Draft Spotlight: Jose Fernandez

Jose Fernandez (Photo by Mike Janes)

Cuba native Jose Fernandez was eight years old when he first dreamed of playing in the major leagues. His Cuban idols were pitchers Pedro Luis Lazo and Norge Luis Vera, yet Fernandez didn’t aspire to pitch in an Olympic gold medal game or in the Cuban National Series championship. His ambitions were loftier, and he was prepared to die for the chance to achieve them.

“The best baseball is in the big leagues,” said Fernandez years later, his goal achieved. “I really want to work to be the best, and that’s why I wanted to play in the United States. I wanted to prove to myself I could do it. I’m blessed. I’ve got an amazing opportunity to be here and show what I can do.”

Fernandez’s path to the majors was considerably more challenging than the average big leaguer, even though he quickly emerged as an elite pitcher after the Florida Marlins selected him in the first round of the 2011 draft.

Fernandez made three unsuccessful attempts on the open seas to defect from Cuba as a young teenager, once closing to within 10 miles of Miami before being turned back. With each failed attempt, his stay in a Cuban jail was a little longer. There were days he wondered if he would get out of jail alive, much less pitch again. He was isolated, banned from both school and baseball, and he and his family were ostracized and branded as traitors.

Undeterred, Fernandez, his mother and stepsister made a fourth attempt to escape Cuba, and this time they were successful. After leaving in the dead of night in March 2008, bound for Cancun, Mexico, in an overcrowded speedboat, they encountered violent waves in the Caribbean Sea. Fernandez’s mother, Maritza Gomez, who could not swim, was thrown overboard. Fernandez dove into the water and pulled her to safety.

After landing in Mexico more than a week after that harrowing experience, Fernandez still had obstacles to overcome. He needed to escape detection from Mexican authorities, who by law were required to send defectors back to Cuba. Fernandez and his family kept a low profile for more than a month while making their way through the backwoods of Mexico to reach safety at the Laredo, Texas, border crossing.

Fernandez then reconnected with his stepfather, Ramon Jimenez, who had made 15 unsuccessful attempts to defect from Cuba before finally succeeding and settling in Tampa, waiting for his family to join him. After three arduous years, they made it.

Fernandez quickly turned his attention to baseball, with the help of Orlando Chinea, a renowned pitching coach from Cuba who also defected in 2008. Fernandez was 15 years old, stood 6-feet, weighed 160 pounds and threw 84 mph. But he was a highly motivated pupil, and soon he would grow and throw much faster.

Under Chinea’s guidance, Fernandez developed into a star pitcher at Tampa’s Alonso High School, leading the school to two Florida 6-A titles and compiling a 30-3 record with 59 walks and 314 strikeouts over three years. His high school career wasn’t without incident. Fernandez was ruled ineligible to play his senior year by the Florida High School Athletic Association when it was determined he had exhausted his four-year limit because he entered ninth grade in Cuba in 2006.
It didn’t seem to matter that he missed his sophomore year while in jail or attempting to defect.

Once he was cleared to play, Fernandez, by then a strapping 6-foot-4, 220 pounds, quickly established himself as one of the country’s top pitching prospects. His fastball reached 98 mph, he showed command of four pitches, and he was a tenacious competitor.

“Mentally, he’s pretty advanced for a high school kid,” an American League scout said. “I know he wants it a lot. Coming to the United States from Cuba isn’t easy, and he never seems to forget what he went through to get here.”

Fernandez began his pro career in 2012 and blew through Class A, going 14-1, 1.75 with 158 strikeouts in 134 innings. He was expected to start the 2013 season in Double-A, but when injuries on the Marlins pitching staff left a void, the club promoted Fernandez. As a 20-year rookie, he went 12-6, 2.19 with 187 strikeouts in 172 innings, and joined Dwight Gooden and Bob Feller as the only pitchers ever to throw a scoreless inning in the All-Star Game before age 21.

Through all his early success, Fernandez never forgot how far he had come.

“There are a lot of things I won’t forget. I can’t,” he said. “When I was in Cuba and decided to get in the boat, you didn’t know if you would be alive or not, so that keeps you focused on working hard and achieving your goals.”