Has Charlie Manuel mishandled J.C. Romero?
News blogs, sports blogs, entertainment blogs, and more from Philly.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.
Has Charlie Manuel mishandled J.C. Romero?
David Murphy, Daily News Staff Writer
The conventional wisdom suggests that Charlie Manuel is as much to blame for J.C. Romero's struggles this season as Romero himself. Manuel, the thinking goes, has used Romero far too often against right-handed hitters instead of using him exclusively against lefties. Of the 72 batters Romero has faced, 45 have hit from the right side of the plate.
Romero is still an effective pitcher against lefties: This season, he has allowed just five hits (all singles), in 22 at-bats with eight strikeouts and four walks against them. Against rightities, he has allowed 11 hits (with five doubles) in 36 at-bats with two strikeouts and eight walks.
All of that has begged the question: Why does Manuel insist on using Romero against righties?
But. . .
Maybe Manuel really hasn't insisted on using Romero against righties as much as we think, at least not in situations that have impacted the outcome of a game.
A few things to consider:
1) Of Romero's 45 plate appearances against righties this season, 14 took place in situations where the Phillies were leading or trailing by at least four runs in the seventh, eighth, or ninth inning.
Of the remaining 31 plate appearances:
- Five came in the seventh or eighth inning of a game that the Phillies trailed by three runs.
- Eight came in the seventh or eighth of a game that the Phillies trailed by two runs.
- Three came in the sixth inning of a game that the Phillies led by three runs.
In other words, of Romero's 45 PAs against righties, only 14 came in situations where he was being asked to protect a tight lead or hold a small deficit in the later innings. These are the ones we remember: Lance Berkman's walk-off RBI single in the ninth inning of a 1-1 game in St. Louis. Adrian Beltre's double in the eighth inning of a game the Phillies trailed 1-0, etc.
2) Leverage Index is a metric that attempts to quantify the importance of a given situation in a game. A plate appearance with runners on base in a tie game in the ninth has a high Leverage Index. A plate appearance with nobody on in a five-run game has a low Leverage Index.
Baseball-Reference.com defines a "High Leverage" situation as one with a Leverage Index of 1.5 or greater. Medium leverage is 0.70-1.49. Low leverage is anything below 0.70.
Romero has faced a batter in a "High Leverage" situation 13 times this season. He has faced a pure right-handed batter in only three of those plate appearances. In three others, he has faced a switch-hitter: Berkman, who has a .779 career OPS as a right-handed batter compared to a 1.013 OPS as a left-handed batter, and Chipper Jones, who faced Romero twice (Jones has a career OPS of over .900 from both sides of the plate, although his OPS as a righty is slightly lower).
Even when you factor in the switch-hittes, Romero has faced lefties in seven of his 13 High Leverage plate appearances. In those seven plate appearances against lefties, he has recorded an out three times. In the other four, he has allowed three walks and an infield single.
In 12 medium leverage plate appearances, Romero has faced righties six times, lefties five times, and a switch-hitter once.
In the 5 medium leverage PAs against lefties, he has recorded three outs, with the other two batters reaching base on singles. Righties are 3/7 with two doubles and a double play ball.
So in 25 medium-to-high leverage situations, Manuel has used Romero against lefties in 12 plate appearances and against righties/switch-hitters in 13.
Romero has not recorded a strikeout in any of those 25 plate appearances. His highest-leverage strikeout came against Pittsburgh's Xavier Paul with a man on second base in the bottom of the seventh inning of a game the Phillies trailed 4-2 (.52 leverage index).
3) So while Manuel has used Romero against righties 45 times, 32 of those plate appearances came in low leverage situations. Of his 27 plate appearances against lefties, 13 have come in low leverage situations.
4) Of the 26 left-handed relievers with at least 16 appearances this season, only 11 have faced lefties more times than righties. Two of those pitchers are members of bullpens in which there are two other lefty relievers. And four others are paired with another lefty specialist.
Romero's numbers certainly suggest he should be deployed as a LOOGY. But situations that call for a LOOGY have been few and far between this season, with the starters pitching so deep into games and lefty Antonio Bastardo establishing himself as a viable set-up man. Unlike the Phillies, most teams do not have four left-handed hitters in the top seven spots in their line-up. And there are a lot of situations where a manager cannot afford to use a reliever to face one batter, particularly when his other lefty is a set-up man and not a lefty specialist.
The Cardinals' Trever Miller is the only lefty in his bullpen, and he has faced 18 righties compared with 38 lefties. So it can be done. And you can certainly find some situations where Manuel might have been better off using somebody other than Romero to face a righty.
But keep in mind the Phillies enter today with a 3.02 bullpen ERA that ranks fourth in the National League, despite injuries to two of their top arms (Lidge and Contreras). The Phillies have spent the bulk of the season with rookies as the top two options behind Ryan Madson. While the bullpen has logged fewer innings than any other NL team, Manuel also hasn't exactly had an enviable array of options to select from beyond Madson, Bastardo and Stutes.
Last season, Manuel used Romero against lefties in 97 of 181 plate appearances. But he also had Lidge, Contreras, Madson and Chad Durbin and, at times, Bastardo as a second option to face lefties.
Clearly, the ideal situation has Romero facing lefties. But I'm not sure that Manuel has mis-handled him to the extent that we think.
Download our NEW iPhone/Android app for easy access to all of our Phillies coverage, plus app-exclusive videos and analysis. Get it here.
Unfortunately, Romero has little left but limited guile. He has no velocity whatsoever. When Larry Anderson was throwing with that slow stuff, he had excellent control. This guy is missing command. The Loogy comment by MPATT was hilarious. Bring up DeFratus!— leecee- alot of wasted effort here murph. stop with the lefty/righty nonsense. he just stinks. he can grab himself well after every pitch. that's it.— manly
Comment removed.- Murphy, stop being an apologist for Manuel and Amaro. Manuel is about two degrees above the intelligence of a Rhesus Monkey and Amaro is a knee jerk, reckless GM who would be far better off running a Casino in Vegas. You guys won't criticize the verbally challenged Manuel because you don't want to lose access to the locker room, duh! Is there a such thing as objective reporting any more? Obviously the all mighty dollar rules:-)
The Phils could have been a dynasty if they had an intelligent 21st century manager and a savvy GM with an ounce of baseball integrity and tactical knowledge. Too bad.— daystrum - Lot of ignorance in the comments. Striking out over 11 per 9, inducing almost 80% ground balls against lefties is terrific. He just should never, ever face a right-handed pitcher. You need to put your players in the best position to win and Charlie has not done that with Romero. Like asking Valdez to hit a ball past the infield.— Bobby Yost
- Murph, I like your articles, you are thorough and knowledgeable, unlike certain HOF writers who are too drunk and cynical to connect with today's readers. However, in this case, you can't "paint by numbers". Romero has lost his command, and hasn't had it since his elbow surgery. His mechanics have been way off to compensate for the injury, and his propensity for walking the leadoff guy(guys) when starting an inning, regardless of left vs right, is a game changing momentum killing downer. If want to look at some numbers, look at the Phillies 7th innings, for their starters and especially the relievers, relative to the 8th and 9th. All we need is one guy who is decent to handle the 7th, like Durbin did, and they are "lock down solid". Romero is the worst guy for the 7th, and I don't trust him to be our LOOGY either, because of the walks. Walks starting innings late in the game kill games, and he is the worst offender. I don't blame Charlie one bit, In fact, I think he has stuck with him for too long out of loyalty, or desperation, since there is no one else. Zagurski is not the guy either, its time to cut both of them loose and get ourselves a real LOOGY.— laser5
- the only proper way to handle romero would be to give him a one way bus ticket to lehigh valley. he's completely washed up. either that, or take him back to that GNC and get him back on whatever it was he was taking back in 08— Ryan
- Consider the last time you felt confident about anything Romero had to offer the Phillies and I'd venture you're talkin' 2008 or earlier. The guy sends chill down my spine when I see him sauntering in from the bullpen. As with all relievers there is a limited shelf life with this breed and this cat has run out of lives. He can't throw the ball over the plate, he puts men on base and gets particularly frustrated while doing it. It's clear Charlie and Dubbee are rolling the dice every time they call him in. I'm frankly amazed to still see him on the team- especially in light of what the youngsters are doing these days. I was pleased to see him in a minor league uniform a while back- but it seems the ghost of Romero will haunt us yet another season.— bob warkulwiz
- Bottom line - Romero has not been the same pitcher since he suspended for juicing. End of story.— FatBoy90
- They should not have brought him back after last season. The guy stinks.— eaglesman1
- Why bring the boob in anyway--the guy he's going to replace can just as easy walk the next batter!!! Everybody's right this guy has NOT been the same since well you know when.— george22
- Oh,J.C.! Not Romero!!!— dasher
- Trade JC to the Yank who need a reliever, any reliever. Bring up a Lehigh kid who is any handed. He would do better for the team than JC nowadays. And that is a fact.— Koons
- i hope cholly handles him,.... right to the scrap heap— SyddBarrett
- The Phillies have to have another LH reliever in the minors that is better than JC. He is done.— Phront_Runner
