and Marcum’s out for the year. Doc pitched 246 Innings last year, and I wrote him down for about 170 IP this year — Maxxx-ooo-mum.
Needless to say, I’m not a fan of this devil-spawn-of-a-pitch.
I think the Jays may actually be limiting Romero’s use of the pitch, possibly even subbing it for a 2-seamer. I dont know the answer to this question, because I watched Episode 2 of THE DEADLIEST WARRIOR last night, instead of the extra innings loss. To no-ones surprise, the Samuri WARRIOR notched out a victory over the underdog VIKING WARRIOR. I believe the final score to be 533 to 467 (closer than I would have predicted.)
BACK TO ROMERO:
Fantasy wise, Romero doesn’t quite have what you’re probably looking for. He’ll be interesting to watch, as he should develop into a 6 or 7 K per 9 guy, rather than his current 4.5K per 9. Unfortunately, with this will come a rather noticeable elevation in walks per 9. Romero’s always had solid K:BB numbers, but anything over 2-to-2.5 would surprise the hoot out of me.
Eventually I’ll get around to catching Romero at the Dome, and try and sit behind homeplate. Numbers LIE, My well-trained scouting eyes do not!
Edit: I came across this a bit late but: the boys over at Mopupduty.com analyzed Romero’s first start in all of it’s pfx goodness.
