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Jose Fernandez will have an innings limit in 2016
Wednesday’s Say Hey, Baseball includes the Marlins’ plan for their ace, PECOTA projections and poor, unemployed Ian Desmond.
Photo by Rob Foldy/Getty Images
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Jose Fernandez underwent Tommy John surgery in 2014. He missed most of 2015 recovering, but returned in a very Jose Fernandez-like fashion to throw 64 innings while striking out 11 batter per nine innings before the season ended. As he’s still just 23 years old and has a career-high of 172 innings, the Marlins don’t want to just fully unleash him on the world in 2016. Instead, they’ll work on an innings plan, with the idea being that Fernandez throws around 180 innings this year.
Details haven’t been finalized, and it’s not a Marlins iron fist kind of thing -- Fernandez is going to have input on the plan, too. Getting this news out there now should help the Marlins later in the year, as they won’t have to go through the same kind of scrutiny the Nationals did with Stephen Strasburg after Tommy John, or even Matt Harvey last year. Of course, the Marlins will have to be competitive for that to be an issue in the first place, but hey, baseball can surprise you sometimes.
The Marlins are right to be careful with Fernandez, even beyond the whole it’s ethical to not treat your pitchers like they’re disposable thing. He’s already in his arbitration years, so Miami only has so much time left with him unless they sign him to an extension. If they do manage to get him signed as they did teammate Giancarlo Stanton, they want him to be at his best -- it’d be more concerning if they were running him into the ground, because the assumption then is that they’re building him up for a trade to become someone else’s headache down the road.
If they don’t get Fernandez signed and he’s not traded, well, he’ll join Bryce Harper in the 2018-2019 free agent class. Mark your calendars!
- Baseball Prospectus unveiled its PECOTA forecasts for 2016, so now you have projected standings to argue over.
- Here's a look at five of the strangest PECOTA projections from day one.
- Speaking of projections, ESPN released a top-100 prospect list compiled by the forecasting system ZiPS. With some help from ZiPS' creator Dan Szymborski, I tried to get to the bottom of why ZiPS dislikes top-10 prospect Yoan Moncada, whom the system ranked in the 60s.
- These are the three most confusing teams in baseball, as they could be great, awful, or anything in between.
- These are the 27 things Ted Berg would do if he were a Major League Baseball player.
- The Orioles have had an active offseason, and it's probably still going, but they haven't done much to move from the middle of the pack.
- Josh Hamilton's knee is once again trouble, so maybe the Rangers want to think about adding another outfielder after all.
- Ian Desmond is still a free agent, so let's find a fit for him.
- The Cardinals could be great, but they also have a delicate balance between their depth and their injury risk.
- You should get to know Shohei Otani, because at some point, he'll come to MLB from the NPB.
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