From El Sid to El Slim : Fernandez Now Hopes of Be Shadow of His Former Self Only in Appearance

Unfamiliar faces will be everywhere. A new manager, three new coaches, a new starting pitcher, four new position players, assorted new understudies, a new team doctor, a new assistant trainer. A team recognized as a contender each spring beginning in 1985 may not be recognized at all this spring. Such is the turnover the New York Mets have undergone since October.

Strangely, the unfamiliar will include a left-hander who has participated in the club’s last eight spring camps. Such is the change in Sid Fernandez. El Sid is El Slim.

So dramatic is the difference in Fernandez’ appearance that even pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre did not recognize him last week when their paths crossed outside the Mets’ spring-training headquarters in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

“I saw him for the first time (last Tuesday),” Stottlemyre said. “He and Mackey (Sasser) were walking up to me, and from a distance I recognized Mackey right away, and I paid no attention to who he was with. I didn’t recognize Sid; only when they got up close. The difference is amazing.”

The difference is 43 pounds, the weight Fernandez shed through diet and conditioning since the last time most of the Mets saw him. In September, after undergoing surgery on his left knee, Fernandez weighed 261 pounds and was cause for concern for himself and the club. Now, as he works out with Stottlemyre, Stottlemyre’s son Mel Jr. and Wally Whitehurst, he weighs 218.

“He looks outstanding, the best I’ve ever seen him,” Stottlemyre said. “He looks so much younger ... like some 20-year-old rookie.”

“I never really felt old ... I don’t think,” Fernandez said. “But I know my knee feels better. I guess I feel better all over. I think the big difference will be how I’ll feel when I’m pitching. I’ll be able to last longer and be stronger later in the game.”

Fernandez hardly is old, by pitchers’ standards. At 29, he is the age when a pitcher is thought to be in his prime. And that being the case, Fernandez is approaching a career crossroads. After two successive losing seasons and with 1992 the final guaranteed year on his contract, Fernandez is at a point where he must re-establish himself as a force in the National League and provide more of what he gave the Mets from 1986 through 1989, when he won 54 games. If not, his uniform next year might be different in more than size.

He recognized as much last September after undergoing arthroscopic surgery to repair damage in the knee. So he spent the first three weeks of his offseason not in Honolulu with his bride of three months, but at Duke University, participating in a behavior-modification program designed to change his way of life as well as his profile.

“It was time to turn it around,” Fernandez said in December after returning to Hawaii. “I couldn’t keep gaining weight every year. It got to a point where I should do something. I had to do something.”

One objective was, as he said after completing the program, “to get people off my back. Now I don’t have to take any ... from anyone anymore. Let them pick on someone else.”

With assistance from his wife, Noelani, and his agent, Tom Selakovich, and at a cost of about $30,000, Fernandez changed more than his shape.

“I’ve seen him come to camp other years in pretty good shape. But he never came this early, he was never in this kind of shape and he never maintained it,” Stottlemyre said.

“I wanted to prove to people that I could. I liked being challenged,” Fernandez said. “It’s sad that it got to that point.”

He was at Duke from Oct. 10 through Nov. 1. After a winter in Hawaii, he and Noelani arrived in Florida last week, and he began the morning workouts. He was to begin throwing off a mound this morning.

“It looks like he’ll be able to do all the things he has to do much easier,” Stottlemyre said. “Sid feels good physically and feels really good about himself. I’m real excited about his mobility. I was concerned about his strength because he lost so much weight. But he seems strong.”

Fernandez lost last season to injury. He broke a bone in his left forearm in spring training and was out of the rotation until July 19.

Then came the Sept. 7 surgery to repair damage in his left knee. He had a 1-2 record and 2.86 ERA in eight starts and 34 innings, hardly numbers that would prompt the Mets to exercise the option for 1993 on his contract.

“It’s no secret that money was a factor in this,” Selakovich said in October after announcing Fernandez’ going to Duke. “After the surgery, the doctors said the extra weight was putting a strain on Sid’s knee. That’s the kind of thing that can cut short a career. So we talked about doing something to prolong his career and put an end to three years of weight gain.”