The Minnesota Twins dropped a bombshell of sorts on Monday afternoon, announcing that Phil Hughes will be shifted to the bullpen and Fernando Romero will make his big-league debut Wednesday against the Toronto Blue Jays and Marcus Stroman.
Romero, who is on the 40-man roster after being added this winter, has made four appearances — three starts — at Rochester so far this season, posting a 2.57 ERA and a 20-10 K/BB rate in 21 innings. This is his first tour of duty in Triple-A after spending all of last season at Double-A Chattanooga, and thus far opposing batters are hitting just .224/.322/.316 against him.
There’s a palpable excitement around Romero’s arrival; it’s the kind of vibe that hasn’t been felt around Target Field since Jose Berrios was called up for the first time in 2016.
There’s a reason why the potential ace label is thrown around with Romero — though it’s fairly loosely — and it’s because he possesses most of the important tenets necessary to be a dominant big-league pitcher.
The strikeouts are there — for the most part — as he’s fanned 8.6 batters per nine in each of the last two years. He’s induced an 11 percent swinging-strike rate with Rochester this year, and that’s just in his first look in the International League. That mark last year in Chattanooga was 12 percent — 10 percent or thereabouts is average in MLB — which is the same mark he had when he held opposing batters to a .204/.248/.265 line between Cedar Rapids and Fort Myers in 2016.
In addition to strikeouts, he keeps the ball on the ground. He’s had a groundball rate of 50 percent or higher at every level, save for a brief three-game stretch in Cedar Rapids in 2014 before he had Tommy John surgery.
By keeping the ball on the ground, he also keeps the ball in the yard. Romero has never given up more than four homers at any level — that was last year in Chattanooga — and in fact, he’s given up just seven total across six minor-league seasons. In other words, his sequence of homers allowed has gone as such: 0-0-1-1-1-4-1.
That’s just eight homers allowed well over 300 minor-league innings.
The hype around Berrios can be a cautionary tale, too. Berrios was promoted to much fanfare two years ago — or rather, not promoted near the end of 2015 much to the dismay of Twins fans — but once he arrived, he was hit hard and had a very, very tough first season with an 8.02 ERA in 58.1 innings.
Opposing batters hit an absurd .310/.409/.523 against Berrios that year. That’s a .401 wOBA, or roughly equal to what AL MVP Jose Altuve did last year (.405).
This isn’t to say that Berrios and Romero have anything in common other than being uber-prospects, just that it’s important to remember that hype can sometimes outweigh results early on for pitchers.
Now the issues that may arise for Romero center around his command, just like most young phenoms. The 23-year-old righty has walked well over 3.0 batters per nine innings over the last two years, and that mark has jumped — albeit in a small sample size — to 4.3 this year.
But that’s just part of the total package, and it’s part of a repertoire that, when on, is electric.
“We’ve seen him the last couple springs,” Molitor said on Monday. “He’s gotten off to a decent start. He’s throwing 93-98 mph. His fastball is alive. He’s really gained a lot of confidence in his changeup. It’s a swing and miss pitch for him. his slider has been probably the most inconsistent pitch, which he needs especially for a chase pitch to RH hitters.”
One thing Molitor isn’t worried about is the youngster becoming a prisoner of the moment, though.
“I don’t think it will be too big for this kid,” Molitor said. “The moment and all those types of things. We’ll see how he responds but I think we’re all looking forward to it.”
As long as he doesn’t fall completely on his face, it isn’t expected to be a short-term promotion, either.
“It sets up not to be,” Molitor said without tipping his hand about who’ll be going the other way. The smart money, it would seem, would be a reliever with Hughes going to the bullpen, but that move probably won’t come until Wednesday morning.
Ultimately, it seems like Molitor can be classified as cautiously optimistic about this potentially extended look at Romero. In fact, he even said Romero’s name came up at times in 2017 when the team needed big-league help.
“This kid, we’ve all been impressed by him,” Molitor said. “Last year, his first year in big-league camp, he thought he was going to make the team, which was good. This year, he handled it better and he understood the things he had to do to get here. I’m not sure if he’ll take it and run with it right away. Just think because the guy’s got electric stuff, he’s going to come out and start dealing — there’s more to pitching success up here than that. It’ll be a little bit different than some other guys who come up here.”
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