Sometimes it appears to happen all at once. In other instances, like this one, you can see it coming. In either case, it’s hard to watch.
To claim that the great Felix Hernandez hasn’t significantly declined would require a degree of dishonesty that I have no interest in visiting. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Or the numbers as it were.
Through his first ten starts of 2016, Felix is 4-4 with a 2.86 ERA. If that doesn’t sound so bad, it’s primarily because wins and ERA are rather poor measures of how well a pitcher is performing. These numbers were also helped along by the fact that, entering play yesterday, opposing teams were just 4-52 against Hernandez with runners in scoring position. Feel free to chalk that up to the King’s competitiveness, but that kind of success simply isn’t sustainable.
The more alarming features of Felix’s season can be easily spotted elsewhere. His command seems to have deserted him, as he’s walked 26 batters in just 63 innings. That’s 3.7 free passes per nine innings pitched, the worst mark of his career. Such a walk rate is acceptable for many relievers, but not for a starting pitcher, much less an ace.
This missing command, coupled with another decrease in velocity, has conspired to damn Felix is another way: He just isn’t missing bats like he used to. His 7.6 K’s/9 is, you guessed it, the worst of his career. More balls put into play, more damage done. You don’t need sabermetrics to understand that. It’s been eight years since Hernandez has struck out less than 190 batters in a season. He may have trouble topping 150 in this campaign.
Last night, Felix faced off against, by far, the worst team in baseball. Yet the Twins clobbered him for six earned runs on eight hits over six innings. He actually pitched fairly well in five of those frames, but the 3rd inning was an unmitigated disaster. And that, unfortunately, has been something of a trend over the past year or so; one absolutely horrid inning doing Felix in.
It didn’t help that the M’s offense made Twins’ journeyman lefty Pat Dean look like Sandy motherfucking Koufax. He was able to scatter four hits over seven innings while striking out eight and walking none. The M’s’ 7-9 hitters were particularly worthless, going a combined 0-9 with seven strikeouts. But let’s be real here- if you need your offense to put up seven runs for you, there’s a problem.
Although Felix’s apparent decline is painful, it’s entirely understandable. He’s just 30 years old, but there are a lot of innings on that powerful right arm. Many of the pitchers who thrive in their thirties have something quite significant in common: they were often late bloomers.
Take Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, for example. Going into their own age 30 seasons, Randy had topped the 200 inning mark in a season four times; Schilling only twice. Felix has done it eight years in a row, and came damn close in the two previous campaigns.
Much of this workload was understandable; the kid was ready for the majors well before his 21st birthday. The only really frustrating part is that he was needlessly overworked for a stretch of years in which the M’s didn’t so much as sniff .500, much less the playoffs. Did he really need to exceed 230 innings from 2010 to 2012, when the club was routinely losing 90-plus games a year? Certainly not. That may seem like a 20/20 hindsight argument, but it isn’t. Plenty of people were expressing concerns over his workload in these lost seasons. And now here we are.
Would Hernandez have a little more left in the tank had a more responsible organization shaved 20 to 30 innings off of his totals in these seasons? Perhaps, but it’s impossible to say at this point. It appears that this is who Felix is now. A decent analog might be Yankees southpaw CC Sabathia.
Sabathia was another boy wonder, who broke into the bigs at age 20 (Felix debuted at 19) and, despite, something resembling innings limits in his early 20’s, was soon topping 230 IP on the regular. He’s still a serviceable starting pitcher who will kick your ass every once in a while (and, having come out of rehab last year, he may even have a little more left than previously thought), but he’s highly unlikely to be a serious Cy Young candidate again.
Sabathia’s last very strong showing came in 2012, when he was 31. The next few years were unkind, for certain. Had he played with a shitty offense behind him in 2013, he might have lost 20 games.
Nevertheless, that Sabathia, 3,000 big league innings and all, is still a competitive player may be the silver lining here. Felix will almost certainly never touch his 2009-2014 peak, but he can still be a valuable member of the M’s’ rotation for several more years.
The King allowed many truly horrible Mariner teams to climb on his back. With any luck (always a big if with the Mariners), maybe an improved M’s’ club can carry him now. It’s the least he deserves.
No Balls And Three Strikes 