Doosan Bears’ Fernandez Is Tearing Up the KBO

The defending champion Doosan Bears are merely in third place in the Korea Baseball Organization standings, but through the season’s first three weeks, nobody in the league has been hotter than their designated hitter, Jose Miguel Fernandez 페르난데스. Through Sunday’s games, the 32-year-old Cuban defector is batting .500/.531/.764, leading the league in the first two categories as well as wRC+ (240, via Statiz) and trailing Roberto Ramos 라모스 by a mere three points in slugging percentage. His performance has led the Bears’ powerhouse offense, which alas had trouble papering over the team’s pitching issues.

When you’re hitting .500, everything is by definition hot streak, but Fernandez closed the past week in exceptional fashion even as the Bears did not. After going hitless for just the second time all year on May 20 against the NC Dinos, he rebounded to go 3-for-4 with an RBI in a 12-6 loss the next day, then 3-for-4 with a double, a homer, and six RBI in a 12-7 win over the Samsung Lions on Friday. He followed that up with two more multi-hit games against the Lions, first a 4-for-5 performance that included a solo homer (his fourth) in a 10-6 win on Saturday, then a 2-for-4 showing in a 13-0 loss on Sunday. That’s a 12-for-17 spree, and 12 multi-hit games so far this season, including three apiece of the three- and four-hit varieties. Whew.

Known more for his bat-to-ball skills than his raw power, Fernandez has never homered more than 17 times in a season. But thus far in 2020, the lefty swinger — who lists at 5-foot-10, 185-pounds — has been launching some titanic blasts. Here’s his first homer of the year, off the KT Wiz’s Min Kim 김민 on May 10:

Don't know that you guys are keeping track but Jose Miguel Fernandez has another multi-hit game on his hands. Currently 3-3 on the day with this 3 run shot. His 1st HR of 2020. #KBO #DoosanBears pic.twitter.com/1f551qrQgQ

— KBO Collections (@kbocollections) May 10, 2020

His second was hit off the Lotte Giants’ Yeong-hwan Choi 최영환 on May 14, though to be fair, that was just 387 feet to center field in Sajik Baseball Stadium:

This isn't a bat flip but my god is it a mammoth HR.

Jose Miguel Fernandez is now slashing roughly .500 / .541 / .794 in his first 8 games in the KBO season.

Still believe that Jose Miguel Fernandez could benefit a lot of MLB teams. Especially with the universal DH coming in. pic.twitter.com/2oq4J2uQmh

— Alex Fast (@AlexFast8) May 14, 2020

The third, off the Lions’ Seung-hyun Lee 이승현 on May 22:

Jose Miguel Fernandez with HR #3 of the season. #KBO #DoosanBears pic.twitter.com/ZaNCAYDCPv

— KBO Collections (@kbocollections) May 22, 2020

And the last of them, off the Lions’ Dae-woo Kim 김대우 on May 23:

Fernandez is doing all of this with his usual high-contact style, though his 8.6% strikeout rate, which is lower than any of the 135 players who qualified for a batting title in MLB last year, is merely in the 83rd percentile among KBO qualifiers; the Lions’ Hun Gon Kim 김헌곤 has the league low at 3.8%.

It’s been a roundabout route for Fernandez to reach stardom in South Korea. He spent parts of eight seasons playing mostly second base for Los Cocodrilos de Matanzas in Cuba’s Serie Nacional, hitting a combined .319/.403/.423 while striking out just 113 times (4.4%) in 2,580 plate appearances. He played on Cuba’s national team for awhile, notably hitting .524/.545/.667 without striking out in 22 plate appearances during the 2013 World Baseball Classic. In April 2015, Baseball America’s Ben Badler ranked Fernandez as the third-best prospect in Cuba behind infielder Yuli Gurriel and outfielder Alfredo Despaigne, but by then, the 27-year-old infielder had been suspended for nearly six months for attempting to defect. He finally left the country in December 2015, and was cleared to become a free agent the following April. Though several teams were interested in signing him, with the Padres and A’s reportedly particularly intrigued, assessments of his limitations on defense, and with respect to his power and baserunning, dampened the enthusiasm. Ultimately, he didn’t ink with a team until January 2017, when he settled for just a $200,000 signing bonus from the Dodgers. At the time, the move appeared to be a real bargain.

But Fernandez didn’t last long in the Dodgers’ organization. Though he hit .306/.367/.496 with 16 homers — double his season high in Cuba — in 90 games at Double-A Tulsa (plus three at Triple-A Oklahoma City) in 2017, he missed all of August due to a broken hamate that required surgery, then was released in November; he had an opt-out if he wasn’t added to the 40-man roster, which for the Dodgers wasn’t an option due to their organizational depth and evaluations of his defense (one scout used the term “train wreck”).

After signing a minor league deal with the Angels in January 2018, he spent the season bouncing up and down between Triple-A Salt Lake City (where he hit .333/.396/.535 with 17 homers in 91 games) and Anaheim (where he hit .267/.309/.388 in 36 games). Further concerns about his glove, not to mention the arrival and blossoming of Shohei Ohtani, limited Fernandez to 28 games at first base, mostly filling in for the injured Albert Pujols, and brief cameos at second and third.

Even with Ohtani slated to miss the start of the 2019 season due to Tommy John surgery, the Angels decided Fernandez didn’t fit their plans, releasing him in late November; the market for first base/DH types without much power just isn’t very robust. Just after Christmas, he signed a one-year deal with Doosan, which guaranteed him a base salary of $300,000, a $50,000 signing bonus, and another $350,000 in incentives. Undaunted by the dejuiced baseball, he adapted well to the league, hitting a sizzling .344/.409/.483 with 15 homers. He finished first in hits (197, four short of the league record), second in batting average (behind only Euiji Yang 양의지), fourth on on-base percentage, fifth in wRC+ (155), seventh in WAR (5.1), 10th in RBI (88), and 12th in slugging percentage.

Though Fernandez went just 1-for-13 in the Korean Series while the Bears swept the Kiwoom Heroes to claim their third championship in five seasons, his regular season performance earned him a KBO Golden Glove Award as the league’s best DH; unlike its similarly-named counterpart in MLB, the Golden Gloves go to the best overall players at each position, not the best fielders. Fernandez joined pitcher Josh Lindblom 린드블럼, the league’s MVP, as the only Bears to win a Golden Glove. Lindblom’s performance led to a three-year, $9.125 million deal with the Brewers, while Fernandez re-signed with the Bears for a more modest guarantee of $450,000, with another $450,000 in possible incentives.

The Bears, who entered Tuesday 10-7, have been lighting up opposing pitchers at .323/.385/.487 clip; both the batting average and on-base percentage rank first in the league, while their slugging percentage and 6.82 runs per game are second to the Wiz (.496 and 7.00, respectively). First baseman Jae-il Oh 오재일 (.385/.448/.692, 197 wRC+), shortstop Jaeho Kim 김재호 (.400/.460/.473, 154 wRC+), and left fielder Jae-hwan Kim 김재환 (.302/.392/.556, 146 wRC+) have all begun the season in torrid fashion as well. The last of that group, Kim was the league’s MVP in 2018, when he hit .334/.405/.657 with 44 homers, but last year, he fell off to .283/.362/.434 with just 15 homers, so perhaps this represents the start of a substantial rebound. At the other end of the spectrum from this bunch is right fielder Kun-woo Park 박건우 (.215/.320/.338). His 75 wRC+ is the team’s second-lowest mark, where last year his 144 (on .319/.397/.465 hitting) ranked third behind Fernandez and Oh (145).

The problem for the Bears thus far is that they’ve actually been outscored by six runs, 122-116. Their league-high 7.18 runs per game allowed is 0.89 runs per game worse than the next-closest team, the SK Wyverns, who have started the season 3-14 (I took a look at the Wyverns’ woes on Friday, and since then, they’ve lost top slugger Dong-min Han 한동민 to a foul ball-induced fractured tibia). Their two foreign-born starters, Raúl Alcántara 알칸타라 and Chris Flexen, have ably filled the sizable shoes of the departed Lindblom and Seth Frankoff 후랭코프 (who signed a minor-league deal with the Padres); together, they’ve combined to strike out 41 batters while walking just seven. On the other hand, 23-year-old righty Young-ha Lee 이영하 has a 5.75 ERA and a 15.8% walk rate, while 31-year-old righty Yongchan Lee 이용찬 has a 10.34 ERA and 6.82 FIP.

If you think that’s bad, then take the Bears’ bullpen, please. The 11 relievers they’ve used have combined to allow 60 runs (56 earned) in 58 innings, while also allowing 25 of 42 inherited runners to score; on that last note, only one other team has allowed more than 11 inherited runners to score (the Wyverns, with 17). On May 21 against the Dinos, the Bears took a 4-3 lead into the ninth inning… and allowed nine runs, with closer Hyeong-beom Lee 이형범 entering with one out and nobody on and failing to retire any of the five batters he faced, and then Won-joon Choi 최원준 allowing two homers. Choi, a 25-year-old righty who thus far has been the Bears’ hardest-worked reliever, has allowed 13 runs (and four homers) in 11.2 innings, while 21-year-old righty Min-gyu Kim 김민규, who had just two KBO appearances to his name prior to this season, allowed seven runs without recording an out in his season debut on Sunday. Four other relievers have double-digit ERAs, and one more is in the infinity pool with the aforementioned Kim, though he (Dong-won Lee 이동원, who made his KBO debut on Opening Day) allowed just two runs.

Now, I may be new to analyzing the KBO, but that’s all pretty bad. If there’s good news, it’s that much of the damage inflicted on (or by) the Bears’ bullpen has been with relatively little on the line; while the unit’s -1.71 WPA is unsightly, the Wiz’s bullpen already somehow has a staggering -5.42 WPA to go with its own 8.01 ERA.

Whether it’s a .500 batting average or a bullpen’s 8.69 ERA, extreme numbers like this will disappear once the sample sizes increase — a principle that applies as surely to the KBO as it does to MLB. In the meantime, watch Fernandez rack up his hits, but if you stick around, be prepared for some late-inning fireworks.

And on that note, it pleases me to announce that ESPN has invited me to join them in the later innings of Wednesday morning’s Bears-Wyverns game. Following in the footsteps of Lindblom, Eric Thames 테임즈, MyKBO’s Dan Kurtz, the Lotte Giants’ Sung Min Kim and Josh Herzenberg, and a whole lot of other folks who know more about the league than I do, I’ll be joining Jon Sciambi and Eduardo Perez at 7:30 AM Eastern to talk about the game and the league. It’s a relatively humane hour as these things go, but I’ll be mainlining caffeine just the same.