3 Cardinals who could experience positive regression and 3 who will start to struggle

Negative Regression- LHP JoJo Romero

As the veteran of an otherwise inexperienced relief corps, JoJo Romero is being tasked with quite a bit this year. He has been the de facto setup man, now for the third year in a row, in Oli Marmol's bullpen. The southpaw has always been reliable when it comes to run prevention, but his strikeout numbers have not measured up to the modern reliever throughout his career.

Romero has been steady late in games for the Cardinals. He has yet to allow an earned run, and he's managed to keep his WHIP at 0.87 through 10.1 innings of work this year. His strikeout rate, however, has dropped to just 15.4%, and his walk rate is back in line with his career averages, sitting right at 7.7%. Romero's six holds are tied for the second-most in the league.

Even JoJo Romero's FIP, often an indicator of future pitching, is strong at just 3.16. The difference, however, is in his expected metrics. Romero has an expected ERA of 4.98 and an expected FIP of 4.37. Most of this is due to his below-average whiff and chase rates that he's posting so far. Romero's 23.7% chase rate is in the fifteenth percentile throughout baseball, and his 13.6% whiff rate is in the third percentile.

Romero is able to generate soft contact (36.4% hard-hit rate, 60th percentile) on the ground (54.5% groundball rate, 82nd percentile) to counteract the lack of swing-and-miss stuff. He'll never be an elite strikeout pitcher, but the hope is that Romero can strike out batters at a better clip.

JoJo Romero is a trade deadline candidate, so the Cardinals are hopeful he can continue to post solid numbers while staying healthy. Teams will certainly take a look under the hood, but hopefully those interested parties will rely more heavily on raw numbers rather than expected metrics.

If he continues to rely on ground balls and soft contact, eventually, Romero will get bit. Luckily, he's been able to keep batters off the bases by not allowing hits or walks, but every reliever goes through a slump. If/when he comes around, expect to see his ERA and FIP climb closer to their expected marks.

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