Statcast Breakdown: Fernando Romero’s First Two Starts

I'm cautiously optimistic.  The league will adapt to him and analyze him and the big league hitters will start looking for certain pitches in certain situations.  I like him a lot, but I'll temper my enthusiasm for now.

With as much movement as he gets on the 2-seam fastball, it's going to be hard for a lot of guys to hold off on it and work counts, I think so even if he's not throwing it for strikes as often as the 4-seam he should still be effective on it. Goodness, some MLB pitchers don't get that kind of bend on their sliders! Filthy indeed.

Would love for him to be able to drop another couple of mph off the change; I think it'll be even nastier at 88mph than 91mph and will help his 4-seam fastball even more.

What amazes me about Romero is how smooth and comfortable his delivery is. He's chucking 97mph gas and almost looks like he's long-tossing in the OF. I also appreciate the speed at which he works a game. No way is he going to have to worry about a pitch clock!

This is a great analysis and something that Twins Daily does really well.   Great job.

He does remind me a bit of Scott Erickson and I think he is going to have to learn from Erickson's experience.   When Erickson came up in 1990 he was virtually unhittable.  If you look at the last half of 1990 and the first half of 1991, his first full year he had 20 wins and an ERA under 2.  

His 2-seam fast ball was completely destructive and it had the movement similar to Romero's. Hitters flailed away at it.

But, in the 2nd half of 1991 Erickson wasn't very effective.  HE had a ERA of 5.20 and as his 2.06 K/W ratio fell to 0.97.  

Two things happened in the 2nd half of 1991 and in my opinion one of the biggest changes is that hitters stopped swinging at Erickson's 2-seam and sliders that were not strikes.  Instead of getting ahead on counts from swing and misses, the batters themselves got ahead in the count and forced Erickson to come back with his less effective 4-seam fast ball. 

Over time this increased his pitch counts and Erickson threw an inordinate number of innings.  IN 1990 between AA andMLB he threw 224 innings.    From 1991 - 1993 he threw more than 200 innings a season for the Twins, just 144 in an injury shortened 1994 then 196 in 1995 when he was traded to Baltimore.  His last couple seasons with the Twins he was a below average pitcher with ERA+ in the 80s.  He had a couple decent seasons with Baltimore but was inconsistent with the exception of being an innings eater, pitching 220 or more innings or more for 4 straight seasons, including a 251 inning season in 1998.

This isn't meant to be a negative, just that a pitcher that throws like Romero and generates that much movement needs to be able to also pitch smart.  You arent always going to fool the hitters.  Santana and Liriano could do this because they had the change up they could throw for strikes.  Romero needs to develop that into a more effective pitch because the next time through these teams it is less likely they will be swinging at so many pitches that are so far out of the zone.

 

Not only has Romero not given up any runs, but neither the Blue Jays nor the Cardinals have really come all that close.

To be fair, Romero had one hard-hit ball that was almost a run; Eddie Rosario ended up catching it and robbing a homerun. 

https://www.mlb.com/twins/video/rosario-robs-fowler-at-the-wall/c-2018320983?tid=51231442

I have always believed that Erickson hurt his arm at Boston on May 7th that year (1991), throwing his third straight complete game.  IMO he was never the same pitcher after that. Velocity down, control down, slider not quite the same.

That's my memory also.   Had nothing to do with batters figuring him out.   

Personally, I don't think they will have him pitch past the 6th much this year, unless his pitch count is very low. The most innings he has ever pitched in a season is 125 last year, so I wouldn't be surprised if he is on an innings limit this year. The most important thing for Romero this year is still his long term health and development.

Beating dead horse time.   I agree the most important thing is Romero's health and development.   Still have seen no correlation to innings pitched.   IMO, also not supported by any research, is the number of pitches in any one given inning and staying loose and stretched out when the Twins have prolonged half innings on offense has more to do with his health.

"Increasing the gap between his fastball and changeup velocity is something Romero is going to need to work on in order to keep hitters off balance and have any sustained success with that pitch. In the mean time we can be in awe of a 92 MPH pitch that moves like this."

First off, great article and analysis.    While it might be preferable to have a larger gap I have heard that a good change up is hard to hit even when the batter knows it is coming because of the movement.   If there is a changeup that comes in above league average mph fastball with movement that has us in awe there is no reason to think success is unsustainable.   I have always been a big believer in changing speeds, pitches and locations to keep a batter off balance but a fastball that moves crazy left to right, a slider that moves crazy right to left, a changeup that moves crazy downward and a fastball that moves 98 mph is probably enough to keep batters off balance.    Command, which has been pretty good is still his biggest question mark.    Minor leaguers did score runs against him which makes it very likely that major leaguers will also but it is easy to imagine Romero having a high quality start percentage even by Bert's standards with the possible exception of getting 7 or more innings pitched.

I've always wondered, when pitchers talk like that, what exactly are they changing? Thumb location? Lower in the fingers? Different seams altogether?

"No, no, no. The seam on the left side of the ball."

Seriously though, that's a good question. Though if there's anyone to learn a changeup from, Rodney seems like a good choice.

Good stuff, but there are some issues here:

 

There seems to be a misconception that control and throwing strikes is a good thing.  However, command (the ability to put the pitch where you want to, including in the dirt or running inside) is really what is important.

 

So, I think what you are saying about "command" vs. "control" is not exactly correct either - though I think you're getting at it. I was actually going to comment about how I get the distinction, but it doesn't totally make sense. Then I figured I should maybe look it up to see if I actually understand the concept and found this article really helpful. So I'm just understanding this better myself (learn something new every day I guess)

"Command" is not the 'ability to put the pitch where you want to' - that would still be "control" which is all about location. "Command" has to do with movement (which you actually were talking about in the rest of your post) - but it has to do with commanding how the pitch will move - but not necessarily it's location (that's the control piece). Curve ball curves, slider slides, sinker sinks, etc (and I would assume to some level with the type of velocity the pitcher is intending as well - which would be particularly relevant to the discussion of Romero's change up).

So a pitcher with good command but poor control can make his pitches move - but they may end up in poor locations (either balls that hitters won't swing at, or very hittable strikes). 

A pitcher with good control but not great command can hit his spots but his pitches won't move as much or as consistently as he may like.

Pitcher's with great command and control (aces) are able to consistently get their pitches to move the way they want them to and end up in the spots they want them to.