By the numbers: Jose Fernandez was a Hall of Fame talent

Ryan Fagan

By the numbers: Jose Fernandez was a Hall of Fame talent image

The truth is, I don’t really want to talk about José Fernández as a baseball player.

That’s not how I’ll remember him in a week or in two years or 10 years from now. I’ll remember his smile and his zest for life and his love for the game of baseball, for his courage in escaping Cuba and his devotion to his family and the way he made everyone he came in contact with leave with a better outlook on life. 

As we try to somehow wrap our minds around Fernández’s tragic and incomprehensible death, there are lots of folks out there telling stories about baseball’s most engaging personality. You should read every single one of those stories. They are all worth your time.

MORE: Notable sports deaths for 2016

I’m going to read everything I find. It will be very worth my time. 

Here, I’m going to try and talk about José Fernández, the baseball player. Because, damn, Fernández was one hell of a baseball player (btw, it’s beyond heartbreaking to use the past tense “was” in that sentence). He was a Hall of Fame talent. 

• Fernández made his debut on April 6, 2013. He struck out the side in the second inning of that game against the Mets. He retired the first 10 major-league hitters he faced. By the time his outing was done, he had thrown 80 pitches in five innings, striking out eight and giving up just three hits and one run. In his second start, he threw six shutout innings and allowed just two hits. Fernandez was just getting started. 

• This is random, of course, but Fernández was brilliant in his first start of the month for his entire rookie season. Look at this …

May 4: 7 innings, 1 hit, 0 runs, 9 strikeouts
June 1: 7 innings, 3 hits, 0 runs, 8 strikeouts
July 1: 8 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, 10 strikeouts
August 2: 8 innings, 3 hits, 0 runs, 14 strikeouts
September 6: 7 innings, 1 hit, 0 runs, 9 strikeouts

• Fernández finished his rookie season with a 2.19 ERA and 187 strikeouts in 172 2/3 innings. He won the NL Rookie of the Year, earning 26 first-place votes (Yasiel Puig got the other four), and finished third in the NL Cy Young Award voting (Clayton Kershaw was first and Adam Wainwright was second). He also was the easy winner for Sporting News NL Rookie of the Year, voted on by his peers.

• Fernández started his sophomore season as brilliantly as he ended his first season. Through eight starts, he had a 2.44 ERA and 2.18 FIP. In 51 2/3 innings, Fernandez allowed just 36 hits and struck out 70 hitters. That season, of course, ended when an elbow injury necessitated Tommy John surgery. He came back from that recovery on July 2, 2015, and produced a 2.92 ERA in 11 starts, while striking out 79 batters in 64 2/3 innings. 

MORE: What baseball lost | Fernández brought humanity to baseball | MLB mourns

• Fernández got off to a relatively slow start to the 2016 season, posting a 4.28 ERA in his first six outings of the year. From there, though, he roared into the Cy Young discussion. Look at his numbers over a nine-start stretch, from May 9 until June 26 …

— 1.18 ERA, 61 innings, 35 hits, 14 walks, 91 strikeouts

In that stretch, he struck out at least 11 batters in five times in those nine starts. Of those 35 hits allowed, only nine went for extra bases (five doubles, three homers, one triple). 

* His final numbers for 2016 place him in the NL Cy Young conversation. Fernández, who was named to his second All-Star team, leads all of baseball in FanGraphs WAR, at 6.2. He leads the NL in FIP (2.29) and strikeouts per nine innings (12.5). He finished with a 2.86 ERA in 29 starts and struck out 253 batters in 182 1/3 innings. 

• Let’s look at where Fernández ranks among all MLB starters since his debut in 2013 (minimum 400 innings):

ERA
1. Clayton Kershaw, 1.87
2. Fernández, 2.58
3. Jake Arrieta, 2.62

FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching)
1. Kershaw, 2.00
2. Fernández, 2.43
3. Matt Harvey, 2.77

Strikeouts per nine innings
1. Yu Darvish, 11.62
2. Fernández, 11.25
3. Max Scherzer, 10.58

Strikeout percentage
1. Darvish, 31.5 percent
2. Fernández, 31.2 percent
3. Kershaw, 30.7 percent

Percentage of pitches put in play
1. Darvish, 15.0 percent
2. Fernández, 15.6 percent
3. Danny Salazar, 16.1 percent 

Opponents’ OPS
1. Kershaw, .511
2. Arrieta, .556
3. Fernández, .579

Hits per nine innings
1. Kershaw, 6.20
2. Arrieta, 6.21
3. Fernández, 6.82

Ryan Fagan

Ryan Fagan Photo

Ryan Fagan, the national MLB writer for The Sporting News, has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2016. He also dabbles in college hoops and other sports. And, yeah, he has way too many junk wax baseball cards.