In the midst of the news that the Miami Marlins and Los Angeles Dodgers are close to completing a trade for Ricky Nolasco, the 2013 MLB All-Star Game rosters were also announced! We have been tracking the Marlins All-Star Power Rankings throughout this month, and we predicted this week that Jose Fernandez would get the spot for Miami.
Well, sure enough, the All-Star rosters are out, and check out the pitchers for the National League team.
NL pitchers: Bumgarner, Chapman, Corbin, Fernandez, Grilli, Harvey, Kershaw, Kimbrel, Lee, Locke, Wainwright, Wood, Zimmermann. #ASG
— MLB (@MLB) July 6, 2013
Jose Fernandez will make it on the roster as the youngest Marlins representative in team history at just a shade under 21 years of age. The young pitcher was the team's top prospect heading into 2013 and was promoted to the big league roster the day before Opening Day as a replacement for injuries to Nathan Eovaldi and Henderson Alvarez.
There was concern that Fernandez would struggle making the jump from High-A directly to the majors, but instead he flourished. Fernandez currently has a 2.72 ERA and 3.02 FIP in 92 2/3 innings pitched for the Marlins. He has been the team's best pitcher by a wide margin, leading them in Wins Above Replacement metrics with 1.9 WAR under the FanGraphs model and 2.2 WAR under the Baseball-Reference model.
The Marlins once again only have one player on the roster as expected. This will be the third year in a row in which the Fish have only one representative. Gaby Sanchez was the Marlins' All-Star in 2011, while Giancarlo Stanton represented the Fish in name in 2012, as he was unable to make the game due to recovery from knee surgery.
Here is a complete list of all of the National League All-Stars, and here are the American League All-Stars.
Congratulations to Jose Fernandez, your 2013 Miami Marlins All-Star! A well-deserved All-Star bid for a kid with a tremendously bright future!