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 starting pitchers. 

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 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 as evidence his 4.96 ERA over 121.2 innings at Double-A that season.

Romero was the Jays' 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 No. 8 heading into this season, saying “Romero may not be the 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 two.

When he controls his pitches, he can be successful. If he loses 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?

THIS ARTICLE IS ALSO FEATURED ON WWW.ROTOPROFESSOR.COM