The Phillies shouldn’t DFA Jordan Romano….yet

High leverage is certainly out of the question

The current iteration of the Phillies bullpen is short on something: trust.

There are few pitchers pitching at the backend of the games that have built up a lot of trust, meaning there is a mix and match approach to winning games. Some nights, the matchups dictate that certain pitchers toe the rubber, other times, there is someone else. Rob Thomson pulls the correct lever more often than we’d probably like to admit, but there are other decisions that are ripe for second guessing.

Tuesday night, another situation arose where Thomson’s bullpen usage could be called into question. Orion Kerkering was not available for what we would later come to find out was arm soreness. That meant the end of the game, a game in which the offense finally put together enough runs to give them the lead. In the eighth inning of the game, Daniel Robert wavered a bit, necessitating a change and seeing Jordan Romano come in to extinguish the fire. However, for the ninth inning, Romano came back into the game, promptly put men on the corners and then decided this was the best way to attack Patrick Bailey.

It’s a truly terrible pitch, most likely a missed spot, but terrible nonetheless. The Phillies lost the game in the most painful of ways and that led to immediate outrage amongst the fanbase.

It’s hard to come up with anything positive when it comes to Jordan Romano. One can do all the deep dives he or she wants on him and there isn’t much to get excited about. Arguing against his being designated for assignment, or even outright released, will likely fall on deaf ears. The defeat to Giants is still too fresh, his ERA still too high.

Yet the Phillies should not be considering getting rid of Romano, at least not yet.

Instead, let’s consider something different. Perhaps instead of using Romano in high leverage situations (he’s currently third on the team with a 1.63 pLI [average leverage index]), perhaps now is the time to put him into a lesser role. It’s clear that putting him those roles is not working out. Among 175 relief pitchers, Romano’s -1.01 win probability added is fifth worst in the game. Not the be all/end all of statistics, but when you are actively taking away the probability that your team will win a baseball game at the rate Romano is, perhaps putting him the situation where there is the least amount of time to make a comeback isn’t the greatest idea.

And yet there is still something there the team can use. Right now, they have a shortage of good stuff in their bullpen. There isn’t a lot of swing and miss coming out of the bullpen when the door swings open. As a unit, they induce swings on pitches outside of the strike zone at a 27.8% clip, middling at best. Romano isn’t doing much of that either, getting hitters to chase 24.6% of the time, good for the 14th percentile among pitchers. Hitters are swinging and missing against Romano 28.6% of the time, which is something that the team can actually use some of the time. Going by Stuff+ numbers, his fastball (103) and slider (103) are still slightly above average, so they do have some clay to mold with Romano. There have been stretches during the season in which he has shown that he can be good. From April 27 to May 22, Romano had nine appearances in which he gave up a total of three hits, one walk and struck out 13. Prior to liftoff in San Francisco, Romano had nine appearances from June 9 to July 5 in which he had one very, very bad pitch in Atlanta, but in between had no runs allowed, two walks, four hits and struck out five. As he has shown this year, there are times that the team can use him and have him be effective.

It’s just that they can’t use him when the game is on the line.

At some point in the coming days, the team will be adding to its bullpen, both via the trade deadline and through the end of suspension. Once mid-August hits, there will be reinforcements that will push everyone down the pecking order when it comes to reliever usage. Keeping Romano around to use in low leverage situations is likely a better option than keeping someone like Joe Ross. At least Romano has demonstrated the ability to go stretches where he can be effective.

It’s not the most inspiring decision to make. If the team were to move on from Romano and use other pitchers in his stead, no one would really bat an eye. At least for now, though, they should probably take him out of high leverage spots and keep him in the middle innings. It’s best for the team right now.