What’s Wrong with Jose Fernandez?

THE 2013-15 SEASONS

In 2013 Jose Fernandez went 12-6 with a 2.19 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 187 punchouts in 172.2 innings and his reward was the NL Rookie of the Year Award with 26 of 30 first place votes (the other four went to Yasiel Puig).

In 2014 Fernandez had a 2.44 ERA and 0.95 WHIP. He also jacked up his K-rate to an insane level from 9.75 as a rookie to 12.19 in year two. Alas, he suffered a torn UCL that required Tommy John surgery ending his season at just 51.2 frames.

In 2015 Fernandez continued his recovery from Tommy John surgery eventually working his way to the big leagues long enough to make 11 starts lasting 64.2 innings. He performed very well with a 2.92 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and 10.99 K/9 with a 1.95 BB/9 rate.

THE 2016 SEASON - WORKLOAD

Fernandez entered the season with high hopes as he was taken off the board as the 7^th best starting pitcher with an ADP of 33.3 according to the NFBC rankings. People made the decision with Fernandez despite the fact that everyone knew Fernandez would be on an innings count. "The doctors are going to prescribe a graduated program for him," agent Scott Boras said. "He threw somewhere in the area of 65-70 innings. Obviously, that will jump to where he's going to go. I think his career high is 170-180. I'm sure we'll have discussions about that in the offseason." The organization tried to walk back from that saying that Boras wouldn’t be involved, but that’s a lie. Of course he would be. Just listen to what Jose said back in November. "I do not know what all this is all about, but Scott Boras will be there because he's my agent, and I get to decide who is going to be on my phone calls," Fernandez said Friday. "It's that simple." The team finally acquiesced, at least a bit. "He's a valuable asset, and we will be protective and do the right thing in consultation with the doctor," Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill said.

Bottom line, I would say, is that Fernandez would be extremely lucky if he was allowed to throw 180-innings this season after throwing just 122.1 innings the past two seasons.

THE 2016 SEASON - PERFORMANCE

After his outing Wednesday, May 4^th, here are some quotes, about another in a line of less than enthralling outing for Fernandez this season.

“I’m not executing my pitches. It’s that simple,” Fernandez said. “When you don’t execute, you get hit. There’s a lot of things involved. We’re working on it. "I'm falling behind in counts," he said. "You've got to come in there. Those guys are very good at what they do. It's not going to be the last time that's going to happen. Just go out there in five days and try to give your team the best chance to win ballgames."

What is going on with the former star? Let me just list the numbers before I dig into things.

Obviously there is a lot going in here, and things are moving in the wrong direction.

When pitchers return from Tommy John surgery they often struggle to regain their control for a bit. It’s quite common actually. The arm is repaired, healthier than it’s been in years, and there needs to be an adjustment period. Fernandez showed none of that rust last season when he walked an average of 1.95 batters per nine innings, the best mark he posted in three years though it was only slightly better than the 2.26 rate he posted in 2014. Avoiding the walks wasn’t an issue in 2015. That has not been the case in 2016. Fernandez has seen his walk rate this season more than double the mark he posted in 2014-15. More than double. That’s hideous for anyone, especially for a guy with this talent level.

Oddly, Fernandez has seen his strikeout rate spike as well as he’s added two full batters to his K/9 mark moving from an elite 10.46 per nine his first three seasons to a stratospheric 12.56 this season. That’s a massive number he’s foisting on fools this season. Alas, all those walks and all those strikeouts are causing a problem with his workload.

Here are his pitched by innings mark for each of his big league seasons as well as his pitches per plate appearance.

For three years he was nearly identical with remarkable consistency. This year, not so much as we’ve seen a substantial difference in his workload. Speaking of that, let’s take a look at the pitches he has thrown per game. Not surprisingly the number is up a bit this year.

Note that he’s yet to thrown more than 106 pitches in any of his six outings this season.

However, the above leaves out one thing – context. We know how many pitches he has thrown per game but how many innings is he tossing per start? After all, he’s only added about 4.6 pitches a game this season to his career average so it’s not like the number of pitches has jumped dramatically.

The Marlins were obviously very careful with Fernandez in 2015, his first year back from surgery, as they cut down his innings per start. However, the mark has dipped further this season, not because of caution but because he simply isn’t able to keep his pitches down long enough to go deep into games. Did you know that in six starts he’s yet to record more than 18 outs? Yep, in six starts he’s failed to last more than 6.0 innings in any turn on the bump. That’s not good. It’s pretty tough to win ballgames if you can’t complete six innings.

Fernandez throws a fastball, a curveball and a changeup. He’s throwing the three pitches at virtually the same rates as he did last season. A quick look at the PITCHf/x data.

FASTBALL: The BABIP on the pitch this season is .424. His career mark is .298. Batters are also blasting the pitch with a 39.4 percent line drive rate which is eons above his 27.6 line drive rate for his career. On the pitch the wOBA this year is .347 (career .308). This season his xMOV is down a mere tenth while his zMov is also down a tenth. The pitch is moving the same. However, Fernandez has been so wild, and often falling behind in the count, that batters aren’t chasing this pitch. For his career he generates a 24 percent swing rate on the fastball out of the strike zone. This season the mark is just 15 percent.  

CURVEBALL: No one hits this pitch. They are hitting it better than ever before this season and that effort includes a .588 OPS and .264 wOBA. Those numbers are well above his career marks though: .391 and .182.

CHANGEUP: Last year batters posted a .762 OPS on this pitch. This season the mark is .634.

Fernandez is messed up, and it’s all about his location. He’s too young and talented to not figure it out, but right now the numbers are suggestive that Fernandez is really struggling for the first time in his big league career. You still buy/hold Fernandez, no doubt about that, but until he starts locating his pitches better he’s going to fail to live up to expectations.

Some video thoughts on Fernandez as well as Matt Moore and Carlos Rodon.