Has Charlie Manuel mishandled J.C. Romero?
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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.
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The problem with Romero, even facing lefties, is that he doesn't throw strikes. What good is it to bring in a lefty specialist if he walks the only hitter than he's in there to face?— SteveS11- What about where he comes in to face the lefty, and they pinch-hit a righty?— sportsdude99
- After Romero's last outing, he came in with a 7 run lead & after he departed it was a 7 to 5 lead. No lead is safe enough for Romero.
I would only feel safe if he came in to pitch the 9th inning of a 12 to 1 lead. But, how many games do the Phils offense generate a dozen runs.
On a positive note, Bastardo & Stutes have been overly impressive and exceeded everyone's expectations.
The Marlins have lost 11 of their past 13 games - so the Phils MUST beat these WRETCHED teams. The Braves just recently swept the Fish in a 3 game series.
What's up with Tuesdays for the Phillies?? They have won ONLY 1 game the entire year on TUESDAYS. Stop this hex TONIGHT!!!!!!!!— johnpaulcpa - To be fair, Romero entered the game with a five-run lead and runners on first and third. Contreras began the inning and left after allowing a two-run single to Aramis Ramirez.
Now, when the Phillies took that 7-0 lead, I was thinking that that was the ideal spot to use Romero. Start the inning clean with no pressure. Unfortunately, Manuel brought him into a pressurized spot and, to no one's surprise, he failed.— PhightinPhil - Enough of walking batters— shawnmac
- Interesting Murph but in reality Dubee makes the pitching decisions.— NewMick314
- All that analysis could've been summed up with one line: If ya can't throw strikes ya can't pitch. How can someone be counted on as a 'situational lefty' in high-leverage situations if he can't throw the ball over the plate?? And I don't even want to get into how much I hate the term 'situational lefty.' Puhleeaasee. If you want to pitch at the highest level and get paid millions of dollars, do yourself a favor and learn how to get guys out from both sides of the plate. Hell I'm left handed, pay me what you're paying Romero and I'll come out to face a lefty, after 4 or 5 pitches the hitter will be handing the bat to the bat boy as he trots down first and Chollie comes out of the dugout calling for a righty. Where do I sign up??— stikolaboloni
- Murph. Let's make a very LONG story short, shall we?
In his last appearance, Manuel brought Romero in to face the Cubs Blake DeWitt, a left-handed batter, with runners on first and third and the Phillies leading, 7-2. Romero walked DeWitt on four pitches to load the bases. He then allowed an RBI single to Geovanny Soto and a two-run single to Lou Montanez on a one ball, two strike pitch over the heart of the plate.
By your logic, Manuel used Romero properly in this case. But because he failed to record a single out, even against the lefty, Charlie was forced to burn through another reliever, Stutes, who was forced to bail out Romero.
— PhightinPhil - if he can't handle the BP, maybe he can be the team barber!
:)— marcooo - The mere notion that any human being other than J.C. Romero being responsible for J.C. Romero's "struggles" (he's not really struggling; he's just not good anymore now that he's off of PEDs...remember he was WAIVED by Boston before he got to the Phils, then he got on the juice and pitched lights out, then he got busted, made excuses - and whether he meant to or not is irrelevant, the fact is that the PEDs did in fact help him significantly, then got suspended, then not surprisingly post-PED use he's had injury problems, and now not surprisingly - but no less disappointingly - he's simply not good. To say that "conventional wisdom suggests that Charlie Manuel is as much to blame" is so ridiculous. To what "Conventional wisdom" would you be referring? Have you watched Romero pitch? Actually, you might be right - the fact that Manuel would EVER put Romero in the game at all is the problem. Your erroneous statement that, "Romero is still an effective pitcher against lefties" is absurd: LEFT-HANDED ("lefty" refers to, or at least connotes, a pitcher) HITTERS HAVE AN OBP OF .350 AGAINST HIM, WHICH IS A HORRIBLE OBP FOR A SO-CALLED LEFTY SPECIALIST TO HAVE AGAINST LEFT-HANDED HITTERS. Romero's unconditional release from the Phils is LONG overdue.— Truth B. Told
- Last Friday, Romero's problem was he couldn't throw strikes. Not the first time this season either.— PJH
- Good analysis Murph. I think that Romero, from day one, had to be looked at as only a LOOGY. Early on Bastardo hadn't established himself and there was no other lefty reliever so it wasn't as clear. But we knew what Romero was when we signed him again. He really is only suitable for that specialist role. What would be interesting to look at is this: How many of those non-LOOGY situations did Romero end up in because all other options were exhausted?
The reason he's around is they have no other left-handed reliever options other than Zagurski. I thing the Big Z can't be much worse though. Romero is done in my opinion. It's just a matter of when.
— s - Romero sucks because of him, nobody else— Old German
- Just get rid of him, PERIOD!— Clay Bigsby
- Romero he cocky like a rooster but get eaten by chicks. He no good.— Sam Crow
