LSU or MLB: Mikey Romero ready for whatever his bright future brings
Editor’s note: The Boston Red Sox selected SS Mikey Romero with the 24th overall pick in the 1st round of the 2022 MLB Draft on July 17.
ORANGE, Calif. (BVM) – Orange Lutheran High School is no stranger to elite baseball talent. From former first-round MLB Draft picks like Cole Winn, Garrett Mitchell and most notably, New York Yankees’ ace Gerrit Cole, the Lancers have seen a total of 17 alumni arrive in the big leagues.
This rich history wasn’t originally a part of Mikey Romero’s story, but it is now.
After his freshman campaign at Vista Murrieta High School where he totaled eight extra-base hits with 19 RBIs and a Covid-shortened sophomore season, Romero took a massive step up in competition and transferred to Orange Lutheran.
“My whole point of transferring to Orange Lutheran was to play in a more competitive league and be around players who have a lot of the same goals and aspirations as me,” Romero said. “To be in that league, it’s pretty awesome because you’re facing SEC guys, Pac-12 guys; you’re facing the best of the best in California. We play a tough team every week and it’s only preparing me for the next level.”
The Trinity League is arguably one of the best baseball conferences in America as four of its teams are ranked in the top six of California’s state rankings. Orange Lutheran (24-4) reigns supreme as the top-ranked team in the state with a bevy of Division I talent.
The upgrade in talent, both of his teammates and opponents, has helped take Romero’s game to the next level.
“A Tuesday night game, you’re facing someone throwing 93-94 mph whereas at my other school, you might be facing a kid throwing 85-88 mph,” Romero said. “You’ll get a pitcher throwing 90 mph with a good second pitch just about every time you step into the batter’s box. It’s just a lot of development and it’s a really good place to be at.”
Romero wasted no time proving that he belonged among the state’s best.
He batted .362 with a home run and 15 RBIs as a junior and brought over his “old school” approach to the game in his first season with the Lancers.
“I consider myself an old-school, hard-nosed kind of a player,” Romero said. “I just compete until the last pitch, play with my hair on fire, dive for everything and I like to play with a lot of energy and fire people up.
“Then with my ability to play, I make the routine play, I make the hard play look routine, get on base and I like to consider myself a good teammate. It’s just the little things that I feel like I do right and I’d do anything to help my team win.”
Mikey Romero (@mromo32) showing off the athleticism with this sick play at short. Elite stuff from the shortstop who makes plays like this on the regular. #FiveToolDefense@olubaseball (CA) 2022 · @LSUbaseball signee pic.twitter.com/FeIK7bhLp0
— Five Tool California (@FiveToolCA) April 21, 2022
Romero isn’t the only one who feels like he has most of the tools that translate to the next level. The senior shortstop is the 58th-ranked prospect in the 2022 MLB Draft, according to MLB.com.
Romero sees the pro scouts at his games but doesn’t put too much thought into the possibility of hearing his name called during July’s MLB Draft at this point.
“It’s pretty cool but at the end of the day, you just have to let the chips fall where they may,” Romero said. “I just try to go out there and have fun and not worry about it too much because sometimes it can be overwhelming but you have to be a pro about it and go about your business the right way.
“Either way, I’m in a win-win situation if I go to LSU or if I get to start my pro ball career. But the goal and dream has always been to play college baseball and to go to, now, LSU and win national championships.”
Although Romero might’ve known as a child that he wanted to one day play in the majors, the same can’t be said for his bright future in Baton Rouge.
Romero committed to the University of Arizona during the summer of his eighth-grade year and remained onboard with the Wildcats and head coach Jay Johnson up until last summer. Just moments before a game, Romero saw on Twitter that Johnson was leaving Arizona to become the next head coach at LSU.
Minutes later, Romero received a call from Johnson that he couldn’t answer at the moment with the first pitch just moments away. The usually locked in Romero’s mind was elsewhere during that game as he felt his future being altered for the better.
“Kind of the whole game, I was just thinking about it like, ‘Wow, he’s (Johnson) going to be at LSU. That’d be really cool if he’d honor the scholarship and take me with him because LSU is somewhere I’d want to be,’” Romero said. “After the game, I got on the phone with him right away and he told me that he wanted to honor the scholarship, bring me to LSU and that we were going to win a national championship.
“I couldn’t have been more in. I hung up, talked to my parents and I think within 10 minutes, I was like, ‘Let’s do this.’ I called him back and told him that I’d follow him to LSU. For me, the biggest thing was to find a coach that I feel like I can run through a wall for and compete for. That was Jay from day one. I felt like I could trust him and felt like he had my best interest in mind. It felt good knowing that he still felt as though I could compete in not just the Pac-12, but the SEC as well.”
Romero will either begin his pro career after hearing his name called during July’s MLB Draft or join one of the best college baseball programs in the country in a few months. But the Lancers’ senior shortstop has unfinished business left at the high school level.
After a 24-4 regular season, Orange Lutheran earned the No. 1 seed in the Southern Section Division I baseball playoffs led by Romero, Texas commit Casey Borba and a star-studded offensive group.
Romero is batting .364 with five home runs and 25 RBIs during his senior campaign and entered the postseason with 11 hits in his last 12 at-bats. With his commitment out of the way, Romero’s main objective for the season was to just enjoy his final moments at the high school level.
But as the end nears, Romero knows this Lancers’ squad with all the talent in the world should finish things off the right way.
“We’re going to try to go out with a bang and win a title for our school at the end of it,” Romero said. “Our chemistry is pretty good; all of us are pretty good friends. I think we’ll just need to stay locked in for seven innings and no one can beat us.”
Go time! pic.twitter.com/uOWNw1mYMC
— Mikey Romero (@mromo32) May 2, 2022
