King Felix

Almost a decade and a half later I still remember the whispers, the breathless tales of a young Venezuelan phenom, signed at 16 years old and debuting in pro-ball at Class A Everett at age 17. No one debuts at 17 at Everett, usually Everett is the first stop for top draft picks and players just selected from college in the June draft. But that is where we first saw the young man quickly dubbed “The King.” King Felix held court at short season A ball, and then finished the season in High A at Wisconsin. At age 17 he quickly dismissed the Freddy Garcia comparisons (No offense to Freddy, but even at age 17 it was obvious King Felix was on track to be a much better all around pitcher than Garcia. Garcia had the heat early in his career, but by the time he developed the off speed stuff he could barely touch 90. Early in his career I was always confounded by Garcia’s low strikeout rate (163 K’s in 238IP in 2001, the best overall season of his career.), give how hard he threw), in his first pro season The King went 7-2 with a miniscule 2.22 ERA and fanned a whopping 91 batters in only 69 innings.

From that point on Hernandez blew through the minors. At age 18 he posted stellar numbers at a couple stops in the minors, and at age 19 dominated the traditionally hitter friendly Pacific Coast League. By mid-season the Mariners were ready to bring their next ace to the show. He fared very well in his first big league action finishing his age-19 season with a 4-4 record 2.67 ERA and impressive 8.2 K’s per 9 innings. He took a bit of a step back in his first full season in the majors at age 20, but starting in 2007 he became a solid front end rotation guy, who was still figuring it out, but showed flashes of incredible brilliance at times. Everyone knew he was going to put it all together and in 2009 he did for a resurgent Mariners team that shocked the AL West by winning 87 games and hanging around in the wildcard race long after most people thought they would fade.

2009 was the Felix Hernandez year I had been waiting for since he broke into the big leagues. It sounds crazy, but before that year, his age 23 season, I was actually getting a bit impatient with Hernandez, waiting for him to piece it all together. The Mariners and their chronically abysmal offense did not help matters either. He may not have made a leap, to ace status yet, but he was pitching fairly well, if not a bit below his talent level. Then came the year we had been waiting for. Sometimes in baseball, and in sports, things just all come together at the right moment for a team and a player and often it is hard to tell if it is the player carrying the team to success or the other way around. 2009 was a wonderful thing to behold, a young pitcher harnessing his gifts and becoming an ace. It was the year he earned his first of six all-star bids and placed 2^nd in Cy Young balloting.

Felix would follow his dominant breakout season with an even more unbelievable 2010 season. Paired with Cliff Lee the Mariners were expected to contend after their surprise 2009 season, unfortunately almost every hitter in the Mariners lineup regressed, Griffey nodded off in the dugout and eventually retired in disgrace, and King Felix pitched absolutely out of his mind. Due to putrid run support his record dipped to 13-12, but the voters awarded him the Cy Young easily over David Price due to his microscopic 2.27 ERA, workhorse like 250 IP, and flashy 7.2 WAR. WAR wasn’t quite as big a deal as it is now back in 2010 (It was just coming en vogue.), but he was a full 2.5 WAR ahead of Price by the end of the season. Voters at this point had awarded the previous seasons Cy Young to Zack Grienke over Hernandez despite Grienke’s low win total and the next year they handed the hardware to Hernandez. Recognizing his overall excellence despite a mediocre W/L record cause by one of the worse offenses in major league history.

Sadly the theme of weak run support began to become a major feature of Hernandez career. The dynamite 2009-10 seasons had cemented his place among the top hurlers in the league and he would make the all-star team every season from 2011-15 (Ironically enough, he was not selected as an all-star during the 2010 season, the season he would win his lone Cy Young award.), he had some solid seasons during that stretch and then exploded with arguably the best season of his career in 2014. He was absolutely robbed in the Cy Young balloting that year, losing narrowly to Cleveland’s Corey Kluber, and continued to be as dominant as ever over the first half of the 2015 season before fading hard down the stretch in 2015, where a weak August/September helped balloon his ERA to 3.53, his worse since 2008. And really just like that the run was over. We have now seen a season and a half in which King Felix has struggled with injuries and when healthy has been nothing resembling the pitcher he was in his prime. His walk rate has risen since the start of 2016 and his strikeout rate has fallen. He also does not pass the eye test of a front line ace any more. He labors with counts, struggles putting hitters away, and has seen the overall effectiveness of his off speed pitches diminish as his fastball velocity has decreased.

It must be frustrating for King Felix, in the midst of his 13^th big league season to finally be part of a Mariners offense that is producing runs, but injuries and his declining skills have rendered him, at least for the moment unable to take advantage of it. At age 31 he has logged a lot of mileage on that powerful right arm, nearly 2500 innings, over 200 innings more than Freddy Garcia threw in his entire career, and over 100 more than Roy Oswalt threw in his career. That has to take some kind of toll right there. Though he has tried Felix has never been in great shape and his noticeable late season drop offs especially in 2012 and 2015 might have something to do with this. From 2008-2015 he logged a string of 8 consecutive 200+ inning seasons. Maybe he is just tired, I’ve talked to a lot of people who follow Felix and their reaction to his decline over the past 1 ½ to 2 seasons is fairly mixed. Some believe he is battling injuries and once they are put aside he will be his old self again. Most of these rosy assessments were from before the season and his current DL stint for right shoulder inflammation. Another group believes he is done as a front line starter and is on his way to being out of the big leagues in 3-4 years if not sooner. While probably the largest contingent believes he still has 5-7 years left in the tank, with 1-2 solid to good years mixed in, and being a league average starter at worst. They acknowledge he is no longer and will never again be an ace, but that he is still a valuable pitcher and that his 26 million dollar a year contract is not necessarily an albatross.

There are reasons to believe at age 31 King Felix is not done, and still has a few good seasons left in the tank. No one disputes that his best seasons are behind him, but baseball is full of examples of pitchers who had some great seasons well into their 30s. While his recent DL stint for shoulder inflammation is concerning, he has been relatively healthy throughout his career, and avoided major arm injuries. He has a “workhorse” type frame that has proven to be pretty durable and could translate that to several more solid seasons. Also he may have lost quite a bit on his fastball, but he still has good secondary pitches. He had good seasons in 2014 and 15’ when he had already experienced a pretty sharp decline in velocity. Most flamethrowers go through it, what do they do when they don’t quite have the gidddyup on the fastball anymore? Do they have the secondary stuff to adjust? So far Felix has shown he does, but for the past season and half things just haven’t looked right.

Sometimes a pitcher just loses it. For a decade Roy Halladay was in the Cy Young conversation year in and year out. And then one day things weren’t right. He was hurt, all those innings and big games caught up to him, and that was it. Try as he may there was nothing he could do to return to where he had been, there was nothing he could do to even be an effective big league pitcher again, he was done, his body was done. We are talking about a guy who was a top 10 pitcher in baseball for 10 years, who went from runner up for the Cy Young to out of baseball in less than 18 months. Halladay at his peak was better than Felix, and for a few more years, but when you look at his baseball-reference page there is one sobering fact you will notice. He hit the wall around 2500 innings. Felix is pretty much there too… Not saying that is his destiny, but it gives one pause.

The other end of the spectrum of course is Roger Clemens. He had almost exactly the same number of innings at the end of his age 31 season as Felix has now. He had a history of arm injuries and hit a major decline during his age 30-33 seasons. So much so the Red Sox essentially gave up on him. Obviously we now know he was not done, whether by chemical or other means The Rocket resurrected his career in Toronto and went on to win four more Cy Young awards and move into the discussion of greatest right handed pitchers of all-time.

No one would dream that Felix can do what Clemens did. Clemens in his 20s was as good as any right handed pitcher who ever lived. His late career success can at least in some part be contributed to performance enhancers. However, if you want to point to a pitcher who hit a slump around age 30 and then rebounded for another solid decade Clemens is a good example. There have been other pitchers who were much better in their 30s than the previous decade, such as Randy Johnson, but aside from being a physical freak, the Big Unit only had about half the career innings as King Felix entering his age 31 season. Many of the other examples of pitchers blossoming or maintaining through their 30s are pitchers who relied less on their fastball, even at the beginning of their careers and thus probably had less strain on their arms.

The most statistically similar pitcher to King Felix through his age 30 season is Don Sutton, according to Baseball Reference.  This was an interesting comparable. At his zenith, Sutton was never as good as peak Felix. He was not a dominating pitcher once he hit his mid-30s, but he was still a league average pitcher and was a solid rotation guy into his early 40s, and pieced together a complete body of work which put him in the Hall of Fame and deservedly so. He won over 300 games, won an ERA title and made 4 All-Star appearances. If Felix can put together a similar career arc he will be headed for Cooperstown too, though I would say his best years are behind him in this scenario. Felix is under contract through the 2019 seasons so by then the Mariners should have a pretty good, or at least much better idea as to where on this possible career arc The King is.

So what is most likely in terms of where Felix is? Is he done, or will he soon return to dominant form. Of course it is hard to know for sure, but it is important to remember that with most athletes we sometimes miss the first signs of their decline. I would argue that the first signs of Felix decline have been apparent for at least two years, He is still a good pitcher, when healthy, and pitches with quite a bit of confidence. However, he has not had Cy Young quality “stuff” since sometime during the middle of the 2015 season. As fans one of the hardest things we face is the realization one of our heroes is on the decline. This afflicts organizations too, its why teams give over the hill veterans 7 year contracts, or why an aging veteran still plays SS or CF even though their wheels have slowed.

I would love to believe that King Felix has a lot more left in the tank. That he will throw 2000-2500 more innings and become an inner circle hall of famer. If you had asked me in 2014 if I thought that was possible I would have said yes. Now, it seems a very unlikely wish. King Felix has seen his fastball velocity decline to about 89-91 on average. He still has a great changeup, but the velocity difference with the fastball is very small now, making it a bit less effective. He also lacks the command he enjoyed in his prime, as evidenced by his career high walk rate last year. That is not to say he cannot be a solid member of a contending rotation, but he will not be able to anchor it.

If we were to look at best case type scenarios for King Felix, I think something like Don Sutton or David Cone would be best case scenarios. David Cone was a flame throwing star in his 20s who hit a rough patch in his early 30s. He then had some very good years in his mid-30s with some great Yankee teams. Do I think Felix could do this? Yes, it is possible. Is it likely? Probably not. Felix is at just about 2500 innings now, there is a laundry list of good to very good pitchers who hit a wall once they get into the 2200-2500 innings range. I have mentioned Roy Halladay, but CC Sabathia is another, Jake Peavy, Bret Saberhagen, even the great Pedro Martinez. It also seems that innings logged in a pitchers 20s are harder than pitchers who log major innings starting later on and going through their 30s. There aren’t a lot of great examples of pitchers who logged over 2000 innings before age 30 who were able to continue that kind of workload over the next decade. Randy Johnson threw only about 1250 innings before his age 30 season, Jamie Moyer entered his 30s with only about 850 innings, Warren Spahn only threw about 1300 innings in his 20s. Sure there are guys like Sutton and Clemens who were workhorses in their 20s and continued it through their 30s, but those kind of pitchers are pretty rare.

Perhaps that is part of what separates the mortals from the immortals. There are a lot of really good pitchers who ended their careers with about 2500-3000 innings in the big leagues. Few of them are in the hall of fame. In baseball part of immortality is longevity. It may not be fair, but unless at your peak you are an absolutely transcendent talent than your chances of making the hall of fame are not great. There are a lot of really good players who are not in the Hall of Fame and who may never be. It’s premature to say Felix will not make it to Cooperstown, but he probably needs at least 3-5 more solid years, or 10 more serviceable years to be in the conversation. At this point he is a pitcher who had a 7 year peak as one of the top pitchers in the game, but that will not be enough. Tim Lincecum won 2 Cy Young’s as did Bret Saberhagen, neither of the did or will sniff enshrinement.

So what do I think is the most likely end to the story that is King Felix career? If you look at the history of similar players you cannot be optimistic. There is always the chance he will find another gear and keep plugging away through the next decade, but given the evidence of the past couple of years along with looking at historical comps, I fell that is doubtful. The most likely scenario is that he has 1-2 more decent to good seasons, but I think it is almost a foregone conclusion that his days as a front line starter ended in 2015. Do I think he will still be in a big league rotation in 5 years at age 36? Probably not.

The Mariners are going to have to make some decisions about Felix and sooner than most fans would probably want to admit. Right now they are paying him 27 million a year and he is under contract for 2 ½ more seasons. At what point do the Mariners try to shop him and see what value they can get for him? We are talking a pitcher who has been performing at about replacement level for almost two years and is eating up a tremendous amount of payroll. Will anyone be willing to take on any of that salary? And who could they get for him anyway at this point? That is all conjuncture right now and probably depends on his health, but for Mariner fans and the organization the sooner they realize that the new Felix will never be the old one, the sooner they can move on to the next ace to build their franchise around.

Felix will always have a special place in the hearts of Mariner fans. He came along at a time when the fans needed a new hero, and he has given us everything we could have asked for. But we need to realize that in life, when you blink, it is over. Time goes by faster than you think. It is a bit sobering to think about the fact that someone who is younger than me, is past their professional and physical prime. Most would consider me a young man still, but I am made aware daily that I am not as young as I once was. It is an odd thing as a life long sports fan. You grow up watching college sports and the athletes seem so old and mature, professional athletes practically seem like wizened old men. Then you get a bit older and they could be your older brother, then you are the same age, and finally athletes who you remember getting drafted are announcing their retirement after hall of fame careers. It is one of the way we as sports fans mark our lives. With the passing of the careers of those we revere, and from time to time we are filled with emotion as we remember what they were, how they captivated us, how each fastball was a possibility, and each new season full of limitless potential. Then we realize as with our lives, and as it is with all things, that it all must end and blossom into a new season, whatever that may be.