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We better have a good excuse if we’re going to put a modern pitcher in the company of Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez. Their names are not to be used lightly.

Currently providing a good excuse, however, is Jose Fernandez.

You might have noticed the Miami Marlins ace racking up strikeouts like crazy in 2016. With a rate of 13.10 strikeouts per nine innings, he has a comfortable advantage over Max Scherzer (11.56) for the MLB lead.

Lest anyone think a strikeout rate that huge is nothing out of the ordinary, here’s the up-to-date list of the highest single-season strikeout rates ever recorded:

1. 2001 Randy Johnson: 13.41
2. 1999 Pedro Martinez: 13.20
3. 2016 Jose Fernandez: 13.10

Hence, Fernandez is in the company of Johnson and Martinez. This is a thing that is happening, and it’s worth investigating.

Fernandez being a strikeout pitcher isn’t anything new. Mainly with a blistering fastball and a knee-buckling, humiliation-inducing curveball, he posted a 10.5 K/9 across his first three seasons.

But in 2016, the Marlins’ hope was that the 23-year-old right-hander would actually become less of a strikeout pitcher.

“We want to see him continue to pitch and continue to develop his weapons, where he’s not having to have the mentality that I’ve got to strike everybody out,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said in March to Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald. “There’s nothing wrong with having guy hit a ground ball early in the count. That’s what I’ve talked to him about.”

To some extent, it looks like Fernandez is trying to oblige. He’s cut down on his fastball usage, dropping it from 55.6 percent in 2015 to 54.4 percent this year. He’s also eased up on his velocity. His average fastball has been 94.9 mph. That’s still really good, but it’s a substantial drop from last year’s average of 95.8.

But strikeout rates as high as 13.1 per nine innings don’t happen by accident. More recently, Fernandez provided a few clues to what’s going on.

“A lot of it is location and making the right pitches at the right time,” Fernandez said in June, per Steven Wine of the Associated Press. “It’s something we’ve been working on. I like to throw 155 mph every pitch, but there are things you learn, and you become a pitcher and not just a guy who has good stuff.”

The main key for Fernandez, as it is with every non-knuckleball pitcher, has been fastball command. This is something that got away from him before his Tommy John surgery in 2014, when a career-low 56.2 percent of his fastballs were finding the strike zone.

As Fernandez was on the comeback trail in 2015, one thing he stressed to Christina De Nicola of Fox Sports Florida was not letting his arm drop, so as to avoid putting stress on his surgically repaired elbow. Sure enough, Brooks Baseball shows his release point went up in 2015 and again in 2016:

When Fernandez’s release point was higher in 2013, his fastballs found the zone 57.6 percent of the time. Not so coincidentally, raising it back up led to a 58.9 zone percentage last year and an even better 60.6 mark this year.

And there’s more! As August Fagerstrom of FanGraphs highlighted last month, Fernandez has gone from mostly working right down the middle with his fastball to working on the arm-side edge of the zone. That’s in on right-handed batters and away from left-handed batters. Either way, tough to hit. 

With a better-location/harder-to-hit dynamic at play with Fernandez’s primary pitch, it’s naturally become more difficult for batters to gain an advantage against him. According to Baseball Savant, he’s been behind in the count at a career-low rate. 

When Fernandez has gotten to two strikes on hitters, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed: His curveball is still his preferred finishing move. What’s changed is the effectiveness of his two-strike breaking balls. Witness:

The big difference has to do with location. While Fernandez is throwing more fastballs in the strike zone, he’s throwing more curveballs outside the strike zone in 2016. Only 36.8 percent of his hooks have been in the zone. Moreover, their hot spot is in a place that makes them tough to lay off and tough to hit.

With movement that made it a legend in the first place now combining with its new location pattern, we’re seeing a lot of swings like this at Fernandez’s curveball in 2016:

Fernandez would be dangerous enough if he had only his fastball and his curveball working. But 2016 has also seen him continue to develop his changeup.

It’s always had the movement to be a third dominant pitch in his arsenal. It was drawing a crowd as far back as his rookie season in 2013. Three years later, it has become the stuff of GIFs:

Like he’s doing with his curveball, Fernandez is now making the most of his changeup’s movement with his location. He’s throwing only 42.1 percent of his changeups in the zone. Also like his curveball, the hot spot for Fernandez’s changeup is in a place that makes it tough to lay off and tough to hit.

All of this adds up to a pitch that would be especially useful as an out pitch against left-handed batters. You can guess where this is going:

The only thing that doesn’t make the grade here is the rate at which Fernandez’s changeup is finishing off strikeouts of left-handed batters. But next to everything else, that also looks like something that could fix itself and potentially take his already sky-high strikeout rate even higher.

In all, that’s three plus pitches working beautifully in tandem with one another. The result is a historic strikeout rate that, though eye-popping, feels inevitable.

Fernandez was an elite prospect with huge minor league strikeout numbers when he arrived in 2013, and he really needed only his fastball and curveball to win Rookie of the Year. If further development wasn’t in the cards then, Tommy John surgery has a way of changing things. In his case, the change has been better use of talent that was already there.

Fernandez is not without his flaws. He’s giving up too much hard contact in 2016, suggesting he’s not above getting hurt by mistakes. In addition, his rate of 2.8 walks per nine innings has reversed what had been a downward trend in that department.

Still, strikeouts are the most foolproof way to collect outs. Fernandez is collecting those en masse by setting hitters up with his awesome fastball and knocking them down with his awesome secondaries. 

If a pitcher can do that, he may indeed find himself sharing some special company.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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The Miami Marlins‘ Jose Fernandez twirled seven shutout innings on Sunday in a 1-0 victory over the New York Mets, scattering four hits, no walks and matching a career high with 14 strikeouts.

The proper response? An appreciative nod.

Fernandez has been that kind of pitcher lately—a force of nature from whom we expect nothing but dominance every five days.

After two seasons marred by injury and inconsistency, that’s good news for Fernandez, even better news for Miami and great news for the rest of us.

Squaring off against the Mets’ Matt Harvey, who is on something of a comeback roll himself, Fernandez displayed his full arsenal of mid-90s fastballs and sharp, bat-missing breaking balls. He was sweating but rarely seemed to lose his cool as he befuddled one New York hitter after another.

That’s been the norm for Fernandez. He’s 8-0 over his last eight starts and has allowed eight earned runs with 78 strikeouts in 52 innings during that stretch. 

After wobbling through much of April and finishing the month with a 4.08 ERA, Fernandez found his groove in May, joining an elite fraternity that counts Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens as its only other members, per ESPN Stats & Info:

He now leads the majors with 110 strikeouts—one more than the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Clayton Kershaw—and has lowered his ERA to 2.29.

Whiffs aren’t the only measure of a pitcher, but it’s worth noting that Fernandez’s current strikeouts-per-nine-innings rate of 13.26 would be the second-best of all time behind Randy Johnson’s 13.41 in 2001 if he kept it up for the entire season, per Baseball-Reference.com (via CBS Sports’ Matt Snyder).

On Sunday, he set the Marlins franchise record for career double-digit strikeout games. The Marlins have only been around since 1993, but that’s still impressive, as MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo noted:

Fernandez, a first-round pick in 2011, flashed this limitless potential in 2013 and won National League Rookie of the Year honors in the process. 

Then, in 2014, Tommy John surgery derailed his ascent. He made 11 starts last year and posted a 2.92 ERA. But an offseason of trade rumors and clashes with the Marlins brass muddied the waters.

Then came the slow start to 2016.

Now, Fernandez is back to being Fernandez. On Sunday, that was good enough to defeat the Dark Knight.

“I’m trying more to just worry about a pitch at a time and not think of who I’m pitching against,” Fernandez said after beating the Mets, per MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro and DiComo. “Obviously, with all due respect, Harvey was throwing the ball great. It’s fun to see him out there, throwing the ball hard, making good pitches. We came out on top today, and I’m really happy about it.”

With the win, the Fish moved to 30-27, two games back of the Mets and four behind the first-place Washington Nationals in the NL East.

The drama-attracting Marlins have already endured some adversity this season, most notably in the form of Dee Gordon’s 80-game performance-enhancing drug suspension. 

If Fernandez keeps pitching like an ace among aces, though, it’ll push those distractions to the background and help keep Miami in the postseason picture.

Concerns about Fernandez’s durability won’t disappear until he pitches a full season. After throwing 172.2 innings in 2013, the 23-year-old has logged fewer than 200 frames in the two-and-a-half seasons since. And he’s throwing his slider more than ever before, as ESPN.com’s Mark Simon pointed out; it’s a pitch that can wear on an arm.

Manager Don Mattingly said the plan is to keep Fernandez in “the 180 [inning] range” this season, per Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. 

Mattingly declined to say whether that would mean skipping a few starts at some point. Most likely, the Marlins will cross that bridge when they come to it.

On the bright side, Fernandez won’t turn 24 until July 31. His prime is on the horizon. What he’s doing now might be merely a preview of coming attractions, a thought that should leave opposing hitters quaking in their cleats.

Fernandez’s occasionally fiery temperament may have contributed to his up-and-down relationship with the Marlins front office, but it’s also what fuels him as a player, as Miami hitting coach Barry Bonds explained.

“I like his personality, though some people might think it’s a little harsh,” said Bonds, who knows a thing or two about personality clashes, per Martin Fennelly of the Tampa Bay Times. “But when he’s not that person, he’s not the same pitcher. If he’s not out there trying to rip your head off, that’s not him, that’s not his approach.”

The trick is harnessing that emotion and making it work for you. Marry that to some of the best raw stuff in the game, and you have a ceiling that extends far beyond the retractable roof at Marlins Park.

Even if your rooting interests lie somewhere other than South Beach, this should make you happy.

Jose Fernandez is excellent at throwing baseballs. And we get to watch him do it, then sit back with an appreciative nod.

All statistics current as of June 5 and courtesy of MLB.com and Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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On Monday, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Miami Marlins will kick off a four-game series in Southern California. Jose Fernandez, who is slated to pitch the fourth game, will be a Marlin.

Fans on both sides, however, are permitted to picture him in Dodger blue.

Fernandez-to-the-Dodgers rumblings are nothing new. The Marlins ace simmered on the hot stove all winter amid the club’s usual parade of dysfunction and mixed signals, as Bleacher Report’s Scott Miller outlined in December.

“Multiple sources close to the Marlins acknowledge that Fernandez has grown more and more blunt with management, and there are those who do not appreciate the way he sometimes speaks to his superiors,” Miller reported at the time.

Fernandez has struggled a bit in the early going this season. Through four starts, the right-hander is 1-2 with a 4.37 ERA. He’s also racked up 32 strikeouts in 22.2 innings, so his stuff is as nasty and bat-missing as ever.

The 23-year-old Fernandez is a generational talent coming into his own. Despite undergoing Tommy John surgery in May 2014, the former first-round pick and 2013 National League Rookie of the Year owns a 2.54 career ERA with an eye-popping 368 strikeouts in 311.2 frames.

Slot him into any rotation, and it instantly becomes exponentially more dangerous.

Slot him next to Clayton Kershaw, and you could be looking at one of the better lefty-righty duos in recent memory.

A Fernandez trade would be huge, and admittedly fraught, for Miami and L.A.

But as the Dodgers attempt to snap their quarter-century-plus championship drought and the floundering Marlins try to get on a winning track, it’s a risk both sides should strongly consider taking.

The Dodgers, with their deep pockets and loaded farm, seemed like a natural fit for Fernandez, who is under team control through the 2018 season and is a candidate for a monster extension that Miami is unlikely to dole out.

A trade never materialized during the offseason, possibly because the Marlins were asking for the moon, the stars and a few spare solar systems.

“If we gave them what they wanted, we wouldn’t have one young pitcher left in our organization,” an unnamed Dodgers official told Peter Gammons in December.

So Los Angeles moved on, opting to fill out its rotation by signing left-hander Scott Kazmir and Japanese ace Kenta Maeda. 

Maeda, who inked an incentive-laden deal because of concerns over his health, has exceeded expectations so far with a minuscule 0.36 ERA through four starts.

Kazmir, however, sports an unsightly 6.63 ERA. And with Brett Anderson, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Brandon McCarthy all injured, the Dodgers’ rotation depth is suddenly in doubt. 

That doesn’t mean they have to engineer a megadeal. The club could get contributions from top minor league arms such as Julio Urias and Jose De Leon at some point this season. And Anderson, Ryu and McCarthy are all expected back in 2016.

Counting on untested youngsters and injury comebacks, however, can be dicey. So can selling the farm for a single player. So can trading away a franchise talent.

That’s why these are tough decisions.

If you’re betting on what the Dodgers will do, bet against a Fernandez blockbuster. Under the regime of president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, the team has exercised restraint, “consistently preaching the value of depth, refusing to acknowledge public panic, emphasizing the long-term sustainability of the organization while still competing in the present,” as the Los Angeles Times‘ Andy McCullough recently put it.

There’s merit to that approach. It helped Friedman overachieve and build a reputation during his days with the small-market Tampa Bay Rays.

But he’s sailing in deeper waters now, at the helm of a club that isn’t interested in merely getting to the postseason. The Dodgers, owners of baseball’s biggest payroll, want to hoist a Commissioner’s Trophy for the first time since 1988. 

Fernandez doesn’t automatically get them there. They had Zack Greinke and his MLB-leading ERA last year alongside Kershaw and still lost in the division series. 

It’s possible, however, that Miami’s asking price could inch downward as the trade deadline approaches. 

Speaking with MLB Network Radio in February, Fox Sports’ Jon Paul Morosi suggested the Marlins would move Fernandez if they were out of contention by July.

There’s a lot of baseball left before then, but entering Monday, the Fish are floating at 6-11, in fourth place in the National League East.

There’s also no telling what direction Miami’s brass, led by polarizing owner Jeffrey Loria, will zag. The team that fires its manager midseason and replaces him with a general manager who has zero professional coaching experience in the dugout will do just about anything. 

If Miami demands Los Angeles’ entire cache of prospects, plus the deed to Dodger Stadium, forget it. And L.A. ought to put some players, including shortstop Corey Seager, on its no-fly list. 

Los Angeles, though, should be willing to pluck a handful of names from a gilded system that ESPN.com’s Keith Law ranked No. 2 in baseball.

This winter, yours truly proposed a package of Urias, outfielder Joc Pederson, infielder Micah Johnson and catcher Austin Barnes, plus possibly another arm from the bottom of L.A.’s top 20 prospects, for Fernandez.

That’s a lot to give up and quite possibly less than Miami would require. But it’d be a fine starting point.

The Dodgers can’t afford to be complacent. Not with the archrival San Francisco Giants and reloaded Arizona Diamondbacks challenging for division supremacy, and certainly not with the hyper-talented Chicago Cubs and pitching-rich New York Mets lurking as potential October foils.

The Marlins, meanwhile, can’t afford to keep treading water. There’s plenty of talent on the roster—headlined by slugger Giancarlo Stanton—but restocking their system and ending the flare-ups between Fernandez and the front office seems like the best course. 

For this upcoming series, Fernandez is a Marlin. For the best interests of both sides, everyone should at least imagine him in Dodger blue.

All statistics current as of April 24 and courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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Put Scott Boras, Jeffrey Loria and David Samson in a room, and a reality television producer would salivate at the possibilities. It’s a group with so much potential for dysfunction that Bravo might consider ditching The Real Housewives series just to acquire the rights.

The outspoken, bullish agent (Boras), the wacky owner (Loria) and president (Samson) have the kind of volatile personalities that could cause a kerfuffle in 2016.

The parties are making nice right now, with the Associated Press (h/t Fox Sports) indicating communication has gone smoothly between the Marlins and Boras, who represents three of Miami’s five projected starting pitchers.

Jose Fernandez, though, could easily ripple the waters.

The Miami right-hander, a Boras client, had Tommy John surgery on May 16, 2014. In 11 starts last season, the 23-year-old pitched 64.2 innings and went 6-1 with a 2.92 ERA. He is Miami’s most promising starter, and, as of now, the Marlins are reportedly in agreement with Boras on how to use Fernandez in 2016, according to MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro.

Does this sound like the sequel to a classic Boras film?

Mets right-hander Matt Harvey, also a Boras client, missed all of the 2014 season after having Tommy John surgery. Then in 2015, the Mets were contenders. Agendas diverged.

While the Mets wanted Harvey to help their push to October, Boras was more focused on preserving Harvey’s value for 2019, when he becomes a free agent.

The Mets wanted to modify the previously established 180 innings limit for Harvey. Boras wanted Harvey to be shut down once he hit the mark. So Boras did Boras-y things like posture publicly, causing a controversy at the worst possible time.

At one point, Harvey was even noncommittal about whether he would pitch in the playoffs. Eventually, he pitched in October.

For the situation to re-air in Miami, the Marlins have to compete—a far-fetched idea in a division that includes the Mets and Nationals. If in fact Miami doesn‘t contend for the playoffs, there’s no reason to eclipse Fernandez’s innings limit.

But expect the Marlins to improve on last season’s 71-91 record. And just maybe, new manager Don Mattingly will be the voice needed to jump-start this club. Heck, last season we saw the Cubs‘ Joe Maddon and the Astros‘ A.J. Hinch guide their young teams to the playoffs a year earlier than expected.

If they are contenders, how could the Marlins brass, which has warred with its fans over the years, deny them October baseball? Shutting down Fernandez would concede any race.

Oh, and blowing Fernandez’s innings limit would be so entertaining.

Boras isn‘t the only loudmouth of the group. Samson is also one to—let’s put it nicely—overshare. In November, Samson told the Miami Herald‘s Barry Jackson that Fernandez rejected a multiyear contract offer in the months before he returned from his surgery.

Samson felt the need to break the privacy of those negotiations to gain public favor. The lava is already boiling. If Boras tries to tell the Marlins how to use Fernandez, we could see an irruption.

Neither Loria nor Samson would welcome Boras‘ opinion on how to run their organization.

Like Harvey, Fernandez is scheduled to become a free agent in 2019. Only Boras has more to protect in the case of Fernandez. When he’s a free agent, he’ll command a bigger contract than Harvey, who will have hit 30 by then.

The irony: The better Fernandez plays, the more likely the parties are to get into a hissy fit.

An all-star-type year from Fernandez could vault the Marlins into playoff contention. If he plays poorly, Miami has no chance of going to the postseason.

This is a prognostication, which is what we do this time of year. But if the Marlins do exceed expectations, a battle over Fernandez can make the Harvey situation look like an undercard.

If it does go down, grab your popcorn, sit back and tune in. It would be wildly entertaining.

Seth Gruen covers baseball for Bleacher Report as a national baseball columnist. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

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The Miami Marlins have a “tentative game plan” to put ace starting pitcher Jose Fernandez on an innings limit for the upcoming season, which the team “will review with Jose in spring training,” according to president of baseball operations Michael Hill, per Jon Morosi of Fox Sports.  

“There’s going to be a range (of innings) discussed with the team and the doctors involved,” Fernandez’s agent, Scott Boras, told Morosi.

The 2016 season will be Fernandez’s first full campaign since undergoing Tommy John surgery in May 2014.

According to Morosi, “The Marlins, according to one source, will be reluctant to place a hard cap on Fernandez before the season, preferring to agree on a range that could be scaled based on the number of stressful innings encountered during the year.”

Based on Matt Harvey’s experience with the New York Mets in 2015, his first full season back from the same surgery, Morosi speculated Fernandez could be looking at about 180 innings of work.

Fernandez, 23, appeared in just 11 games in 2015, finishing 6-1 with a 2.92 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and 79 strikeouts in just 64.2 innings pitched. In his three seasons in the big leagues—two of which have been hampered by injury—Fernandez has established himself as one of the top young pitchers in baseball. 

But he also missed an additional month last season after suffering a right biceps strain, so it’s hard to blame the Marlins for wanting to be cautious with their young ace.

On the other hand, the Marlins signed Wei-Yin Chen this offseason to bolster the top of the rotation—an indication the organization believes it can compete for an NL East title—so finding the right balance between caution and ambition will be key for the Marlins and Fernandez as they monitor his innings count.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.

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Jose Fernandez and the Miami Marlins appear to be destined for a divorce by the time the hard-hurling right-hander hits free agency in 2018.

Continue for updates.

Fernandez Expected to Command $30 Million Per Year

Sunday, Feb. 14

The Marlins believe Fernandez and agent Scott Boras will seek a deal worth $30 million per year when the ace becomes a free agent in 2018, according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald.

The team has “no plans to meet” the hefty figure, per Jackson.

Fernandez has twice turned down extension offers since undergoing Tommy John surgery in May 2014. The first was a six-year, $40 million offer, according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, then working for CBS Sports.

Adam Klug of CBS Sports Radio thought there was no chance that Hernandez and Boras would accept such an offer:

Fernandez turned down another a multiyear offer for an undisclosed amount in November, less than four months removed from his return, according to Jackson.

The Marlins then shopped Fernandez at the winter meetings in December, but their asking price was reportedly too high, per Joe Frisaro of MLB.com (via Chris Cwik of Yahoo Sports). 

Less than a week later, Fernandez declined to comment when asked if he thought the Marlins could compete in 2016 and if he wanted to remain in Miami. 

Fernandez is reportedly upset with the slew of trades the team made in the summer—notably dealing starting pitchers Dan Haren and Mat Latos—as well as the firing of pitching coach Chuck Hernandez, per Jackson, who elaborated on the situation:

If the Marlins are winning a lot and in serious contention the next two seasons, they could hold onto him through at least the midpoint of 2018. Otherwise, they figure to trade him within a year of free agency, perhaps after 2016 if this upcoming season is an unmitigated disaster. At $2.8 million, he remains a bargain for 2016.

Fernandez still has three full seasons of club control remaining. But $30 million per year is a steep price for any player—particularly for a club with the third-lowest payroll in MLB.

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First, let’s get this out of the way: Jose Fernandez won’t come cheap, if he comes at all.

The Miami Marlins are under no obligation to trade the 23-year-old budding ace. And if they do, they’ll demand a king’s ransom.

Yet the rumors won’t go away. Fernandez has been linked to multiple potential suitors this winter, but none more than the Los Angeles Dodgers, who need a front-line starter after Zack Greinke rode off into the desert for a massive payday with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

There are roadblocks and reasons for skepticism, to be sure. But Los Angeles is one of the few clubs that could theoretically net Fernandez without completely crippling its farm system, as we’ll examine shortly.

First, a look at where things stand. The Dodgers “are staying in touch with the Marlins” about Fernandez, Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reported Dec. 21. At the same time, Rosenthal added, “it remains difficult to imagine the teams matching up on a trade unless Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria decides he wants Fernandez gone.”

Fernandez’s bumpy relationship with Miami’s front office and his teammates is just one part of a toxic circus in South Beach, as Bleacher Report’s Scott Miller recently detailed. 

When asked if he’d like to remain a Marlin, Fernandez said he’s “not allowed to comment,” per Walter Villa of the Miami Herald. Which sounds an awful lot like thinly veiled code for, “Heck no,” or perhaps something less printable.

Again, though, Miami doesn’t have to deal him. He’s under club control for the next three years. And while his 2014 Tommy John surgery and last season’s biceps strain raise injury red flags, the 336 strikeouts and 2.40 ERA he’s tallied in 289 big league innings make him one of the most tantalizing talents in baseball.

Just the thought of him slotted next to Clayton Kershaw at the top of the rotation should leave L.A. fans drooling onto their Dodger Dogs.

So what would Los Angeles have to give up to land him? Let’s start with the haul the D-Backs surrendered to get Shelby Miller from the Atlanta Braves and go from there.

For Miller—who’s two years older than Fernandez and has a significantly lower ceiling—Arizona sacrificed shortstop and No. 1 overall pick Dansby Swanson, center fielder Ender Inciarte and pitching prospect Aaron Blair. The Marlins, no doubt, would demand similar pieces and more for Fernandez.

In fact, as Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald reported, before the Miller trade, the Marlins and Diamondbacks were discussing a deal that would have featured Swanson, Inciarte and Blair, plus pitcher Patrick Corbin and infielder Brandon Drury. That’s a top prospect, a secondary prospect and multiple big league-ready players.

Whew.

Could the Dodgers make that happen without hopelessly mortgaging the future? Depending on whether the Marlins are willing to play ball, the answer is a definite maybe. 

Let’s start with the prospects. Infielder Corey Seager, who impressed in his MLB debut last year, should be off-limits. But Julio Urias—L.A.’s No. 2 prospect and the top left-handed pitching prospect in the game, according to MLB.com—could be an enticing centerpiece. 

Urias, still just 19 years old, rose as high as Triple-A last season. Overall, he owns a 2.91 ERA and an impressive 264 strikeouts in 222.1 minor league frames.

Losing him would hurt, no question, but the Dodgers would be replacing him with a more fully developed ace. And L.A. has five more pitchers—right-handers Jose De Leon, Frankie Montas, Grant Holmes, Walker Buehler and Chris Anderson—among its top 10 prospects.

As for secondary pieces, the Dodgers could toss in speedy Micah Johnson—the fifth-best second base prospect in baseball, per MLB.com—whom they acquired in the three-team swap that sent Todd Frazier from the Cincinnati Reds to the Chicago White Sox. 

And perhaps Miami would be interested in reacquiring catcher Austin Barnes, who was shipped to Los Angeles in the Dee Gordon trade last December. Barnes, the Dodgers’ No. 13 prospect, posted an .869 OPS in Triple-A and got a cup of coffee in the big leagues.

According to ESPN.com’s Mark Saxon, losing Barnes in the Gordon trade “stung most” for the Fish. Could a potential reunion sweeten the pot now?

OK, so that’s one superlative prospect, one good one and another solid chip that we know Miami likes. We’re getting warm, but we’re not there yet.

Remember, the D-Backs supposedly dangled Inciarte for Fernandez and ultimately sent him to Atlanta. The Dodgers, too, have a promising young outfielder by the name of Joc Pederson.

Yes, Pederson’s production tailed off significantly in the second half, and he finished with an anemic .210 average. But he teased huge power, blasting 26 dingers and putting on a jaw-dropping display at the Home Run Derby.

He’s also got plus speed and excellent defensive tools. And, like Fernandez, he’s just 23, meaning there’s room for growth. Just the spectacle of him and Giancarlo Stanton taking batting practice together should put butts in the seats at Marlins Park.

If the Dodgers were to move Pederson—and, to be clear, there’s no indication he’s on the block—they’d need to plug a hole in the outfield, possibly by signing a free agent in the Dexter Fowler or Denard Span mold.

A package of Pederson, Urias, Johnson, Barnes and maybe one more prospect from the bottom of L.A.’s top 20 if the Marlins demand quantity might feel like too much to jettison. And it is a lot. But the Dodgers would still be left with eight of their top 10 prospects and would retain Seager, their brightest rising star.

At the same time, that still might not be enough for Loria and Miami, who could hold out for Seager as well. If that’s the case, the Dodgers should move on, assuming they haven’t already. 

Los Angeles reportedly met with Japanese ace Kenta Maeda in Southern California on Christmas Eve. And even with Greinke, David Price and Johnny Cueto off the board, there are high-upside free-agent options, including left-handers Scott Kazmir and Wei-Yin Chen.

None of those names, though, matches the potential impact of Fernandez. Maybe the Marlins truly aren’t selling for anything less than a blow-up-the-farm overpay. But the Dodgers should keep asking, and they should offer the gaudiest deal they can without going over the cliff.

Jose Fernandez won’t come cheap. If he comes, however, he’ll be a game-changer worth paying for—within some semblance of reason.

All statistics and contract information courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted. 

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It’s already Week 7 of the 2015-16 MLB offseason, and Clayton Kershaw still needs a sidekick.

From figuring out who will be backing up baseball’s nastiest starter at Dodger Stadium to trying to explain why so many prominent free-agent bats remain unsigned, there are all sorts of questions to ponder as 2016 inches ever closer.

There’s room in this week’s conversation for talk about whether one of the game’s most underrated bullpen aces could be on the move. But first, let’s get back to Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ work-in-progress rotation.

Who Will Be the No. 2 Starter at Chavez Ravine?

The Jose Fernandez trade talk just won’t go away.

And the Miami Marlins aren’t exactly quashing the noise:

According to Jon Morosi of Fox Sports, the door remains slightly ajar when it comes to the Dodgers and Fernandez:

But based on the Marlins’ staggering reported asking price, the key phrase is likely “no deal close.” Back during the winter meetings, Joe Frisaro of MLB.com explained that the Fish wanted Julio Urias, Corey Seager, Joc Pederson and two more players in exchange for the electric Cuban.

For the Marlins, there’s no harm in asking. But that’s the kind of exorbitant demand that would lead Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman to hang up the phone and hang up fast.

Lyle Spencer of MLB.com suggested that Friedman should give Billy Beane a ring as he searches for that second ace:

Gray doesn’t generate the same buzz as Fernandez, but the diminutive righty is a rising star in his own right. In 2015, the starter landed third in the American League Cy Young Award voting. And Beane, the Oakland Athletics’ executive vice president of baseball operations, is in no rush to cash in on Gray.

“It’s a fair question,” Beane said, when asked by Joe Stiglich of CSN California about the topic of trading Gray. “And you could imagine how many people, at least early in the winter, were inquiring on him. We were pretty aggressively returning those calls and saying it wasn’t something we were gonna consider. That’s our stance now.”

So where could the Dodgers turn with Fernandez and Gray looking like virtual no-go’s?

Jake Odorizzi is one guy to watch out for. Per Jon Heyman of CBS Sports, Los Angeles has already checked in with the Tampa Bay Rays about the starter, who turns 26 in March.

Odorizzi doesn’t have nearly the same national profile as Fernandez or even Gray, but there’s still a lot to like about his arm. Last year, the starter was eighth in the AL with a 3.35 ERA. Thanks to his contract situation, he could also be a Dodger for the foreseeable future, as he remains under team control through the 2020 season.

The Answer: Odorizzi

What the Heck Is Going on with the Free-Agent Market for Bats?

The market for top-of-the-line position players has been moving about as fast as a glacier.

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports provided the cold hard numbers: “Only two free-agent position players have signed multiyear contracts this offseason for more than $20 million guaranteed—outfielder Jason Heyward and infielder Ben Zobrist.”

Surveying the remaining class of bats, here’s the list of guys who should have already cleared that relatively low bar:

• Chris Davis
• Yoenis Cespedes
• Justin Upton
• Alex Gordon

Davis is the outlier here, as the masher could have already landed a new gig if he had wanted to. As Heyman noted, the Baltimore Orioles “pulled” a seven-year, $154 million offer after Crush Davis and his agent Scott Boras took too long thinking about it.

The slow play is classic Boras, as the super-agent is well-known for his strategy of waiting out the market before securing a megadeal seemingly out of nowhere at the last moment.

But when it comes to the nearly nonexistent market for Cespedes, Upton and Gordon, it’s much more difficult to explain just what’s going on.

Cespedes cracked 35 home runs last year, and so far he doesn’t have a single reported offer.

Noah Syndergaard would like to see the New York Mets make an offer.

“Of course we’re hoping [that he’ll be back],” Syndergaard said, per Dan Martin of the New York Post. “We all saw the tear he went on from July through the end of the season. We’d love to have that bat back in the lineup, so as long as he’s out there, we’re hoping for that.”

But Joel Sherman of the Post was quick to dash those hopes:

As long as Cespedes remains on the block, Upton could be in a bind. Like La Potencia, Upton is a slugger best suited for left field. But last year, Cespedes trumped Upton in WAR, average, slugging percentage, OPS, home runs and RBI, per FanGraphs.

And then there’s Gordon. Unlike Cespedes and Upton, at least the longtime Kansas City Royal has drawn some concrete interest, per Heyman, from clubs like the Orioles, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Angels and San Francisco Giants. Rosenthal also added the Chicago White Sox to that list.

That’s a good start for Gordon.

The problem is that he’s not just competing for a job with all those other corner guys on the free-agent front. He’s also competing with star trade pieces like Carlos Gonzalez. According to Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post, CarGo—he of 40 home runs in 2015—is available in a swap.

Simply put, the free-agent and trade marketplaces are flush with talent. And word in the industry is that there are more than a few clubs who have no interest in writing any big checks.

That’s a bad look for the game, and even worse news for the players.

The Answer: Thanks in Part to Tanking, Supply is Exceeding Demand

Will the Pittsburgh Pirates Sell High on Mark Melancon?

Neal Huntington, the understated general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, never wins the offseason.

But the clubs that he constructs have a knack for racking up wins during the regular season, as the Bucs have tallied at least 88 Ws in each of the past three campaigns.

The trick is Huntington is always thinking one step ahead and making moves that keep the roster deep yet cost-controlled. With the unheralded Mark Melancon hanging in the trade winds, just such a move could be on tap for the National League Central squad.

“We’ve never had to trade Mark,” Huntington said, per Adam Berry of MLB.com. “It’s always been [a question of] if we’re better with him with us, or if we think it’s a better move for the organization to move him elsewhere, and that still applies.”

That sounds like Huntington is daring rival execs to make him an offer he can’t refuse.

And why shouldn’t he? Melancon, who was eighth in Senior Circuit Cy Young voting in 2015, can become a free agent at the end of next season. The right-hander has put himself on track to score a monster haul next winter.

As a prime candidate to receive a qualifying offer, he’s also all but certain to net the Pirates a compensation pick if he departs. Following that line of reasoning, it would be a shrewd business decision for the team to move Melancon now if the return would significantly beat the value of a comp pick.

The Answer: Not Unless the Pirates Get Overwhelmed

Note: All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

If you want to talk baseball, find me on Twitter @KarlBuscheck.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Clown noses, check. Circus music, check.

But under the Miami big top, would the Marlins really trade ace Jose Fernandez now? When they’ve got him under team control for another three years?

In the three-ring circus that always is just one elephant short of going full Barnum & Bailey under the carnival-barker owner Jeffrey Loria, have things deteriorated so rapidly that Fernandez’s teammates at times in 2015 openly rooted for him to get blasted while he was on the mound?

Granted, the Marlins being the Marlins, anything is possible. No other team could—or would—overshadow its own managerial hire (Don Mattingly) with the hiring of a batting coach (Barry Bonds). In Miami, it’s business as usual.

Fernandez is young (23), sensational (22-9, 2.40 ERA in 47 big league starts) and, as the club’s first-round draft pick in 2011, should be one of the franchise’s flagship players for years to come.

He is also coming back from Tommy John surgery in May, 2014, represented by the same agent who clashed with the New York Mets last summer over Matt Harvey’s workload under similar circumstances and, at times, is immature enough to anger opponents and teammates alike. Just ask Brian McCann, who was furious with him for pimping a home run in 2013.

Now, as the Los Angeles Dodgers and others investigate acquiring him while a steady drumbeat of rumors flow this winter, Fernandez’s South Florida future is dominating the hot stove league landscape.

That he is pitching for the game’s most toxic regime only fuels the speculation.

The Marlins’ culture under Loria and club president David Samson for years has been lowbrow, but even that reached a new high (low?) last summer when the club fired manager Mike Redmond and moved Dan Jennings downstairs from the general manager’s office to replace him.

Jennings was met icily with everything but an open mutiny upon replacing Redmond last May. Players were angry and distrustful that the neutral zone between the clubhouse and the front office had been torpedoed.

Soon, players took to playing circus music in the clubhouse and on charter flights whenever anything they viewed as amateur enough to be endemic to the Marlins occurred. Former Marlin Jeff Baker passed out clown noses. This was all first reported earlier this winter by Andy Slater, a talk show host for the Marlins’ flagship radio station, WINZ, and multiple Bleacher Report sources confirm Slater’s account.

Furthermore, Slater quoted a source saying that Fernandez’s arrogance expanded to the point last season that there were times when coaches and players hoped “he would go out on the mound and get shelled.”

In this winter’s avalanche of rumors surrounding Fernandez’s attitude and desire to be traded from the Marlins, retired pitcher Dan Haren, who started last season in Miami’s rotation before being dealt to the Cubs at midseason, finds at least that last part impossible to believe.

“No way,” Haren told Bleacher Report. “No way. A lot of those things in [Slater’s] article were actually right. But at least from a pitcher’s standpoint, there’s no way anybody was on the bench rooting for Jose to get hit.”

Haren then extended that to include position players as well.

“There’s no way,” he said. “You can be frustrated with a person on and off the field, but I would say there are very few instances [where it reaches that point]. There are people I hate, too. People I don’t get along with, and who don’t like me. But I find it hard to believe in a team sport like baseball, where you need the guy to your left and right to succeed, that people are rooting against someone.”

Marlins starter Tom Koehler echoed Haren.   

“That’s ridiculous,” Koehler told Bleacher Report. “Why would you want your teammate to do poorly? It reflects on everybody. You play to win. If you root for your best pitcher to lose? It doesn’t make sense.”

Multiple sources close to the Marlins acknowledge that Fernandez has grown more and more blunt with management, and there are those who do not appreciate the way he sometimes speaks to his superiors.

Among other things, these sources maintain that several players angrily spoke up when Marlins’ management informed them that Jennings would replace Redmond as manager last May, and that Fernandez was one of them.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Fernandez’s agent, Scott Boras, and Marlins management was already testy over the club’s dealings with outfielder Marcell Ozuna. When Ozuna, also a Boras client, was dispatched to Triple-A New Orleans last summer during a 1-for-36 slump, the agent publicly rebuked the team.

Samson responded by telling Steven Wine of the Associated Press: “My strong suggestion to Mr. Boras is that instead of resting on his 5 percent that he collects from his stable of players, he write a check and buy a team. Then he would have the opportunity to run a team that he claims to be so able to do. Until that time, he is in no position to comment how any Major League Baseball team is operated.”

Then at the general managers meetings in November, Samson suggested that Boras will be excluded from any talks regarding Fernandez’s workload this summer as the pitcher continues his comeback from Tommy John surgery (he returned last July 2 and made 11 starts for the Marlins, working 64.2 innings).

Boras took the high road earlier this month at the winter meetings in Nashville.

“The Marlins have been very cooperative,” Boras told Bleacher Report. “We’ve had meetings with the general manager, Mike Hill, and their doctor and Jose’s doctor. We’ve had two or three of those conversations during the summer. I actually had a brief conversation with Jeffrey [Loria] not more than three weeks ago about how well things went for Jose.

“All I know is, our doctor, Jose’s surgeon, is involved in all calls and we certainly like to share that information with the team. As to who’s on that call, obviously, it’s Jose’s choice because they are his private medical records. And if the team wants to be involved and gain that information, and I’m sure they do and their doctor does, then obviously they’ll join the calls as they’ve done in the past.

“People have come to me about this, and that is not the pattern of conduct from the Marlins that I’ve seen.”

As for Samson specifically threatening to go around the agent in the care and handling of Fernandez, Boras told Bleacher Report: “I know I have a regular course of conversation with Michael Hill and Jeffrey Loria. I don’t deal with David much because he’s not involved in baseball dynamics.”

All of this, and more, factors into the appearance of Fernandez arriving at a premature career crossroads in Miami.

Though his free agency is still three years away, with Boras advising him, Fernandez is viewed throughout the industry as a goner in Miami following the 2018 season. Especially as starting pitcher salaries continue to soar, and after he’s reportedly rejected club overtures in the past regarding a contract extension.

If David Price is worth $217 million over seven years this winter at 30 years of age and Zack Greinke is worth $206.5 million over six years at 32, how far out of Miami’s price range will Fernandez be as a free agent in the winter of ’18-’19 coming off his age-25 season?

Given Fernandez’s homegrown status and Cuban heritage, he should be a cornerstone piece for this franchise for years to come. Among the most dazzling numbers in his glittering resume: He is 17-0 with a 1.40 ERA in 26 career starts at home in Marlins Park.

Increasingly, however, it appears as if he will become just another table-top item in the Marlins’ perennial swap meet.

Fernandez could not be reached for this story. During a recent charity appearance, though, he did nothing to dissuade reports that he wants out of Florida.

“I’ve got no comment on that,” Fernandez told the Miami Herald. “I’m not allowed to comment on it.”

Certainly, if he does want out, Fernandez would simply join a long list of Marlins seeking asylum elsewhere.

Far and wide, the club culture under Loria and Samson is—and always has been—viewed as amateur hour. Players despise Samson for many things, according to multiple sources, including his frequent, unwelcome postgame clubhouse appearances questioning them on things that went wrong during a game.

And it is not uncommon for players to head to the postgame spread and find that they are, say, 12th in line because Loria and his entourage, or Samson and his kids, have beaten them to the food. And if Loria isn’t screaming at umpires, the Marlins are firing popular television broadcaster Tommy Hutton.

“There’s a pretty open relationship there with the front office people and, for me, as a player, it’s hard to be criticized by people who maybe haven’t played the game,” Haren said. “That’s a difficult thing for all players, and for Jose especially.

“He’s very vocal in what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. I think part of the problem is the relationship is very difficult between the front office and the players. That could be extended to any field, really: It could be hard for a writer to be criticized by someone who hasn’t written before.

“The front office is pretty hands-on there, and that’s tough for him. He’s very young, he grew up in a different country. A lot of times there’s a language barrier. Jose speaks really good English, but maybe he was raised to handle things differently.”

As far as Fernandez’s relationship with teammates, other than isolated incidents that are not unusual to any club during the course of a long season, Koehler said there are no problems.

“I don’t see anything that’s any different than what anyone has with each other all the time,” Koehler said. “I think one thing needs to be remembered in all this is that he is 23 years old. Dan’s 35. There’s a lot of growing up that goes on in those ages.

“As far as being disrespectful to teammates or management, I’ve never seen it. I love him.”

After their recent three-team deal with Cincinnati and the Chicago White Sox that netted them right-hander Frankie Montas, second baseman Micah Johnson and outfielder Trayce Thompson from the White Sox, the Dodgers have stockpiled enough top-level prospects this winter that they are viewed as a favorite if the Marlins decide to deal Fernandez for what certainly would have to be a whopping package.

Miami’s template for a deal, meanwhile, was roughly set when Arizona sent center fielder Ender Inciarte, right-hander Aaron Blair and shortstop Dansby Swanson, the top overall pick in this year’s draft, to Atlanta for starter Shelby Miller earlier this month. The Marlins certainly will require an even bigger return than did the Braves.

On the other hand, with lucrative, billion-dollar regional television contracts funneling seemingly endless cash streams to clubs throughout the game, Loria is said to be working feverishly to try and renegotiate his club’s comparatively paltry deal that doesn’t expire until 2020. And with ratings spiking with each Fernandez start (by an average of 5 percent last year, according to Fox Sports Florida, after a 19 percent spike in 2014 and a 16 percent increase in 2013), if the Marlins ultimately decide not to deal him this winter, that may be the biggest reason why.

It is all business, from the bottom-line dollars to the television ratings to how to proceed from Fernandez’s surgery in a manner that works both for the club and for the pitcher and his agent.

And in this atmosphere, it is a very fine line that separates a fresh-faced phenom from a precocious villain.

There are many in the industry who believe absolutely nothing in Miami will ever change as long as Loria and Samson continue to run the show.

Fernandez is primed to become the latest example.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Johnny Cueto and Jose Fernandez are just two of the big league stars whose future has yet to be determined as the winter meetings recede into the background and the 2015-2016 MLB offseason rolls along.

In addition to Cueto, there are at least a couple of prominent players who are still waiting to hit the free-agent jackpot. Meanwhile, Fernandez isn’t the only dynamic major leaguer who just can’t seem to shake all those pesky trade rumors.

After taking an inventory of all the action in Nashville, Tennessee, here’s a breakdown of the biggest questions (and answers) from the baseball week that was.

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