Ricky Romero Hits Rock Bottom

The Blue Jays made a big trade (in terms of number of players, not impact) recently. I didn't write a post about it because I didn't think it was worthy. They gave up some middling prospects and bad players for some middling-to-bad players and salary relief. Meh. I wouldn't have done it, but short and long term, if that trade has any impact it will be more fluke than forecast. 

Significantly more important to the Jays near future, medium future, and somewhat long-term future, is the performance of Ricky Romero. Ricky Romero has been awful in 2012. He left tonight's game after recording 4 outs, while walking 6 and striking out 1. This outing left his ERA at a whopping 5.75 and his WHIP at an unseemly 1.57. Those superficial stats are supported (if you can call it that) by a 5.29 FIP and 4.69 xFIP. He's been worse than a replacement-level pitcher, when the Jays were relying on him to be the ace of their staff. 

Relying on Romero to be the ace of your staff probably means that you don't have a good pitching staff, which the Jays don't. But Romero should have at least provided nearly a couple hundred innings with a sub 4 ERA, a good ground ball rate, a good strikeout rate, and a few too many long balls. There's nothing wrong with those numbers, and right now, Jays' management and fans would gladly take them.

But why is Romero pitching so much worse than that? Well, he's giving up far more line drives, and although he's giving up fewer fly balls, the ones he is giving up are turning into home runs at an alarming 17.5% rate. Digging deeper, all of his pitches are grading out at a negative value, other than his change-up, and even it's way down in performance value. Hitters are laying off his stuff outside of the zone, and because he's throwing so few pitches in the zone, they're laying off those too. Basically, they're waiting for him to walk them, unless he throws them a meatball, in which case their hammering a line drive or cracking a home run. His swinging strike rate has plummeted from a well-above-average 9.6% to a below-average 7.8%. He just isn't fooling anyone. ANYONE.

I'm not a scout. I can't watch a guy throw a ball and tell whether or not he has average or elite major-league stuff. That said, watching Ricky Romero throw, it's obvious that his command of the strike zone has disappeared. Whether that's mechanical or mental, the Jays' coaching staff needs to do some serious work with him. I wouldn't be surprised if they put him on the DL with some phantom injury, or flat-out skipped him in the rotation for a turn or two. He's too good and too experienced to send to the minors (I think), and the same goes for sending him to the bullpen (I think). 

But the Jays desperately need to get Romero straightened out. He's owed $7.5million per year for the next 3 years, which in baseball terms isn't all that much. The team has an option for $13.1million after that, or can buy him out for $600,000, but that's neither here nor there at this point. I'm confident that he can be "worth" the roughly 1.5 WAR per season needed to earn that contract, but it's beginning to look less and less likely that he'll be the bargain he appeared to be entering the season. 

Romero needs to regain command and control of his fastball. He's throwing it a little slower, not too much slower, but he's also throwing it far less and far less effectively. When you're a fastball-change-up guy (for the most part), you have to throw both of them for strikes and put them where you're aiming. In fact, everything in his arsenal seems to be set up with the fastball, and without it, he's useless. He needs to get it back, and that will probably take time and effort. 

Again, I don't know how, but I'd absolutely skip his next turn in the rotation and get to work with him in side sessions. He needs intense scrutiny, but it's ridiculous to think that he's finished as a major league pitcher. A guy with his arsenal doesn't suddenly suck unless he loses velocity or movement, and that doesn't appear to be the case in this circumstance. There's a solid chance a lot of it is mental, and I'm of the school of thought that those issues can be fixed far more easily than loss of talent issues can. 

Ideally, he figures it out ASAP. More realistically, the staff will need to be very patient with him. Putting him back on a MLB mound to struggle in front of everyone can't be healthy for him in the short or long term. With all the team's injury woes, the last thing they need is their purported ace pitching like a minor leaguer.