Ricky Romero wont wow you with strike-outs (7.46K-Per-9) and his control isn’t quite as good as you’d first expect (3.51 BB-per-9) but he gets the job done. In 2010, Romero was incredibly luck-neutral. His 3.73 ERA was merely 0.02 away from his xFIP. His lower than expected .289 BABIP was negated by a lower than expected LOB%. Romero’s season had some ups and downs, but by and large he was incredibly consistent and completely legit.
Romero still has some room to grow if he can walk half-a-batter less per game. A 3.00 BB/9 isn’t expected by the models (3.89/3.49/3.40) but it’s definitely a realistic goal for the Jays hurler. With such limited upside, Romero isn’t exactly a sexy pick this spring and his ESPN ADP of 193 reflects that.
Sometimes the safety pick is a good pick though, and Ricky’s solid arsenal makes him a very safe pick. More than anything, his balls are very, very heavy. From 2009 to 2010 the only major difference in Romero’s pitch effectiveness was his fastball. Romero definitely took something off his fastball and started relying on his ability to sink and cut it more often than ever before. Fangraphs PFX data is slightly misleading so we have to consult the chart. You can see that Romero threw a huge percentage of fastballs that cut towards negative on the horizontal axis. Romero also worked in a terrific two-seamer (blue) that was very heavy and easily separated from his four-seamer and cutter.
Romero Change-UP versus Righties
Romero’s best looking pitch is that amazing change-up though. You can toss out some of the higher changes that screwed with his average movement and focus on the pitches that are just barely above 0 to well below 0. He’s getting almost 6 inches extra vertical *drop* on the change-up compared to his straight fastball. He’s throwing this pitch almost 26% of the time and absolutely destroying batters with it. Romero’s one of the few gentlemen that has a change-up that he can hang without feeling too many adverse effects. In the graph to the right you can see that Romero has great placement with the pitch but occasionally gets it up in the zone but very rarely misses inside.
A look at Texas Leaguers and you can see that Romero’s change-up drew a bunch of whiffs in 2010 and he went to it often. Plate discipline statistics against Romero tell an interesting story. Batters were almost exactly league average against Romero except when it came to making contact out of the zone. Romero made sure they missed 8% more often than average.
When it comes to safety picks, give me a guy that toys with his fastball and has a great change-up to keep his splits solid. Personally, I think Romero should sacrifice some of the K’s in favor of a lower BB/9, WHIP and ERA but I doubt it’s that easy. The Jays are young and they wont match last year’s WIN totals, but Romero is still a great safety net for any rotation.
