Should Jose Fernandez win the NL Cy Young Award?
Jose Fernandez, the Miami Marlins ace who died in a boating accident Sunday, will leave a significant legacy, evident by the outpouring of tributes and the thousands of fans and major league peers he touched with his boundless joy and personal narrative as a Cuban who needed four tries to escape to America.
A two-time all-star and former National League rookie of the year, his legacy in baseball could add more accolades when National League Cy Young Award voting is revealed in November. Ballots are due before the start of post-season play next week.
Fernandez has a legitimate case and it’s not tied solely to the emotions of his death.
Examining the likelihood he wins the award in unprecedented, posthumous fashion:
ERA: Fernandez’s 2.86 ERA ranks eighth among qualified NL starters. Kyle Hendricks (Chicago Cubs) leads the league with a1.99 ERA. This is the weakest area for Fernandez’s case, though it’s much stronger when you consider he is second in Fielding Independent Pitching (2.29) and xFIP (2.56). These statistics are considered a deeper and more accurate rendering of a pitcher’s ability to prevent runs than ERA. They calculate
only elements a pitcher can control. xFIP approximates this by multiplying by the league average home run rate.
WHIP: Fernandez is 10th with a 1.12 walks and hits per innings pitched. Max Scherzer (Washington Nationals) leads with a 0.93 mark.
Wins: Fernandez’s 16-8 record ranks fifth in the NL. Scherzer (19-7) and Jon Lester (Cubs, 19-4) lead the league. Pitcher wins don’t truly encapsulate a pitcher’s dominance, though. Run support and bullpen (two factors a pitcher can’t control) affect this enough that wins have been placed in a different context than past decades. Even for those weighing wins and losses heavily into the equation, Fernandez fares well, though. Innings: Fernandez tossed 1821⁄ in
3 nings, which places him 16th in the NL. Scherzer leads with 2231⁄ in
3 nings. This is an area where Fernandez could get dinged in the eyes of voters because he’s averaged just over six innings pitched per game (29 starts) and he’s started less than any Cy Young contender. Scherzer should hold a 45-inning advantage by season’s end.
Strikeouts: He leads the NL with 12.49 strikeouts per nine innings and 34.3-per-cent strikeouts per plate appearance. Overall, his 253 strikeouts rank second to Scherzer’s 277.
Strikeout-to-walk ratio: Fernandez is fourth with a 4.60 mark. Scherzer is in first with a 5.13 K/BB ratio.
WAR: Fernandez is second to Noah Syndergaard (New York Mets) in the NL in Fangraphs’ version of WAR (6.2), although he’s at 4.1 in Baseball
Reference’s version, which is out of the top 10.
Intangibles: It will be nearly impossible for voters — two members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America from each NL city — to remain disaffected by Fernandez’s death. Could his death force some to lean Fernandez’s way in the event of a virtual tie in their mind? Might other voters overcorrect, consciously or subconsciously, to ensure they are not valuing sentiment over statistics and performance?
His main competition, too, is still building a case. Scherzer and Syndergaard can command some of the spotlight on the final day of the regular season, as Scherzer aims for win No. 20 and Syndergaard possibly pitches the Mets into a playoff berth. Syndergaard’s efforts in a Tuesday night win edged him past Fernandez in FIP and WAR — which may steal support from Fernandez among the more rate-based voters.