Pittsburgh Pirates: Interview with Rising Prospect Randy Romero

After my initial piece covering the 2019 Pittsburgh Pirates DSL star Randy Romero I was given the opportunity to interview the budding star

Outfielder Randy Romero, for those of you that don’t know, is a 20-year-old prospect from Mexico who was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2017. In this interview the main points to cover related to his meteoric rise from his first year in 2018 to last year’s incredible 2019 campaign. Other than the athlete, I also wanted you to know the man as well.

During the beginning stages of the interview, Mr. Romero gave off a great vibe and was completely cooperative and seemed like a great guy. My first question asked who he admired growing up and who he would love to model his game after? I’ll admit his response I didn’t expect he answered:

“I have always admired David Ortiz, a humble man willing and eager to help people, and since I was a child, I grew up watching him play. To date, he is still my favorite player, and I hope to meet him someday.”

His answer goes to show how humble and pure he is when he looked up to the man Ortiz was not just the athlete, that’s commendable.

Now the first two years of Romero’s career were spent in the Dominican Summer League, and I wanted to see if he knew or at least talked to some front office guys to see where he would play this year.

“Well, I am in the best position to go play where they think it is most convenient. I spoke to some people who commented on me playing outside of Florida, but the last decision is theirs, and I’m going to do the best I can no matter where I go.”

The selfish person in me wants him to play in West Virginia for the pure fact I’m close to their stadium, but I think the majority of people think he will end up in Greensboro with the Low-A Greensboro Grasshoppers.

Then we got into the meat of the discussion where I asked him who can you credit to your incredible 2019 season in which we saw a batting title and an all-star appearance? Being the humble guy, he is he responded:

“Everything good that happened in 2019 was based on hard work, coach’s influence in teaching, and your co-workers who are always there to support you. I have always said that while you stay focused and work hard, good things will come.”

I would imagine having ten teammates with a .300 average and an excellent coaching staff to push you is an incredible situation to be in for a young player.

To get a feel on how he was feeling after the 2019 season, a question came up in regards to if there was anything specific he was working on to improve? He didn’t say he was improving on a particular thing, but he did say:

“Every time you go out and train, you are looking for something new that’s baseball. I always try to do better than last year.”

With a slash line of .376/.418/.495 and 36 stolen bases, it will be hard to top that, but if anyone can do it, this young man can.

With the apparent elephant in the room, I wanted to get a feel for how he maintains staying in shape and keeping from going crazy with the baseball delay due to COVID-19:

“I try to stay training every day and keep fit. I try to follow my workouts and focus on the start of the season when it comes.”

It has to be hard for a young minor league ballplayer to keep in focus while managing everyday life, all on top of staying ready for the season.

To make things light after the heavy topic of the COVID-19 talk, I joked around with him in regards to his stellar strikeout numbers. Only striking out 15 times in 300+ at bats, I asked why is it so hard for opposing pitchers to strike you out?

“I don’t know pitchers come in with a pitching plan, and you never know how when to release the ball on to the pitcher, but it didn’t happen many times to me.”

The greatest thing about that response was right in the middle of his sentence he started cracking up. It felt good to hear him laugh and be reminded of how good baseball is to people, especially in this young man’s life.

Overall this interview was a great experience. The young Mr. Romero showed poise, humbleness, and some expected goofiness from the 20-year-old. My hope for him is to continue whatever he was doing in 2019, whether it was drinking Jobu’s rum or like he said hard work and dedication. If he keeps his straight head and continues to develop, the sky is the limit for the young Randy Romero.