Seldom can effectiveness be raised following the infamous Tommy John surgery; however, Miami Marlins ace Jose Fernandez is an anomaly in that sense. The 23-year old has become even more devastating following the most prominent injury of his career thus far. Aided by Marlins pitching coach Juan Nieves, the evolution of Jose Fernandez has brought the former first to a new level of ascendancy.
The Evolution of Jose Fernandez
Coming off the first season in which his WHIP was above .979, Jose Fernandez struggled to stay healthy last season. This is even when disregarding the injury that took him out for a year. With the goal of extending his innings and keeping the starter healthy, Fernandez and Marlins brass conceived a more refined approach the flame-thrower, who regularly touched 99-100 prior to going down in May of 2014.
Initial Struggles
Since the 2015 season, the 6’3″ Santa Clara, Cuba native’s fastball velocity is down almost a full mile-per-hour. It’s dropped from 95.8 to 94.9 since the beginning of this season. Fernandez has developed a plan to vary speeds and set up that 97-98 mph fastball with relatively softer stuff, at 92-93, to further enhance the effectiveness of that pitch.
The implementation of a plan designed to preserve the relatively newly-minted American citizen’s arm hasn’t come without anguish for the hyper-competitive right-hander. Early on, Fernandez experienced trouble finding the zone, presumably as a byproduct of being overly meticulous. He subsequently had difficulty getting deep into ballgames. Through his first six starts of 2016, Fernandez ran up his pitch count prematurely for his and the team’s liking. He failed to get through more than six innings. In half of those starts, he didn’t finish the sixth inning, averaging ninety-eight pitches over those three occasions.
The Turning Point
Following those short outings came outings that were the delineation of consistency. In seven of his last nine starts, the effervescent Cuban has gone seven innings, and has allowed more than one run just once. Fernandez shaved his ERA from 4.28 to the fifth-best ERA in the big leagues at 2.28. His league-leading strikeouts per nine has also improved, from 12.74 over his first six starts to 13.43 in his last nine appearances.
Even through those early season struggles, Fernandez has maintained a strikeout rate coextensive to that of the most prolific pitchers in the past decades. He’s striking out 13.12 batters per nine innings. That would be .28 strikeouts per nine behind Randy Johnson for the single-season record. He is only seven strikeouts behind Clayton Kershaw for the MLB lead, despite having pitched twenty-seven fewer innings.
On very few occasions do pitchers maintain their productivity when their best asset is diminished in some form. Whether via physical shortcomings or the manipulation of its use, this is uncommon. Not only has Fernandez’s production remained on the same path as prior seasons, he has become a more complete pitcher. Much to the chagrin of opponents, he has transcended a new level of dominance.
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