Miami Destination Ace Peter Gammons

Peter Gammons: Miami’s Destination Ace

March 2, 2015 by Peter Gammons 1 Comment

JUPITER, Fla.—The bullpen session lasted 15 pitches, maybe three minutes. “There were more cameras clicking and rolling and more media members and fans than we often see at the peak of spring training,” said one Marlins official.
Because it was Jose Fernandez. “And,” says General Manager Dan Jennings, “Jose is one of the most unusual pitchers I’ve ever seen.”
In this period when Yoan Moncada, Jose Abreu, Yasiel Puig, Yoenis Cespedes, Rusney Castillo and Yasmany Tomas have created a buzz around Cuban baseball, Fernandez is arguably the best pitcher to defect to the United States from Cuba since Luis Tiant (and Orlando Hernandez was really good). Tiant’s 1968 season with Cleveland (21-9, 1.60. 258.1 IP 152 H 73 BB 264 K led league in ERA+, FIP, H/9, WAR) may have been the greatest season ever posted by a Cuban pitcher.
It was a memorable session for the Marlins finally planting the baseball flag in Miami, because, at 22, Fernandez may be to this franchise what Clayton Kershaw and Adam Wainwright are to theirs. Look what’s happened to the Phish: the best player in their history, Giancarlo Stanton, made it clear to ownership that he wanted the Marlins to work in South Florida and would sign if they spent to build around him, and when he asked to backload his $325M deal, they added Martin Prado and Mike Morse, Mat Latos, Dee Gordon and others, and Stanton opened spring training the seventh highest paid player on the team and one of the focuses of the 2015 season. Welcome ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated…
Oh yes, and on Saturday the Marlins think they may have had a record media day for Ichiro Suzuki taking the field in a Miami uniform. And Ichiro is here to be a fourth behind Stanton, Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich, arguably the best outfield in the National League. And Ichiro has already struck up a comic friendship with Ozuna, teaching him one Japanese word a day.
Welcome to the 2015 world of the Miami Marlins. They are one of this spring training’s destinations, which they were not when they won the World Series in 1997 and 2003, which happens to be more World Series titles than the Astros, Mariners, Rays, Rockies, Padres, Rangers, Nationals and Diamondbacks, combined. “This really is fun,” said Fernandez Monday, less than 24 hours after the 15 fastball bullpen session. Fun, and very important, because it was the first time he’d thrown off a mound since undergoing Tommy John Surgery last May 16.
“The ball really felt great coming out of my hand, just like 2013,” said Fernandez. “Clean, really perfect,” said Mike Redmond. “About as good as you could dream,” said Jennings. “Now we just have to make sure he doesn’t get too excited. He’s so enthusiastic, so confident, he probably thinks he could pitch Opening Day. But we have to be cautious.”
“I understand,” said Fernandez. “I’ve thrown breaking balls on flat ground, and it’s been fine; in doing it I’ve actually gotten a much better changeup. But I know the process. I probably won’t throw breaking balls off a mound until the end of this month. We all know that I need to be completely healed before I pitch in games.” And if he’s back right after the All-Star Game and is close to the Jose Fernandez of 2013 in August and September it is possible that the Marlins will go down to the wire with a shot at the playoffs.
“One thing we know is that Jose is very smart, very tough, fearless,” said Jennings. “He was once asked if he was worried about something like a big game, and he said, ‘I’ve been in jail three times trying to get here and pitch in the major leagues. I know what tough is.”
And when he finished that 15 fastball session, he walked over and hugged his mother and grandmother Olga, whom he calls “the love of my life,” a woman who got here on a visa and surprised Fernandez in November, 2013, the day before he was named Rookie of the Year. And a couple of days after finishing third in the Cy Young balloting behind Kershaw and Wainwright.
The one semi-controversy Fernandez has encountered was in September, 2013, when he homered against the Braves. Brian McCann took issue to the way Jose went around the bases and the dugouts emptied. “The way we play baseball in Cuba is with so much enthusiasm and joy and fun that in this country sometimes people think it’s disrespectful,” Fernandez said. “That’s something we have to learn. In Cuba, people aren’t offended by flipping bats or having fun, but we can’t do all that here. I respect that. I respect every major league baseball player.”
It is a different baseball culture. Puig has taken his share of criticism, although when Puig’s name came up around the batting cage at Fenway one day, a Red Sox executive said, “I love him. He has a passion. He loves the game. He plays baseball the way my eight year old plays it.”
Fernandez is exceptionally intelligent, one who studies people and the game. “Baseball is what I’ve loved my entire life,” he said. “When I was a little kid I watched games. Of course I went to playoff games in the Cuban league. People have so much fun, with the music and the dancing girls on the dugouts…”
When he was learning the game, Fernandez wanted to be an everyday player. He was a third baseman, and, as the Braves learned, he could hit. By the time he was 12 he was enrolled in a Cuban sports academy, where elite track, boxing, fútbol, baseball and other sport athletes live five nights a week, study until noon, are fed handsomely and get training. He went to the same academy where in 1999 I spent a day and watched two 15-year olds named Kendrys Morales and Yulieski Gourriel (a great player who now plays in Japan).
Coming up in the Cuban system, Fernandez was too young before he defected to play with Puig, Tomas or any of the players who defected to the U.S. and became recognizable names. When he arrived in Tampa to go to high school and continue his education, he did get the chance to go to a Rays game at The Trop, and calls it “a dream come true. I couldn’t believe what it was like.”
He was the 14^th player picked in the 2011 draft, one that began with Gerrit Cole and saw high school phenoms Dylan Bundy and Archie Bradley selected earlier. Less than two years later he was pitching for the Marlins and put together one of the greatest seasons for an age 21 (which he turned on July 31) pitcher: 12-6, 2.19, 172.2 IP, 111 H, 58 BB, 187 strikeouts, 9.7 strikeouts per 9 innings, the fewest hits (5.8) per nine innings in the league and praise from Joe Maddon that he “is about the best young pitcher I’ve ever seen.”
Fernandez feels “what happened to me last year is that I altered the mechanics that I had in 2013, the mechanics that got me to the big leagues. I studied a lot of video after the operation and found what I changed. I will not let that happen again.”
He now has long toss, flat ground and simple games of catch recorded, and studies them. “He’s very disciplined,” said Jennings. “He asks questions, he studies video of other pitchers and opposing hitters. He wants to know everything.” And, while he escaped Cuba, he is proud of the culture, proud that his native country has the highest literacy rate in the world, proud of all the baseball players.
He has never forgotten the discipline he encountered at the academy. In his first two spring trainings, he rode his bicycle all around Jupiter, both to get the park and for the conditioning racing bikes require. “I stopped riding about six months ago when a friend of mine was hit by a car and injured in an accident,” Fernandez said. Now? “I run, do cardio and a lot of swimming. Not only is swimming great for conditioning, but the arm strokes are similar to the throwing motion.”
Maybe Giancarlo Stanton becomes baseball’s Lebron James in South Florida, a responsibility he willingly accepts. Maybe Yelich is a batting champion in waiting, as many suspect.
And maybe Jose Fernandez returns for two great months and helps carry the Marlins into October. They all are part of baseball’s dream, extraordinary players, bright, articulate, passionate. Stanton told Jeffrey Loria “I don’t want to be making all that money and be in last place in September. I want to be competing for championships.”
Fernandez’s motto is “every five days I go into a start as if it’s the last game I’ll ever pitch.”
Two years ago, Loria tried to buy a winning team, and when it turned out to be a Mercenary Territory, he conceded it was “a mistake” and rebooted. Then, out of his own system emerged a franchise player who accepted the role of franchise leader and franchise pitcher with what Hemingway called “duende,” whose first 15 fastballs of the spring were the heralded highlight of the week the Marlins became a destination.