Kuzul

Let’s flashback one year. After only 11 starts in Double-A, the Marlins announce that a 20-year-old named Jose Fernandez will break camp with the big league squad. Most had predicted perhaps a late-season call-up for Fernandez as the extent of his time spent in Miami for the 2013 campaign. 

Now to the current day, where Fernandez is just two-and-a-half-weeks away from taking the ball on Opening Day as the reigning NL Rookie of the Year as part of a sensational season in which he placed second in Cy Young voting. He is, simply, one of the top pitchers in the sport. 

No one can question what the Cuban defect pulled off last year, but what does that mean in terms of fantasy value in 2014? Where should he be picked? Is regression inevitable? Can he somehow improve in his sophomore year? Here’s the answer: If you’re looking to make a splash in your league, don’t be afraid to reach for Fernandez as he could definitely wind up being a bonafide steal. 

Fernandez is 53rd in ESPN.com’s Fantasy Rankings and 33rd in Yahoo’s preseason projections, while his ADP (average draft position) is slightly lower than that at 37. The only real knock on Fernandez is that most are predicting somewhat of a sophomore slump after a rookie year that included a 2.19 ERA, a 0.98 WHIP and a 9.75 K/9 rate. After all, how many 21 year olds can realistically be expected to improve upon those figures?

However, there is reason to suggest that Fernandez can do just that. He was significantly better in the season’s second half than its first. Based on these visuals from Fangraphs, Fernandez improved in almost every respect compared to the league average as the season progressed. This means that even though teams were acquiring more and more film on Fernandez, he was bucking the trend of rookies struggling to adjust as the league gets a second and third look at them.

ESPN’s Buster Olney (subscription required) also suggests not to assume Fernandez is bound to slip. His early success has not gone to his head, and Fernandez’s home division is not one known for its offensive dominance.

I get that Fernandez is young and you might expect some regression. Or, he could be like the young Dwight Gooden, who quickly jumped from great to the most dominant pitcher in baseball, throwing fastballs and curveballs. Word from the Marlins is that they love his work ethic, and while he is known to have favored-nation status from owner Jeffrey Loria, the staff hasn’t seen a diva developing. 

One more thing: Fernandez pitches in arguably the most offensively challenged division in the majors, and four of the five home parks—those of the Mets, Nationals, Braves and Marlins—are viewed as places that generally foster good pitching. Not that he needs help. 

Beyond his pure statistical dominance, Fernandez also would appear to have a ton of value in fantasy amongst the top starting pitchers. The starting hurlers who ESPN has ranked above Fernandez are as follows: Clayton Kershaw, Yu Darvish, Cliff Lee, Adam Wainwright, Felix Hernandez, Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, David Price, Chris Sale and Madison Bumgarner. 

To rank 10 different pitchers above Fernandez seems like a high total. One could make the case that of the group listed above, only three (Kershaw, Darvish and Scherzer) had a better 2013 than Fernandez. In the second half of the year (where we’ve already established the righty really emerged as a monster), none of those three had a lower WHIP, ERA, Opponents’ Batting Average Against or Opponents’ On-Base Plus Slugging than Fernandez. 

For those that fancy sabermetrics, Fernandez stacks up quite nicely there as well. Of that group, only Kershaw, Hernandez and Wainwright had a higher DIPS, or Defense Independent ERA. Only Kershaw, who was the sole pitcher to finish ahead of Fernandez in NL Cy Young voting (of course), finished with a lower Component ERA, which predicts ERA based on walks and hits allowed rather than actual runs allowed. Confusing, I know, but basically Fernandez was as good as any pitcher last year, including Kershaw. 

It’s also hard to argue with Fernandez’s impressive array of pitches. Few, if any, hurlers have three extremely strong options in their repertoire as does Fernandez. His fastball, curveball and slider are all plus-pitches that he can dominate with. See below:   

Fernandez might very well be on his way to being labeled a top-five pitcher in the league by the end of the year. Reach for him. You’ll thank me later.  

All statistics used are from ESPN.com unless otherwise noted. 

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Entering the official start of spring training 2014, one thing is clear: the New York Yankees are Major League Baseball’s most talked about team.

The newest edition of spring training in Tampa Bay for the Yankees took on an entirely different feel when Derek Jeter announced his upcoming retirement back on February 12th. The face of the sport (no offense, Eric Sogard) will arguably be the story of the season as the most recent era in team history comes to a close. Let’s just hope the Jeter Farewell Tour comes with better gifts than the Mariano Rivera one did (really, Texas Rangers? Cowboy boots for a guy from Panama?)

However, the truly most important story lines for the Bombers in spring training are to see what they can expect to yield from their off-season spending spree and how a roster with a surprisingly high number of question marks despite the payroll comes together.  

Can the trio of Jeter/Mark Teixeira/CC Sabathia bounce back from rough 2013? Can Jacoby Ellsbury stay healthy? What exactly can we expect from Masahiro Tanaka? Does David Robertson really have what it takes to replace Mariano Rivera? There’s only one place that has all these answers: Twitter. 

To make the playoffs this year, the Yankees will most likely need to build on last year’s 85-win campaign. That total might sound easy to build off considering the winter’s price tag, but as Ken Davidoff of the New York Post tweets, maybe the Yankees weren’t actually that good. 

A 79-win caliber team minus that team’s best player, one Robinson Cano? Sounds like a tough task to overcome for Joe Girardi. That’s why the quartet of Carlos Beltran, Ellsbury, Brian McCann and Tanaka could make or break the year for New York.

However, all four of those signees come with question marks (at this point, the question mark might as well be the team’s logo this year). We don’t know how Tanaka‘s stuff will translate. Ellsbury‘s games played per year have as been inconsistent as anyone in the league over the course of his career. Beltran is not exactly a spring chicken. McCann is probably the surest bet of the bunch, but even he is beginning 2014 on the wrong side of 30.

One of Ellsbury‘s former managers thinks that success will follow, as long as he stays on the field.

McCann is expected to be a staple in a Yankee lineup that could very well be formidable. Even if McCann has a “down year,” it would be almost impossible for his season to qualify as a positional downgrade from 2013, as MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch points out.

When Tanaka signed, there were two numbers that stood out: a 24-0 record last year in Japan, and a $155 million contract. Critics of the deal have theorized that Tanaka‘s performance won’t match the payday, but Sports on Earth’s Jonathan Bernhardt says even if he’s not great, it’ll be okay for New York.

“If it turns out that New York paid superstar money for a pitcher who is merely very good, fine; the Yankees are a license to print money, and young pitchers who are “merely very good” don’t grow on trees.”

One player who is no lock to make the Opening Day roster, but could make a difference is the enigma known as Michael Pineda. It’s been two full years since we last saw the right-hander in a Major League game, but ESPN’s Buster Olney says there is reason to be optimistic. 

There’s been much talk about Jeter’s last year and what it means for the franchise in the long-term, but in the short-run, no one really knows what to expect from the captain. 

Before his spring training debut on February 27th, Brian Cashman made it clear that on his list of concerns, Jeter is no where near the top, according to Newsday’s David Lennon.

In case you hadn’t heard, Rivera is no longer active. In his place is Robertson, a very good reliever in his own right, but someone who has little experience ending games in big spots. That won’t stop Robertson from thinking he can pitch at an elite level, according to ESPN’s Ian O’Connor.

There’s no doubt the Yankees have upgraded since the end of last season. However, they have some ground to make up in the division. The Red Sox are the reigning World Champions, the Rays have one of the best rotations in all of the league, and the Orioles made some moves late in the off-season to bolster their roster.

The most important Yankee might very well be Teixeira. The Yankees’ infield could potentially be a trainwreck, but if Teixeira can somehow re-create his first three years in the Bronx this year, that could theoretically change the entire lineup. 

Jeter’s last year will be a season-long parade of honors and accolades, but a 39-year-old who might as well not have played in 2013 with a severe ankle injury is as big of a question mark as it comes. It would be very Jeter of Jeter to hit .320 this year, but somewhere in the .280 range is more realistic, if not maybe a best-case scenario for New York. 

Sabathia made news in the off-season for his weight loss, but his season will ultimately come down to another type of loss: velocity. 2013 was arguably the worst season of Sabathia’s career, but he’ll still take the mound April 1st when the Yankees open their season in Houston. His development in spring training could be the most important thing for Girardi & Co. as the team tries to avoid a second straight postseason-less year. 

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