Sunday Notes: Back On Track, Mikey Romero Is a Red Sox Prospect To Watch

Mikey Romero has hit a few speed bumps since the Boston Red Sox drafted him 24th overall in 2022 out of California’s Orange Lutheran High School. A back injury limited the 21-year-old multi-position infielder to just 34 games in 2023, and he then didn’t return to game action until last May. He also missed time in August after suffering a concussion.

When healthy, it’s been mostly smooth sailing for the former first-rounder. [Boston took Roman Anthony 16 picks later the same year]. Romero’s last-season ledger included 16 home runs and a 125 wRC+ over 362 plate appearances between High-A Greenville and Double-A Portland.

He’s off to a strong start in the current campaign. Back at the higher of those levels, Romero is swinging to the tune of a 134 wRC+ in 154 trips to the plate. Fully half of his 34 hits have gone for extra bases. The San Diego native’s smooth left-handed stroke has produced 10 doubles, a pair of triples, and five home runs.

As the season was getting underway, I asked the promising youngster how he’s grown as a hitter since joining the professional ranks.

“Being a high school draft guy, a lot of it has been maturing with the physicality,” replied Romero, who at 205 pounds has added 30 pounds to his six-foot frame. “My body maturing, my getting stronger, is allowing me to impact the ball more. It’s also giving me more time to react to pitches, as opposed to kind of cheating to stuff. Obviously, I’ve been honing my approach. You need a solid approach to put up good at-bats.”

Unprompted, Romero brought up hitting analytics, saying that while his ears are open to anything that might help him get better, he remains “a feel guy” at heart. Much for that reason, he does his “listening in moderation.”

His approach does still need some fine-tuning. Romero has a high chase rate, particularly with two strikes, and as a result has fanned in 27.3% of his plate appearances this year. At the same time, his walk rate is a solid 11.7%. In a recent game, Romero drew four free passes in as many PAs..

The physical adjustments he’s made include raising his hands, the primary objective being better able to handle high heaters. The thought process that goes along with that is a good example of his old-school-meets-new-school mindset.

“Starting them higher makes for a simpler move,” explained Romero. “I just have to turn. We’re in this new era of launch angle, and whatnot, but I still feel like I’m trying to swing down on the ball. Obviously, that’s not what happens; I hit the middle, or slightly under it, to drive the ball. Maybe I even hit a home run. But what I’m thinking is keeping my hands above the ball and really just trying to stay on top of it. Everyone in this game has ride — ride-cut or ride-run — and if you’re hitting above the ball, you’re going to give yourself a chance.”

And if you’re wondering, yes, Romero has worked to increase both his bat speed and his exit velocities. When the quest is to reach your potential, that comes with the territory.

“Our org is big on bat speed training,” said Romero. “We use Driveline bats. There are three kinds —a Handle Load, an Under Load, and a Barrel Load — and you swing them super fast. Doing that, your baseball muscles are going to get stronger. You create a stimulus in your nervous system which translates to your game swings. I set a personal record for exit velo during spring training. I hit a ball 109 [mph] in one game. I think I have more in the tank, too.”

That has already proven true. So far this season, Romero’s exit velocity has topped out 111 mph. His 90th percentile EV has been 105 mph.

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RANDOM HITTER-PITCHER MATCHUPS

Mickey Grasso went 5 for 15 against Ray Scarborough.

Jim Fairey went 6 for 9 against Bill Singer.

Randall Simon went 7 for 15 against Hideo Nomo.

Art Garibaldi went 5 for 7 against Fred Frankhouse.

Pinch Thomas went 0 for 8 against Herb Pennock.

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Mark Vientos was 21 years old and playing in the high minors when I talked hitting with him late in the 2021 season. Four years removed from being drafted 59th overall out of a Plantation, Florida high school, the young third baseman subsequently came in at No. 6 on our 2022 New York Mets Top Prospects list. Assigned a 45 FV by Eric Longenhagen, Vientos proceeded to reach Queens that September.

I recently asked the now-25-year-old how he’s evolved as a hitter since we first spoke.

“Not much is different,” Vientos replied. “I’m just learning little things here and there. Not really big things, to be honest. The approach gets better. You work in the cage and your swing gets better. That’s pretty much it. No big changes.”

Vientos told me in our 2021 conversation that he considers himself an “all-around type of hitter,” adding that while a lot of people consider him just a power threat, he believes that he can hit for both average and power. That hasn’t changed either.

“If you look at my average last year, I think it was in the .260s,” said Vientos, whose numbers included .a 266/.322/.516 slash line, 27 home runs, a 133 wRC+, and a 29.7% strikeout rate. “I don’t know if that’s considered hitting for average or for power — I don’t know what’s what nowadays — but I think I have the capability of hitting .300 with 40-plus bombs one day. That’s the type of hitter I feel I am. I think that’s my capability.”

Vientos is currently at .231/.300/.379 with six home runs and a 93 wRC+ over 203 plate appearances. His strikeout rate is a career low 23.6%.

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A quiz:

A total of 28 players have hit 500 or more home runs. Of them, Barry Bonds (514) and Willie Mays (338) have the most stolen bases. Which members of the 500 club rank as the bottom two for stolen bases?

The answer can be found below.

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NEWS NOTES

Tomorrow [June 2] is Lou Gehrig Day, which is held annually not only to celebrate the New York Yankees icon, but also to raise awareness for ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Gehrig’s streak of 2,160 consecutive games played began on today’s date in 1925.

Horace Speed, a speedy outfielder who played for the San Francisco Giants and Cleveland Indians across the 1975-1979 seasons, died earlier this week at age 73. Used primarily as a defensive replacement and as a pinch-runner, Speed went 28-for-135 at the plate, with four of his hits coming against Toronto Blue Jays southpaw Jerry Garvin.

Scott Klingenbeck, a right-hander who pitched for the Baltimore Orioles, Minnesota Twins, and Cincinnati Reds in a career that spanned the 1994-1998 seasons, died on May 20 at age 54. All told, Klingenbeck appeared in 39 games and went 5-8 with a 6.91 ERA over 138 innings.

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The answer to the quiz is Mark McGwire and David Ortiz, with 12 and 17 stolen bases respectively. If you guessed Harmon Killebrew or Jim Thome, they each had 19 steals.

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Gunnar Henderson is a young superstar who, like many of his Baltimore Orioles teammates, has been underachieving at the dish. Two months into the season, the 23-year-old shortstop has a 113 wRC+ to go with seven home runs and a .254/.315/.433 slash line. Over the previous two seasons — the first of which saw him win American League Rookie of the Year honors — Henderson hit 65 home runs while putting up a 140 wRC+.

In September 2022, just a handful of weeks after he’d broken into the big leagues, I sat down with Henderson to talk hitting. Numbers aside, how has he progressed since that time?

“I think the big thing has been the experience, learning what I’m good at and balancing that with what the pitcher is good at,” Henderson told me last weekend. “What’s also helped me is really figuring out my load and being ready earlier — being able to decipher different pitches. I’m trying to control the zone and get the pitches that I can do damage on.”

Elaborating on his load, Henderson explained that being more in tune with his lower half allows him to move a little bit earlier, and to see the pitch earlier. As for his left-handed swing, it “probably looks the same as it did three or four years ago.”

“Your swing is you swing,” said Henderson. “It’s what works for you, and you have to stick to your strengths. That said, I was very young coming up and you have to make minor changes here and there. For some guys there are big swing changes, but for me, fortunately, there haven’t been any big ones. More than anything, it’s just been about gaining more experience.”

Henderson has 1,692 big-league plate appearances since debuting with the Birds just under three years ago. When he recorded his 400th career hit on Friday, he became the sixth player in team history to reach that number prior to his 24th birthday. Manny Machado, Eddie Murray, Boog Powell, Cal Ripken Jr., and Brooks Robinson are the others.

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FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The Hanshin Tigers are 30-20 and boast the best record among NPB’s 12 teams. The Tokyo Yakult Swallows are 14-31 and have the worst record.

Kyle Muller tossed seven shutout innings and notched his first NPB win on Thursday as the Chunichi Dragons topped the Yakult Swallows 6-0. The 27-year-old erstwhile Atlanta Braves and Oakland Athletics left-hander has a 4.77 ERA over six starts for the Nagoya-based club.

Lewin Díaz leads all KBO hitters with 21 home runs. The 28-year-old former Miami Marlins first baseman is slashing .299/.354/.638 in his second season with the Samsung Lions.

Zac Lowther is 2-1 with a 2.59 ERA over 41-and-two-thirds innings for the Chinese Professional Baseball League’s Wei Chuan Dragons. The 29-year-old former Baltimore Orioles left-hander is in his first season with the Taipei, Taiwan-based team.

Robinson Canó is slashing .369/.423/.581 with six home runs for the Mexican League’s Diablos Rojos del Mexico. The 42-year-old former MLB All-Star has 3,542 professional hits, including 404 home runs.

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Hoby Milner emerged as a reliable reliever in 2022. Over the five previous seasons, which he’d spent with four different teams, the left-hander had logged a 4.77 ERA over just 77-and-a-third innings. Moreover, he was without a win, save, or loss in his 93 appearances. As chronicled here in Sunday Notes on May 1, 2022, Milner holds the major league record [95] for most games without a decision to begin a career.

From 2022-2024, the 34-year-old southpaw made a tops-on-the-team 201 appearances for the Milwaukee Brewers [he’d pitched in 19 games for them the year before], logging a 3.44 ERA over 193-and-two-thirds innings. His ledger over that span also included 10 wins, five defeats, and one save.

Milner’s transformation from infrequently-used journeyman to counted-upon bullpen mainstay came despite his inability to miss as many bats as he’d hoped for.

“I was getting optioned a lot in 2021; I think I was up and down seven times,” recalled Milner, who signed a free-agent deal with the Texas Rangers this past offseason and has since put up a 2.13 ERA over 25 appearances. ‘One of the times I got sent down, I asked [then Milwaukee manager] Craig Counsell, ‘What is going to help me stay up here?’ He told me, ‘Honestly, I don’t think there is anything you can do overnight, but swing-and-miss to lefties would be nice..’ I tried my hardest, but it was, ‘OK, this is something I just can’t do.’ With my velocity and arm angle, getting high swing-and-miss rates wasn’t going to be in the formula.

“I figured that if I couldn’t get the swing-and-miss, I’d try to get the worst contact I could,” added Milner. “So, I started throwing sinkers to lefties. It was the opposite of what he’d said, but it worked out. Consistent soft contact became the goal. Since then I’ve done some other things to get soft contact, but that was kind of the turning point for me.”

Milner has a 50.6% ground ball rate and a 23.1% strikeout rate since the start of the 2022 season. His 225 relief outings are second-most in the majors among southpaws, behind only Tanner Scott’s 240.

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FARM NOTES

Joseph Sullivan is slashing .232/.425/.497 with 11 home runs and a 149 wRC+ over 207 plate appearances for the High-A Asheville Tourists. Drafted in the seventh round last year by the Houston Astros out of the University of South Alabama, the 23-year-old outfielder is the grandson of former NFL quarterback Pat Sullivan, who won the 1971 Heisman Trophy while playing at Auburn.

Ryan Jackson is slashing .308/.471/.456 with three home runs and a 163 wRC+ over 224 plate appearances for the Low-A Lake Elsinore Storm. The 23-year-old shortstop was drafted in the 17th round last year by the San Diego Padres out of the University of Southern California.

West Michigan Whitecaps catcher/first baseman Josue Briceño leads the High-A Midwest League in home runs (12), OPS (1.005), and wRC+ (172). The 20-year-old left-handed-hitting Maracay, Venezuela native is slashing .268/.383/.622.

Devin Fitz-Gerald is slashing .345/.459/.672 with five home runs and a 182 wRC+ over 74 plate appearances in the Arizona Complex League. The 19-year-old infielder was drafted in the fifth round last year by the Texas Rangers out of Parkland, Florida’s Stoneman Douglas High School.

Gage Stanifer has a 1.46 ERA and a 39.7% strikeout rate between Low-A Dunedin and High-Vancouver. A 19th-round round pick in 2022 out of Westfield (IN) High School, the 21-year-old right-hander in the Toronto Blue Jays system has allowed just 14 hits in 37 innings.

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Twins pitching prospect Andrew Morris spent three years at Colorado Mesa University, transferred to Texas Tech University for his senior season, and is currently half a semester short of a degree in psychology. His educational path prior to college was one of precocity.

“I started high school at [age] 12, and graduated high school at 16,” Morris told me earlier this year. “I skipped second grade when we moved to Alaska — I was in Alaska for five years — and before that I’d started preschool early. COVID kind of set me closer to normal, but I was still young for my draft class.”

Minnesota’s fourth-round pick in 2022, Morris has made 10 starts for Triple-A St. Paul this season and has a 4.15 ERA and a 4.25 FIP. The right-hander has 42 strikeouts in 47-and-two-thirds innings.

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A random obscure former player snapshot:

“Colby Jack” Coombs wasn’t obscure during his playing days — far from — but he is relatively unknown a century later. His career is definitely worth knowing about — especially his signature season. Pitching for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1910, the Le Grand, Iowa-born, Waterville, Maine-raised right-hander went 31-9 with a 1.30 ERA over 353 innings, tossing 35 complete games and hurling 13 shutouts. And he wasn’t a one-year wonder. Other notable campaigns included win-loss marks of 28-12, 21-10, and 15-10 (the last of those with the Brooklyn Dodgers). The Colby College product made six World Series starts over the course of his career, going 5-0 with a 2.70 ERA.

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LINKS YOU’LL LIKE

At CBS Sports, Julian McWilliams wrote about Mookie Betts’s move to shortstop.

At CBC News, Bob Becken wrote about Mizuki Akatsuka, an ambidextrous pitcher from Japan who is currently playing for the Chatham-Kent Barnstormers in Canada’s Intercounty Baseball League.

At Greenville, South Carolina’s Post and Courier, Caitlin Herrington looked at what it might take for Shoeless Joe Jackson to gain induction to the Hall of Fame.

A horse named for 82-year-old former big-league outfielder Jim Gosger placed second in last month’s Preakness Stakes. Clark Spencer has the story, which includes quotes from the human Gosger, at Paulick Report.

Sam Blum bought a ticket to a game in Sacramento, where the erstwhile Oakland A’s are currently playing due to “an entirely man-made catastrophe.” Blum offered thoughts on the experience — both his own and those of fans he spoke to — at The Athletic.

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RANDOM FACTS AND STATS

San Francisco Giants relievers have combined to go 14-6 with 16 saves and a 2.42 ERA this season. Los Angeles Angels relievers have combined to go 14-7 with 13 saves and a 6.18 ERA.

Colorado Rockies batters have combined for 413 hits, the fewest of any team. The NL West club’s 15 triples are the most for any team.

Rockies southpaw Kyle Freeland has made five starts in which he has gone at least six innings and allowed three or fewer runs. In another start, he allowed one run over five-and-a-third innings. Freeland has an 0-8 won-lost record on the season.

LAA’s Taylor Ward has fanned 65 times this season and has yet to reach base via a HBP. Milwaukee’s Caleb Durbin has fanned 11 times and reached base via a HBP nine times.

NYY’s Paul Goldschmidt is 26-for-49 (.531) with seven doubles, four home runs, and 11 walks versus left-handed pitchers. Colorado’s Jacob Stallings is 1-for-34 (.031) with 16 strikeouts versus southpaws.

Johan Santana threw 2,025-and-two-thirds innings and went 139-78 with a 136 ERA+. Chris Sale has thrown 2,026 innings and gone 141-86 with a 140 ERA+.

On today’s date in 2007, the Cleveland Indians scored five times in the bottom of the ninth inning to walk off the Detroit Tigers 12-11. David Dellucci’s single off of Todd Jones plated Trot Nixon with the winning run.

On today’s date in 1944, Jimmy Outlaw scored on a Don Ross double to give the Detroit Tigers a 4-3 win over the New York Yankees in 16 innings. Hal Newhouser, who went on to finish the season 29-9 and be named AL MVP, worked seven-and-a-third innings scoreless of relief to earn the victory.

Players born on today’s date include Guy Morton, a right-hander who went 98-86 pitching for the Cleveland Naps/Indians across the 1914-1924 seasons. Nicknamed “The Alabama Blossom,” Morton lost his first 13 decisions before garnering a win in the final appearance of his rookie season. His son, Guy “Moose” Morton played in one game for the Boston Red Sox in 1954, fanning as a pinch-hitter in his lone at-bat.

Also born on today’s date was Johnny Mostil, a speedy centerfielder who batted .301 over 4,103 plate appearances with the Chicago White Sox from 1918-1929. Nicknamed “Bananas,” Mostil managed in the minors for 25 seasons after his playing career was over, skippering squads such as the Eau Claire Bears, Superior Blues, and Waterloo White Hawks.