Sergio Romo

Somewhat surprisingly Romo went to the changeup as his first offspeed pitch, especially when facing lefties. He only threw it seven times to righties compared to 153 times to the lefts. An above average 37.0 Whiff% was most useful, batters struggled to the tune of .207 xBA. The beauty comes in its movement, both well above league average for vertical drop and horizontal break.

Still getting by in 2019 with an 86 mph fastball, Romo understands that its effectiveness relies on pinpoint accuracy. Otherwise, its 13.2% barrel rate could definitely come back to bite him.

Romo was light years ahead of the league, throwing more sliders than fastballs starting all the way back in 2009. That train has not stopped, as he threw nearly 60% sliders last season on his way to earning the lowest hard-hit rate of all qualified relievers. The pitch itself was good for a 70.2% weak hit rate.

Similar to 2017, the slider was Romo’s go-to offering at 58% thrown. It was very effective with a 15.7% swinging-strike rate, an O-swing of 37% and a 3.8 pVal.

Used a little more frequently than his four-seamer (15.5%), the results with the sinker were comparably poor with just a 16% whiff rate and .286 batting average allowed.

Thrown 14.5% of the time, Romo’s Reagan-Era fastball (86.4 mph average velocity) was hit much harder in 2018, to the tune of a .439 wOBA and a -1.9 pVal. Thse numbers don’t compare well to the .213 wOBA and 4.7 pVal the pitch earned in 2017.

Romo almost doubled his changeup usage from 7.3% in 2017 to 12% in 2018. The results were mixed, with a 48.1% K rate 15.8 % swinging-K rate but an overall poor pVal of -1.8.