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Jays Add Some More Bullpen Depth
The Blue Jays, determined to have more of a swing-and-miss element to their bullpen, signed flamethrower Junior Fernandez yesterday. A player with his velo and history comes with the standard disclaimer:
As with all lottery ticket arms, temper your expectations. Junior Fernandez however does have a Four-Seam Fastball that ABSOLUTELY catches your eye. 134.8 Stuff+ and 131.4 Pitching+ is just ridiculous for a fastball.
— Ryan Garcia (@RyanGarciaESM)
9:53 PM • Nov 18, 2022
Fernandez originally signed as the Cards as an IFAin 2014, and made his big league debut with them in 2019. He pitched in 16 games for St Louis this year, riding the I-55 shuttle to Memphis several times. Fernandez was DFA’d in September, and was picked up by the Pirates, for whom he pitched in 3 games before hitting waivers once again. The Yankees acquired him in November and had him on their roster for all of 48 days before DFA’ing him.
Fernandez throws a high-octane fastball with some arm-side run. Fernandez also throws a sinker, change (with some promising movement), and a curve. Interestingly, Fernandez went from hardly throwing his sinker at all in 2021 (just 2%) to making it the dominant pitch (45%) this past season.
The issue with Fernandez’ sinker appears to be that while he can generate groundballs (59%) with it, the pitch doesn’t have a ton of vertical movement on it, and he has trouble throwing it (as well as his whole arsenal, for that matter) for strikes.
Esteban Rivera of Fangraphs has pointed to some mechanical issues Fernandez might have - perhaps the Blue Jays can work on this. Or maybe the three teams that gave up on him this season had tried to get Fernandez to make those adjustments, and he couldn’t (or perhaps wouldn’t). The sinker appears to be a pitch he felt more comfortable with, which is why he used his fastball less, and one could hardly blame him: hitters squared up his four-seamer to the tune of a 1.042 OPS in 2021. While there is no doubt about the velo, it’s not a high spin rate offering, and it’s a pitch he has a great deal commading:
It’s always interesting to me when teams sign players like Fernandez. With a fastball that can hit 100, he’s going to get multiple chances. Will Pete Walker, Cory Popham, and his pitching development staff, and the rest of the Blue Jays pitching braintrust be able to work with him on his mechanical issues, and/or find some added movement on his sinker? Can he harness that fastball to be more of a pitch up in the zone, which would make his sinker more effective? Will Fernandez, who is now pitching for his fourth organization in five months, be able to make the necessary mechanical adjustments?
With a little over a month before pitchers and catchers report, there really won’t be enough time for him to get used to whatever changes the organization has him implement. For the time being, Fernandez is another guy with some promise, but one who has a long way to go before being able to become a big league bullpen regular. He’s out of options (which is why he was available), so he’s a low cost and equally low risk investment. If he somehow makes the big league roster, great; if not, the Jays hope to get him through waivers to make him AAA depth. If some other team decides to claim him, Toronto really hasn’t lost a whole lot.