Scouting
Report: Jose Fernandez
So
far all we’ve seen is on my scouting reports are hitters, today we look at one
of the games best young pitchers Jose Fernandez. Fernandez was drafted in 2011 and already is in the majors
at the age of 21 and quickly made a name for himself as being a very talented
pitcher that can handle the majors just fine. The hardest part of looking at Fernandez is simple; we don’t
have a lot of info on him as a player since he’s only played 2 full seasons and
only 1 in the majors so what we can do is look at the numbers and using
averages figure out how sustainable are the numbers he’s put up. Lets take a look and see what this guy
did this season.
The
first thing we can look at is his K/9, BB/9 and K/BB ratios to see how good he
is. Fernandez has a K/9 of 9.75 this
means he’s striking out a little more than 1 batter an inning, which is
amazing! For reference the highest
K/9 rate in for a single season is 13.5 by Randy Johnson, Fernandez ranks 81 on
the all time single season chart (out of qualifying pitchers). This is great for his future but I
don’t see how he keeps that level of production up at least at that level, he
may be a 9 K’s per 9 guy but for now I think we should see how next year turns
out. Fernandez also has a BB/9
rate of 3.0, this is kind of one of the reasons I worry. Its average but that is still a few to
many BB’s for a pitcher to give up and could end up biting in the future. Much like the K/9 rate id still want to
hold off on judgment of future, he is still young enough that he can fine tune
his aim and his talent is there to easily do this. His K/BB is impressive but if he didn’t walk so many hitters
it would be better; having a 3.22 is still nothing to shake a stick at but once
he gets his BB’s down that should be a 8.0, he has that potential. One good thing to note is that his H/9
or hits per 9 is .52 meaning he gave up less than 1 hit per inning, which is
very impressive.
Next
lets see how he’s doing in ERA, WHIP and FIP. First lets see his WHIP since it ties into what we’ve talked
about, he ends the season at .98 WHIP and that’s very good. Less than a hit or BB an inning is how
you win games and if he were on any other team this alone would have won games
for any team. But since we’ve
already gone into this last paragraph there’s less to say really, his big
problem is the BB but if he lowers that and can keep the hits down this could
be were his WHIP stays.
ERA
is a funny stat, while still relevant its not the best measure of a pitchers
worth or value. There is a reason
you always here me mention ERA and FIP normally right after each other because
ERA doesn’t really just include the pitchers skill but his defense as
well. FIP is a stat that gauges
the pitchers skill better since it only looks at the things the pitcher has
direct control over. So knowing
this lets take a look. Fernandez
finished the season with an ERA of 2.19, very good a well above average ERA
especially for a starter. His
ability to keep the ball down and keep hitters from getting good lift on the
ball limits the HR’s. His ERA- is
59 meaning he’s in the top 50% of pitchers in ERA this year. His FIP whoever says something else and
this is where we see those pesky BB’s come into play. His FIP is 2.79; a full 70 points higher than his ERA and
while normal that is something to wonder about. Remember FIP is what a pitchers ERA would be based on his
influence so that means he pitched at a 2.79 ERA level, and this is nothing to
complain about. Yes I sound
negative but I’m just pointing out how those BB’s have effects that you don’t
normally see. In the end I see
this staying near the levels but his ERA will come up I can see him pitching
closer to a 2.40-2.60 level but that FIP doesn’t seem to far off from the
truth.
Now
this was my first pitcher scouting report and it may not have been smart to
choose a rookie that doesn’t have a background to compare to, why did I do it
then? Simply put he needs to be
more recognized than he is, I know you heard about him during the season but
he’s going to be one of the best pitchers in baseball very soon and we all need
to watch this guy. Next time I do
a pitcher I’ll be looking at more like pitches and GB%, FB% and such but
Fernandez is to new to see if this is the normal guy.
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