Showing posts with label Ricky Romero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ricky Romero. Show all posts

Friday, August 5, 2011

Trade Ricky Romero

It's time for the Jays to trade Ricky Romero. Well, not now, because we're past the non-waiver trade deadline. But at the end of the season, the Jays should ship him out, ideally for another young starter.

Ricky's strikeout-to-walk rate in the past two years has been a hair over 2:1. That's solid, but Ricky has been gaining a reputation as one of the AL's elite. This season, he's had an ERA under 3 much of the time and has put up a lot of innings. Yet it's largely thanks to a low hit rate: his BABIP this year is an outrageous .265. Regression would seem to be in the cards for his future. He's a 3.50-4.00 ERA pitcher, not a 2.98 ERA man. He's a lot closer to Ted Lilly than, say, Clayton Kershaw.

What's more, Romero has put on a lot of mileage in the last couple years. There's nothing to suggest that he's about to get injured, but big innings totals have a way of doing that.

I like Romero - he's been a career Jay and it's nice to see him succeed after being labelled as a mistake in the draft. I'm just saying: if the Jays can get the right offer for him, they shouldn't be afraid to sell high. A return, for example, similar to the one they got for Shawn Marcum. I'm not sure they need more position players, which of course narrows your possibilities. They'd need a trading partner who wants to do more of a challenge trade.