Mates, Romano, Countrymen: Lend Me Your Arms

DALLAS — There’s solely a lot oxygen accessible for big-payroll Northeastern groups which can be in disaster regardless of a largely profitable 2024 marketing campaign. And the Yankees, as ever, have been sucking up a lot of the consideration. However don’t underestimate the furor that’s been floating round Philadelphia since the Fightins’ ignominious four-game NLDS exit. Dave Dombrowski has been rumored to have his finger in lots of pots within the first month of the offseason — an Alec Bohm change-of-scenery commerce right here, a Garrett Crochet blockbuster there — however as of the opening of MLB’s Winter Conferences, nothing had but materialized.

Nicely, wait now not. Longtime Blue Jays nearer Jordan Romano is on the Rob Ducey Freeway, certain for South Philly on a one-year, $8.5 million contract.

The bullpen was a energy for Philadelphia in 2024, with Jeff Hoffman and Matt Strahm making the All-Star staff, and Orion Kerkering having an excellent case to do the identical. Or I ought to say, it was a energy till it very all of the sudden and emphatically wasn’t. As unsettling because the Phillies’ offensive outage was, they in all probability would’ve crushed the Mets had the bullpen not coughed up… let’s see right here, I do know I’ve the precise determine someplace… one gajillion runs within the 4 video games of the NLDS.

There was all the time going to be some turnover within the Phillies’ pen, with Hoffman and deadline acquisition Carlos Estévez certain free of charge company, however is the very best resolution to a historic meltdown actually to throw $8.5 million at a 31-year-old who had a 6.59 ERA in 2024?

Fortuitously, Romano’s 2024 stats don’t inform the entire story. In reality, I’d argue that you possibly can write them off totally. Romano was hamstrung and finally sidelined by elbow soreness, which ended his season simply after Memorial Day — not that Romano, a local of Markham, Ontario, would know what which means — and resulted in arthroscopic surgical procedure in July. That definitely constitutes an harm concern that factored into the Blue Jays’ non-tendering their onetime aid ace, and Romano needed to move a bodily. However when all his joints are in working order, Romano is an excellent aid pitcher.

And a longtime favourite of sure FanGraphs writers. I interviewed Romano in September 2022 and Ben Clemens adopted with an evaluation of his repertoire the next June. Each articles centered on one specific — I’d argue distinctive — attribute: Romano’s extension.

“Wait, he simply signed a one-year contract with a brand new staff, why are we speaking about an extension?”

My dangerous. I imply Romano releases the ball extraordinarily near residence plate. In his final full season, 2023, Romano was tied for second — out of 479 pitchers with not less than 500 pitches — in common extension. Which makes a point of sense, as a result of Romano is 6-foot-5 with arms like a wind turbine. A non-trivial share of my 2022 article could possibly be summarized succinctly as: “Dang, this man is tall!”

On the time, I wrote about an apparent benefit of getting lengthy extension: Romano releases the ball a foot nearer to residence plate than most pitchers, and two toes nearer than some. That provides the hitter a tiny fraction of a second much less to learn and react to the pitch, which might be not information to you, an individual who made it under the break on a FanGraphs article. You’ve in all probability identified about perceived velocity for 15 years. And the impact is appreciable for a pitcher who throws 97 mph to start with.

Ben famous one other attention-grabbing function of Romano’s supply, nonetheless. A pitcher together with his physique kind and arm angle — 50 levels, which is on the vertical aspect of excessive three quarters — must have what’s often called a tall-and-fall supply. Romano is extra drop-and-drive. He will get low, pushes arduous off his again foot, and finally ends up planting his entrance foot all the best way out on the fringe of the mound.

Regardless of his peak and arm angle, Romano was solely a hundred and eightieth in vertical launch level in 2023. That’s not simply due to his decrease physique posture, however as a result of — as Ben famous — the farther ahead his foot lands, the decrease the mound is at that time.

The decrease launch level — and decrease method angle — accentuated the vertical traits of a pitch that already had extra “rise” than the common four-seamer. So now, as a substitute of sinking into the hitter’s bat path, Romano can paint the highest of the zone and even work above it to generate whiffs and popups. Add in a tough vertical breaking ball, a pitch that will get tagged as a slider — however which Romano instructed me he thinks of as a curve — and you’ve got essentially the most stereotypical fashionable nearer attainable.

What are the Phillies going to do with him?

Nicely, Romano is a veteran who saved 95 video games between 2021 and 2023, and principally operated as a one-inning nearer. The Phillies are likely to have a reasonably fluid bullpen mannequin; final season, Hoffman, Strahm, and Kerkering would are available at any time when matchups dictated, as did José Alvarado when he was on his sport. Whoever obtained the save was of comparatively little significance. Eight completely different pitchers recorded not less than one save for the 95-win Phillies in 2024, and no one saved greater than 13 video games.

Romano might filter into that blend, or supervisor Rob Thomson might use him the best way he used Craig Kimbrel in 2023: As a devoted one-inning nearer for save conditions outdoors the high-leverage committee. Besides Romano is barely cheaper, and hopefully he wouldn’t stroll the Phillies out of a number of winnable NLCS video games. Fingers crossed.

It stays to be seen how Thomson will deploy Romano, and the reply is prone to rely on additional signings and trades which can be but to be made. What makes Romano an attention-grabbing match now could be that fastball.

The Phillies’ observe file for growing expertise is just not dangerous, but it surely’s a bit spotty. With that stated, the one factor they do higher than anybody else is train fastballs. And never four-seamers.

Of the 5 Phillies starters to throw not less than 50 innings final season, 4 — Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Ranger Suárez, and Taijuan Walker — threw three various kinds of fastball. The one exception, first-time All-Star Cristopher Sánchez, threw virtually completely sinkers.

Even within the bullpen, the place you will get by on two pitches, they like a multi-fastball method. 9 of the Phillies’ high 10 relievers, by innings pitched, threw a sinker not less than 8% of the time. The lone exception was Estévez, who joined the staff in midseason. Alvarado threw his sinker to the exclusion of a four-seamer, and his solely secondary pitch, if you wish to name it that, was a cutter.

Romano throws arduous — which the Phillies like — however he doesn’t throw their attribute pitch. It might not shock me, subsequently, if he spent spring coaching studying a sinker, cutter, or each to go together with his uncommon four-seamer.

Alternatively, Romano might reply a criticism of the Phillies’ roster development — simply not within the unit everybody had in thoughts. In the event you watched the NLDS, you in all probability noticed the Phillies’ hitters chase rather a lot, to their final doom. That is an aggressive lineup, Kyle Schwarber however, and when your entire lineup is that this homogeneous, an opponent who figures out one hitter’s weak spot can use that resolution towards your entire staff in a brief collection.

The Phillies haven’t made a serious offseason transfer to unravel that offensive weak spot — both by commerce, free agent singing, or constructing a time machine to deliver again the height model of an on-base machine like Darren Daulton or Bobby Abreu. (A minimum of not but.)

However the cost of deadly sameness might even have been leveled towards the bullpen, so it could possibly be that Romano is enticing to this staff exactly as a result of he can throw a unique take a look at opponents who would possibly’ve anticipated Alvarado, or Kerkering’s sinker-sweeper combo.

Both manner, you don’t need to assume too arduous about this one. Romano was an elite nearer for 3 years earlier than he obtained damage, he throws within the higher 90s, and he was accessible for barely greater than backup catcher cash. This might find yourself being an particularly productive mixture of participant and staff, representing nice worth for the Phillies and a platform for a Hoffman-like free company for Romano in 12 months’ time. However at minimal, it’s an inexpensive worth for an excellent pitcher.