Your Future Rotation: Part Seven

Ricky Romero has the misfortune to now be tied in with what many fans believe to be J.P. Ricciardi biggest blunder. After the Jays miserable 2004, Ricciadri used his first round draft pick in 2005 to take Romero sixth overall. That was ahead of players like Troy Tulowitzki, Ryan Braun and Matt Garza. Romero's lack of consistency in the minors has increased the demands to see him finally produce some value for the club.

Romero throws four pitches, a fastball, curveball, changeup and cutter. None of his pitches are particularly notable, and he relies on control and location to strike out batters. He's been working on a four seam changeup as well, which hasn't really shown up on the radar yet. The problem has been that control, giving up a lot of walks; 75BB between Double A and Triple A combined in 2008. With allowing that many baserunners, Romero's ERA ballooned to just a hair under 5 in AA, and a WHIP of 1.59.

The bright spot of 2008 was not only a relatively healthy year following the injuries in 2007, but also over 164 innings pitched over both levels. On his promotion to AAA Syracuse, Romero seemed to have taken some steps forward in his pitching. In seven games, he managed to increase his K/9 to 8.02, reduce his ERA and WHIP to 3.38 and 1.45 respectively. He actually gave up fewer hits than he did walks, but still, it shows at least the potential for effectiveness.

Romero is very unlikely to pick up one of the rotation spots out of spring training, but remains at least a distant possibility. Most likely, the Jays will see if he can build on his success in AAA, and establish some kind of consistency there first. His ceiling isn't considered to be very high; a middle of the rotation guy at best, and without an effective out pitch, he needs to live and die by location. Unless he can get his walks under control, Romero will end up a AAA+ player, talented, but just lacking the ability to transition to the majors. However, with either a strong spring, or injuries, it's possible that we'll see Romero up as a stop gap starter.