The Blue Jays have claimed right-hander Junior Fernández off waivers from the Yankees, according to announcements from both clubs. Fernandez had been designated for assignment last month.
Fernandez, 26 in March, has spent most of his career as a Cardinal thus far, making his major league debut with them in 2019. He struggled to a 6.62 ERA over 34 appearances in the 2019-2021 stretch, striking out just 19.8% of batters faced in that time while walking 13.8% of them. His results in 2022 were a bit better, as he posted a 2.93 ERA with the Cards, but still only punching out 17.1% of batters and giving free passes to 11.4% of them.
2022 was the last option year for Fernandez, meaning he could no longer be easily shuffled between the majors and minors going forward. Coupled with the disappointing results, that seemed to bump him out of the plans in St. Louis, as they designated him for assignment in September. The Pirates claimed him and put him into three games down the stretch before sending him into DFA limbo again.
Despite the tepid results, there are reasons that the Yankees claimed him from the Pirates in November and the Jays have now claimed him from the Yanks. He averaged 98.8 mph on his four-seamer this year and 98.7 mph on his sinker. Per Statcast, that puts his velocity in the 98th percentile among qualified pitchers. He’s been better at getting punchouts in the minors but without improved results overall. Over the past two years, he’s thrown 58 2/3 Triple-A innings with a 5.22 ERA, despite striking out 27.1% of batters faced. His control issues have also been present in the minors, as he walked 10.4% of Triple-A hitters faced in that two-year span.
The Jays seem to be willing to take a shot on the high-octane stuff and will see if they can find a way to harness it. If they succeed in that regard, they can retain Fernández for the foreseeable future, since he’s yet to crack the two-year mark in terms of major league service time.
The guys who are on the 40 man bubble must not sign agreements on apartments or hotel until the very last minute!
That was one very long seven-day DFA period.
I suspect the waiver period is extended over the holidays; in order to avoid a team trying to pass a player through waivers while GMs are off doing holiday whatever.
I don’t remember this delay in the past over the holiday period, which leads me to believe it may have been added to the last CBA.
Anthony Franco discussed this very issue on his last chat. It’s an interesting read if you look at the transcript and does in fact have to do with the CBA. I don’t want to misquote his information so it’s better to just read his whole response.
Here’s Franco’s response Re: question regarding Junior Fernandez’ stay in DFA limbo for more than 7 days….
“Not entirely clear on this yet but my guess is they implemented some kind of waiver freeze in the latest CBA (the full text of which still isn’t publicly available) that went into effect for a week between Christmas and the New Year
So on Fernández more specifically, I don’t think anything has necessarily happened yet. He’ll probably hit waivers soon”
@Clipper, thanks for the additional info. I’d have liked for the Yankees to have held Fernandez. They have a good track record of taking bullpen arms, narrowing down pitch choices, adding movement, and getting results. That said, there was no clear opening in the Yankee pen, so he might get more opportunities with the Jays, but his game might have improved more with the Yankees. No matter as we still have to see if he sticks with the Blue Jays. Not sure if they can roster him on the 40 man until Opening Day. If not,there could be another chance for another team to grab him. I’m more surprised that the bad teams didn’t claim him. If they can fix him, he’d be a great trade option come midseason. Their 40 man rosters are likely full too, or it explains why they’re bad teams!
Good pickup if he finds the strike zone.
How’s Toronto’s pitching development? They don’t pop in my head as being great.
Don’t know just know he drove me crazy in STL blowing people away then walking 3.
As a Jays fan I’m a little biased in that I think Walker has been a good pitching coach, for the most part. In saying that, developmentally from minors up, there hasn’t been many pitchers to find success that were home grown. Stroman, Manoah are about the only names I can think of in recent years. Outside of them, Halladay?
Was wondering more about reclamation projects. But only 2 guys and one of them a long time ago isn’t good.
Romano?
Reclamation projects the most recent could kind of be Robbie Ray. Although he had more previous success then these recent waiver claims/minor league signings.
I suppose Romano could sort of be lumped into a home grown talent pool. But more of just a guy who was a starter and transitioned to the pen with a 2 pitch mix. And those guys are a dime a dozen.
Robbie Ray was a good development result for the Jays
There have been some good ones between those era but not a ton worth talking about specifically. For whatever reason they’ve been better off producing guys who’d be solid to very good relievers or starters who didn’t truly take off until going somewhere else. Off the top of my head, if young amateur free agents count:
Roberto Osuna (regardless of the personal side, he was one of the best closers in all of baseball pretty much since the moment he debuted)
Jordan Romano
Casey Janssen (quietly one of the best relievers in the AL from the mid-2000s to early-2010s)
Chris Carpenter and Kendall Graveman (to be fair Carpenter didn’t become elite until going to the Cards and Graveman didn’t take off until long after being traded)
Kelvim Escobar (signed as a kid he debuted young and looked really promising and the Jays used him both as a more backend starter and also as a promising closer. Then he signed with the Angels and broke out somewhat before injuries shortened his career)
Ryan Tepera
Brett Cecil
Aaron Loup
Shaun Marcum
If Chris Carpenter could have figured it out earlier and stayed healthy he would of had a very good career instead of just a good one
Robbie Ray Ross Stripling Steven Matz
What’s so special with Stripling? Doesn’t seem significantly better than he was in LA. Other 2 were improved.
Reclamation gambles, I think David Phelps 2019 could qualify.
And Anthony Bass for 2020 was a waiver claim that closed some games that year, could qualify as well.
Like Ray and Matz, more of gambles that paid off though.
Joel Payamps another claim that almost counts, didn’t pitch much but technically he didn’t pitch terrible and was flipped for some cash. The slightest of wins.
AJ Cole is kind of definition of a reclamation project that turned out well. Minor league signing that turned into a key piece for a ‘playoff’ team. He likely would have fallen apart and they would have also likely missed playoffs in a standard 162 game season, but it wasn’t a standard season so he paid off, simple as that!
Matt Shoemaker was a tiny bit better than expected, slight win?
Ken Giles really turned it around with the Jays.
Daniel Hudson was a claim that they flipped after getting some decent innings on the mound, slight win.
And Joe Biagini probably counts for Pete Walker as a solid reclamation win. Rule 5 guy. Not sure if he counts for Atkins, that rule 5 draft was like his first week with the team?
Guys like Font, Roark, Yamaguchi, Anderson, etc really sour the memories but there has been some successes. Hard to tell if that’s Pete Walker or if it’s just blind squirrel finds nut scenarios.
Stripling put up ERAs not much worse in LA, but playing in Dodger Stadium and pre-DH and being younger made that easier. But really the impressive part was having to rebuild Stripling from scratch in his 30s after the disaster he was when he arrived in Toronto. (And that happened in the middle of 2021, doesn’t really show in his 2021 numbers because he started that year so horridly.)
How about Marco Estrada, probably one of Walker’s greatest reclamation projects.
My favourite joke headline: “Typical Shatkins dumpster dive wins Cy Young award”
Right, throws gas but at an 11% walk rate… was always hopeful he’d figure it out
Good luck Junior
This guy and Lewin Diaz will have been claimed off waivers by half the league before Opening Day.
He may be claimed again. Teams often claim players like Fernandez only to DFA them again to fit another player and hope they don’t get claimed.
Vader-same with Sanchez and Hoy Park as Pirates castoffs who get on the merry go round which means that some teams are interested in them.
I wanna start calling this group of players The “Waiver Circuit”.
Love it. A lot of arm free for the taking.
So the Jays got a future closer. Very nice power arm. A 2 pitch pitcher. Power fastball and power curve. Throws over 100.
Now comes the fun part: finding a pitching instructor that can help him get out of his own way
Hmmm if they had someone like that, Kikuchi would be a lock on a rotation spot!
Probably a double play specialist. Closer would be a heck of a development job.
Junior and Julian in the same pen. Watch chaos unfold
Buck Martinez isn’t going to keep those pitching changes straight.
Sounds like a Durham Bulls parody to me….Nuke Lalush hitting the mascot!! Danny Jansen as Kevin Coatner saying, i dont know where its going as one after the other nails BJ Birdie
They have a Nathan Luke’s on the 40 man
Meh. Depth move.
Seriously, in order for the Jays to have made this claim, literally more than 75% of the mlb teams had already passed! That shows you what most teams think of his control issues, but then Shapkins has always been in love with cheap velocity, ie by cheap the kind that cant be controlled! Tbh other than in 1 season, Pete Walker has done little to help the organizations pitchers, and that was bc of 2 pitchers, Robbie Ray and Matz! If he was good as everyone thinks, why couldnt he fix Tanner Roark, Tyler Chatwood and Yusei Kikuchi, bc hes simply just another pitching coach! Sometimes good, sometimes lucky, sometimes bad, yet the Jays act like hes the second coming
Lots of teams have a full 40 man and don’t want to take flyer. Doesn’t mean it’s not a good move. It costs nothing to hold onto him until something better comes along
@Ducey, yup. At this time of year, teams are constantly exchanging out their 40th man for someone they like just a bit more, but they’ll have no issue kicking him to the curb when another better 40th man comes a long the day, week or month later. The goal is then to try and slip yesterday’s 40th man through waivers so he can remain in the org in AAA. So far for Fernandez, he keeps getting claimed, and for good reason. He’s potentially a tweak away from being good.
A pitching coach can only do so much. Some guys have lost it, some have health issues, some are just lost causes.
Walker isn’t perfect, possibly even overrated, but he’s definitely seen some successes over his tenure with the Jays.
A lot of the failures are more on the management side as well.
Bugs me that they keep him around after DUI troubles, but I’m not perfect either so who am I to judge.
John Mozeliak: We need more pitchers with strike out stuff in the bullpen.
Step 1: Trade Johan Oviedo
Step 2. Release Junior Fernandez
Step 3: Release Alex Reyes
Step 4: Do nothing.
What if he had a son and named him Junior? Junior Hernandez Junior has a nice ring to it!
He gets on a team and lasts on that team for a minute.