The Diamondbacks released their list of Spring Training invites, and right-hander Junior Fernandez is one of the names attending Arizona’s big league camp. Fernandez inked his minor league deal with the D’Backs back in November, as per the righty’s MLB.com profile page.
It has been over three years since Fernandez last pitched in a Major League game. He had a brief stint with the Chiba Lotte Marines in 2024 but his time in Japan was mostly spent recovering from injury. Beyond that cup of coffee in NPB, Fernandez pitched at the Triple-A level with the Blue Jays and Nationals in 2023, and with the Royals’ and Mets’ top affiliates last season. Over 43 combined Triple-A innings in 2025, Fernandez posted a 4.40 ERA and a very impressive 29.5% strikeout rate, but also an inflated 14% walk rate.
This has essentially been the story of Fernandez’s career, as his control problems have kept him from maximizing his upper-90s velocity. At the MLB level, Fernandez has continued to issue walks but hasn’t been able to miss many bats — he has a 5.17 ERA, 18.7% strikeout rate, and 13.9% walk rate over 54 big league innings with the Cardinals and Pirates from 2019-2022.
Fernandez turns 29 in March, and it remains to be seen if he still has any late-bloomer potential. Since his type of velocity isn’t easy to find, it’s easy to see why the D’Backs and other teams keep giving Fernandez chances, and there’s no risk for Arizona in bringing him to camp and seeing if a fix can finally be found for the right-hander’s command issues. A non-roster deal for Fernandez obviously won’t address Arizona’s stated need for bullpen help, but finding a hidden gem would be a huge boost to the team’s relief corps.
Watching him pitch, he seems like a useful piece if he can just get it under control. But that seems unlikely at this point.
Been a staunch D’Backs fan since they started back in the 90’s, seen them be in front when it came to signing in Free Agency and Spring Training signings, but this season can’t say that I’m all impressed in fact I give it a “D” grade. Beside the Kelly signing which at 38 is good signing, the other pitchers they signing are all at low to very low to really scraping up just a arm to fill out the Spring Training pitching staff with really no chance of making a ML roster. I guess the owner has really tighten the purse strings, to the point of just having a low-level pitching staff for most of 2027.
I’m honestly surprised they didn’t try to get jojo romero and maybe one of the cards catchers when they got arenado. They could have probably worked something out with Alexander or Lawler going the other way. Shoot, with the cards rebuild timeline being 2 to 3 years, they could have trued to get liberatore too