Jose, can you see the Cy Young?

By Christian Bouchard

One pitcher would have to lose. The only question was who?

Entering their first start of the season, Detroit Tigers pitcher Anibal Sanchez returned to a place he once called home having not lost there since 2012. His counterpart, however, returned to the same park having not lost in his career.

Jose Fernandez took his perfect 17-0 record at home alongside his 1.40 ERA in 26 career starts at Marlins Park. The winning streak is the longest in MLB history for a pitcher to start off a career at home. This may be why his success created some surprise when he didn’t get the Opening Day assignment. Nonetheless, the Marlins are monitoring Fernandez’s innings this season, his second back from Tommy John surgery following an elbow injury.

Baffling hitters as he had them thinking about what pitch he would throw next, Fernandez would go on to show true talent despite what critics might say. Fernandez went on to throw 5.2 innings while striking out 13 and allowing five hits in his first career loss at home.

After seeing how dominant Fernandez was against the Tigers, a couple of things became clear. He has undoubtedly healed from arguably the nastiest surgery in all of sports and he feels comfortable. It’s for that reason why nobody should be surprised if he ends up winning the Cy Young Award this season -dedicated to the best pitcher in the league – despite the inning limit in order to preserve the ace’s arm.

Since his rookie year (and including the partial seasons directly before the first half of 2014) and after his reconstructive elbow surgery, Fernandez has been outright dominant. His ERAs during that time have been 2.19, 2.44 and 2.92, his WHIPs have been 0.979, 0.948 and 1.160 and his K/9 rates have been 9.7, 12.2 and 11.0. For those who don’t follow baseball that closely, he’s virtually unhittable.

Many predicted the 23-year-old’s performance to diminish following surgery, but he has done the complete opposite. In fact, his velocity has improved as he’s consistently been hitting 96 mph and the movement on his curveball is leaving hitters shaking their heads as they walk back to the dugout. In other words, there’s no indication whatsoever that Fernandez won’t be one of the elite starters in all of baseball – if he’s healthy.

The Marlins have said they plan to keep Fernandez on an innings count this year, likely in the range of 160-180. This number makes sense given his recent past with elbow surgery. But it’s not hard to project what a season featuring that number of innings would look like. As a rookie, Fernandez threw 172 innings, which is almost what’s expected this year.

Looking at career averages, which is fair given his consistency, we can conclude somewhat conservatively over 27 starts and get numbers as follows: 166 innings, a 13-4 record, a 2.40 ERA, a 1.01 WHIP, a .198 BAA, a K/9 rate of 10.5 and a WAR likely in the ballpark of 6.0. Not bad, right? In case you’re wondering, every one of those ratios would have been in the top seven in the majors last year.

It’s also worth mentioning that Fernandez has a career .710 winning percentage with a team that, in his three years, collectively has finished 66 games under .500.

Would that be sufficient for him to win the Cy Young? Maybe.

It seems pretty unlikely that Jake Arrieta will duplicate last year’s numbers. Consensus estimates have him projected at 15-7 with a 2.81 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP, with Fernandez’s career numbers all comparing favourably to those. In addition, Zack Greinke is also expected to take a step back statistically with the move from pitcher-friendly Dodger Stadium to hitter-friendly Chase Field.

Fernandez’s talent is too great, the results too dominant and the potential too attractive to imagine Fernandez not winning a Cy Young in the near future –  perhaps even at the age of 23, just as Kershaw did five years ago.