[Note: Bumping this back up. Cole Figueroa coming on Wednesday -Kevin]
This is a new feature on the site, mainly because we're still in the doldrums of prospect season and we want to get discussion going. We'll be going through the alphabet in October and November to pick one prospect a day before our top prospect coverage starts in December. There's no real rhyme or reason to who we'll talk about, and we're open to suggestions for some letters.
This is a new feature on the site, mainly because we're still in the doldrums of prospect season and we want to get discussion going. We'll be going through the alphabet in October and November to pick one prospect a day before our top prospect coverage starts in December. There's no real rhyme or reason to who we'll talk about, and we're open to suggestions for some letters.
Together with this years' top pick Taylor Guerrieri, Enny Romero has the highest ceiling of any Rays pitcher in the lower minors. His FB/CB combo is very intriguing and his frame is very projectable. He induces an above average amount of groundballs and also shows promise with his change-up. The only thing holding him back is the very inconsistent control of his pitches. He tried to hit the corners, which when working made the A-ball hitters look foolish. If it didn't work, however, the result wasn't pretty. Hence, excellent starts were followed by catastrophic ones. His control, therefore, determines the fate of Enny Romero - the pitcher.
Despite ongoing inconsistency throughout his first full pro-season, his numbers improved during the season. The following table looks at 6 data points taken during the '11 season.
(Click at the image for a larger view)
The table shows that his results (ERA and FIP) improved from a 6.52/6.04 ERA/FIP at the 6th of May to 4.26/3.66 at the end of the season. Regarding the complementary statistics he improved slightly in BB/9 and H/9 during the season while holding his K/9 at a higher level. The stats tell me that - after trying to avoid his control problems by pitching a bit more for contact in May/June - he got a bit more comfortable with his pitches as the season progressed. Despite still, due to control problems, highly varying starting performances in the summer months, he managed to improve his results by trusting his abilities. I look forward to seeing more of that while having him working at his control for all of his career. If he improves in this department the same way Matt Moore did in '10 and '11, Enny Romero has a future as an above average major league starting pitcher.
I would include Parker Markel along with Guerrieri and Romero,as far a having the highest ceilings in our lower minors.
ReplyDeleteAgree that Romero needs to fix control issues. He can throw hard but that means nothing unless he has control.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous 1: It's very subjective and the case can be made that Parker Markel is right with them in terms of ceiling. I'm not that sure as well but I see him a tad behind in terms of ceiling.
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