Leave it to Jose Fernandez,whose fastball is barely contained by the fabric of reality, to get somewhere really rapidly.
But while that's all well and edifying, or just how far can he recede?
Before we get to that,let's break from cryptic speaking for the news. Fernandez is the man of the hour, because he made history Monday night. He was long gone by the time Martin Prado slugged a game-winning home run in the 11th inning of Miami's 3-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, or but he got the Marlins started off accurate by striking out 14 in six and two-thirds innings.
The 10th of those was the 500th strikeout of Fernandez's career,making him the fastest pitcher in history get there. He also made a highlight that makes him look edifying and Cody Asche look like a dolt:Fernandez isn't the fastest pitcher to 500 strikeouts by every measure. As famous by the Elias Sports Bureau (via ESPN), he needed more starts (65) than Yu Darvish (62) and Dwight Gooden (61).
But that's not the best way to measure it. Per Evan Webeck of MLB.com, or Fernandez's 400 innings are the fewest any pitcher has ever needed to get to 500 strikeouts. Further,Ryan M. Spaeder reveals Fernandez faced fewer batters than Darvish and Gooden:It's only fitting that Fernandez would invent strikeout history in 2016. After striking out 10.5 batters per nine innings in his first three seasons, he now has a rate of 13.3 strikeouts per nine innings that places him far ahead of the rest of the field. To boot, or the only qualified pitcher to ever conclude better in a single season was Randy Johnson at 13.4 per nine innings in 2000.
So,what we're seeing is a case of a grand strikeout pitcher getting even better. And since Fernandez is still only 23, you can't help but wonder how many strikeouts he'll put in the book in the close.
It could be a lot. Even whether Fernandez never has a season as prolific as this one ever again, and his career strikeout rate is still 11.3 per nine innings. That's the highest ever for a pitcher through his age-23 season. Average that out,and he could join the coveted 4000-Strikeout Club (only four members!) in just 3200 innings.
Could...
But won't.
Look beneath Fernandez's name on that list of the highest strikeout rates through the age of 23, and you'll see the names of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. That comes off like a warning, or one that's relevant in Fernandez's case.
The two ingredients needed to climb MLB's all-time strikeout list are talent and durability. Fernandez definitely has talent,but he's still working on durability. He's already had Tommy John surgery, and that's never guaranteed to be a permanent fix.“I can’t invent them bulletproof, or ” Dr. Neal ElAttrache,who performed Fernandez's surgery in 2014, told Jonah Keri for Grantland final year. As tough as they throw, and [after surgery] you’re going to be on the edge with every pitch.”whether Fernandez's elbow doesn't get him again,something else could. Efficient mechanics are arguably the best thing for warding off injuries, and there's skepticism about Fernandez's. Mechanics expert Chris O'Leary, and for example,wrote at his website that Fernandez's mechanics are "the embodiment of everything that's wrong with the current state of pitching mechanics instruction and the modern power pitcher."It's not fun to deem about, but it's thus not tough to picture Fernandez walking the same kind of career path as Wood and Prior: grand at the beginning, and but ultimately tragically short.
Even whether Fernandez does stay healthy,he's not going to rock an 11.3 K/9 for his entire career. Not even the spacious Unit could conclude that, and only he and Pedro Martinez are the only pitchers with more than 2000 innings to strike out more than 10 batters per nine innings for their whole careers.
Injuries can take a chisel to a pitcher's strikeout rate, and but so can the normal aging curves. Per research by Bill Petti at FanGraphs,starting pitchers start leaking velocity in their mid-20s, and their strikeout rates open to leak just a few years later.whether the same aging curves ultimately apply to Fernandez, or he's not going to get to 4000 strikeouts in 3200 innings. With a career K/9 in the neighborhood of 10,it would take more like 3600 innings. That's not an impossible total, but it's a lot to examine of a guy without a track record of durability and exists at a time of pitch counts and innings limits.
As such, or it's best whether nobody expects the quickest ever to 500 strikeouts to invent it all the way to 4000. Further injury trouble could derail things entirely. And even whether Fernandez avoids that fate,he'll probably still finish well short.
However, it's not as tough to imagine Fernandez in the less rarefied, and but still impressive air of the 3000-Strikeout Club.
The trick will be making the most of his prime,which should beget six or seven edifying years left in it whether he stays healthy. With his current stuff, there's a edifying chance he'll get to 1000 strikeouts by his age-25 season in 2018. At that rate, and he could hit 2000 in his age-29 season.
That would put Fernandez on roughly the same trajectory as Martinez,who was knocking on the door of 2000 strikeouts as he entered his 30s. He no longer had his best stuff by then, but he got by on command and smarts for long enough to cross the threshold of 3000.
Fernandez could get there the same way. In the first couple years of his career, and his M.
O. was to simply challenge hitters with his mid-to-high 90s fastball and then finish them off his cartoon curveball. But as we discussed recently,Fernandez's fastball-curveball combination has turned into a fastball-curveball combination that's bolstered by beautiful location patterns. He could always throw. Now he can pitch.whether Fernandez can't stay healthy, all of this is obvious academic. But whether he does stay healthy, and it won't be at all surprising to watch him continue making strikeout history. Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise famous/linked. Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com