By STEVE KRAH
http://www.IndianaRBI.com
Marco Romero‘s calling card as a baseball player came from swinging the bat.
At Indiana University Southeast, the Caracas, Venezuela native played in 139 games.
Swinging from the left side, the 6-foot-2 Romero amassed an average of .376 (173-of-460) with 15 home runs, two triples, 44 doubles, 139 runs batted in, 138 runs scored, 42 strikeouts, 95 walks, 29 stolen bases and a 1.076 OPS (.498 on-base percentage plus .578 slugging average).
He helped the Ben Reel-coached Grenadiers go 109-32 from 2020-22 with a trip to the 2021 NAIA World Series.
“I’ll never regret going to IUS,” says Romero, 27. “I’ve moved around every few years. New Albany is a place that feels like home to me.”
Romero graduated from high school and completed two years of college in Venezuela. The political unrest there caused only-child Marco and mother Julia Villalobos to go to Tampa, Fla., where they had visited family on vacation (father Marco Romero is in Venezuela and his son has contact with him everyday).
The younger Marco Romero attended a Tampa baseball academy then started his college career over.
He landed at Oakton College in Des Plaines, Ill., and helped the Owls to National Junior College Athletic Association Division III World Series appearances in 2018 and 2019.
Reel recruited at the NJCAA D-III World Series and coaxed Romero to southern Indiana.
There were a few other options at the NAIA level, but they were in Tennessee and Marco’s mother was in Chicago.
“I liked the vibes Coach Reel gave me on my visit,” says Romero. “It was about more than baseball.
“He was trying to make them a better person for the world.”
Romero could see that the coach formed close bonds with his players.
Told to sleep on the decision, Romero did not and signed on the day of his visit.
“This is the place I need to be,” says Romero, who enjoyed a productive career and spends time on-campus each off-season.
After graduating as a Business Management major and Entrepreneurship minor in 2022, Romero began aiming for baseball operations jobs since he did not play pro ball.
A Linkedin contact viewed his resume, which showed that he had coached youth players and helped his teammates and served as a team captain, to go for coaching positions.
Romero was hired by the Houston Astros and went to work as a hitting coach apprentice at their West Palm Beach, Fla., complex in the summer of 2022.
Since December 2022, Romero has been a player development coach in the Chicago Cubs organization. In 2023, he helped the Double-A Tennessee Smokies on both the hitting and pitching side. In 2024, he will likely be an assistant hitting coach — with either the High-A South Bend (Ind.) Cubs or Low-A Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Pelicans. Those assignments have not yet been announced.
Romero went to Mesa, Ariz., on Jan. 3 to work at an early camp and spring training starts in a few weeks. Justin Stone is the Director of Hitting and Will Remillard is the Assistant Director of Hitting.
From Romero’s perspective, quality of contact is the most important tool for an everyday player.
“It’s how well the can make contact with the ball,” says Romero. “Some make good decisions at the plate but don’t hit the ball hard.”
A metric used by the Cubs is Expected Weighted On-Base Average (xwOBA). While organizations may differer on some of the numbers, it is formulated with velocity, launch angle and, on certain types of batted balls, Sprint Speed.
“It eliminates the outcome of the ball in-play,” says Romero. “If the hitter hits a 110 mph line drive caught by the center fielder, there’s nothing he can do about that.”
Romero also notes that some organizations are focused on development at the minor league level and others promote winning.
“In the big leagues it’s all about productive outs and it’s all about winning,” says Romero. “There’s an open debate on this. A million hitting coaches are going to give you a million answers. To me, you want to maximize the run value per ball in-play.
“In professional baseball, every hitter is different. The key is to have an explanation on why you’re doing something.”
Romero is serious about what he does because the hitters he coaches need to produce or the organization will let them go.
“At this level you’re playing with people’s careers,” says Romero. “You can end someone’s career by making the wrong adjustment.
“It’s not a hobby anymore. People need you to perform. That’s what inspires me to do this everyday. There are two things that I’m passionate about: Baseball and seeing people succeed.
“My mantra in my life is leave them a better person than they were before they met me.”
His short-term goal is to be a hitting coach, his long-term goal is to be a big league manager.
“I want to be able to influence who they are as a player,” says Romero. “You get more of that as a manager.”
Romero notes that mental skills coaches travel throughout the minor leagues and on-field coaches will direct the players that may be struggling to them.
While the percentages can be debated, Romero sees baseball as more mental than physical.
“If there confidence is not where it should be, they’re not going to perform,” says Romero. “You have to make sure everyone is in the right mental state.”
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