Miami Marlins Expect Jose Fernandez to Stick in Majors?

The Miami Marlins somehow managed to become the headline on Easter Sunday, when the Miami Heat play one of their biggest games of the season, the NCAA tournament features teams like Florida, Duke, Louisville, and Michigan, and when Major League celebrates it’s Opening Day with a Houston Astros-Texas Rangers night game. Yes, the Marlins upstaged all of this with their news today.

Feb 28, 2013; St. Louis, MO, USA; Miami Marlins top pitching prospect Jose Fernandez (78) delivers a pitch in a B game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Roger Dean Stadium. The Cardinals defeated the Marlins 8-2. Mandatory Credit: Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports

In case you missed it, the Miami Marlins announced that top prospect Jose Fernandez made Opening Day Roster. The team placed Nathan Eovaldi and Henderson Alvarez to DL with shoulder issues. The move in itself was already baffling, as Fernandez has never pitched above Single-A, but the shocks keep coming with the Marlins:

This is what Larry Beinfest told reporters today about Fernandez and his rapid promotion:

"“This has been tugging at us a little bit,” Beinfest said of how quickly to promote Fernandez. “We watched him in big league camp. We watched him last year. We watched him go down to the Minor Leagues. He’s been just outstanding.”"

The Miami Marlins actually believe that Jose Fernandez is good enough right now to be a starter in a major league rotation. I have already blasted them for the move today, but now I will take a look at what PECOTA says about Fernandez and what he will do in 2013.

The acronym PECOTA stands for Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm. It measures the player against similar players in the past and makes a projection based on that. PECOTA is a projection system used on the site Baseball Prospectus.

PECOTA projects Fernandez to pitch 38 major league innings while striking out 38 and walking 15. The system has Fernandez posting a 3.58 ERA and a 3.41 FIP. So PECOTA believes Fernandez can hold his own, but that is over a small sample size. The Marlins want him to pitch 150-175 innings.

The move will either make the Marlins look brilliant or it could be a huge detriment to Fernandez’s development.

Also, it should be remembered that Jose is represented by agent Scott Boras. If he sticks on the Marlins roster, he will be eligible for super-two in arbitration. With his agent being Boras, this will set him up from big pay days down the road, if he succeeds like many experts like him to.

This of course means Fernandez’s stint with the Marlins will be that much shorter. It remains to be seen if the Marlins fire sale trade this past offseason will have any barring on their chances to resign future players, especially players that are signed with Scott Boras.

Jose Fernandez will wear jersey #16 for the Miami Marlins.

This will not be the last Fernandez post of the day. Stay tuned as we will have more updates out to you guys as they come along.

In the mean time, let us know what you think of the moves in the comments. Do you think Jose Fernandez is ready?