It is now time to fall in love with the King, Felix Hernandez

Scott (seattle): what's up with felix?

Joe Sheehan: I watched every pitch of his last two starts, because I was wondering about that myself. (Caveat: I Am Not A Scout) As best as I can tell, he's having major location issues both in and out of the zone. So he's falling behind in counts and then catching more of the plate than he wants to. His HR and walk rates are way up; so is his BABIP.

I don't think there's anything permanently wrong with him. His velocity looks fine to me, as does his movement. He's just going through what 20-year-old pitchers--hell, 30-year-old pitchers--sometimes go through.

F. Hernandez (L, 2-5) 4.0 11 10 5 2 4 2

The three most important indicators in [evaluating FH] are strikeout rate, walk rate, and groundball percentage--and PECOTA has dead-on nailed Hernandez’ performance in each of those categories. The key differences are in the number of base hits that he’s given up, and the number of home runs.

Hernandez' BABIP on the season to date is .359. That’s the sixth-worst performance in the league among pitchers with at least 40 innings pitched. Although groundball pitchers give up a few extra base hits, that performance is way out of line with what we’d expect out of Hernandez, and almost certainly reflects his bad luck. It’s not like Hernandez is a Carlos Silva type who throws meatballs and telegraphs his pitches.

The inflated home run rate is a bit more of a concern--Hernandez is at nine home runs and counting before Memorial Day, when PECOTA projected him to give up just 11 on the entire season. But it’s much less of a concern than it would be if Hernandez’ groundball ratio had deteriorated with his dinger tally...

What does all of this mean? Well, it means that Hernandez is behaving like a 20-year-old pitcher with all of five months of big league experience to his name. I think opponents are reading the scouting reports and recognizing that, while Hernandez is not averse to throwing breaking balls early in the count, he rarely throws them for strikes. I think Hernandez has such great stuff that he’s never had to make many adjustments. And I think he and Rafael Chaves will sooner or later come up with the necessary counter-adjustments, whether it means making his slider a bit more of a strike pitch, throwing more first-pitch fastballs, or something else.

In short, I think Felix Hernandez is going to be fine...If [he] were a stock, his share price might have declined by six or eight percent since the start of the season--not more than that. No, I wouldn’t trade Felix Hernandez for Cole Hamels. Justin Verlander--that might be a different story.

Stat / Actual / PECOTA
BB / 9.1% / 9.1%
K / 22.0% / 21.7%
GB% / 69.1% / 66.7%

Nate Silver: The figure I used was extrapolated from ESPN.com. ESPN lists only two times of outcomes: groundballs and flyballs.

Hardball Times lists four types of outcomes: GB, FB, popups, and linedrives.

Neither method is inherently "right", but the Hardball Times method (and we used something similar in BP2006) will result in systamatically lower GB percentages.

"Kudos", as TDeLong might utter.

Hope you're in like an 8 team, non-keeper league.

Jun  8       The Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Joe Christensen reports Minnesota Twins SP Francisco Liriano (stomach) came down with food poisoning after he went to dinner with Seattle Mariners SP Felix Hernandez and went to the emergency room early Wednesday morning. But he should be fine. 

Very interesting...

Haikunym OTM!

Only one pitcher in baseball has given up more tacos per fly ball than FeHan? Up until yesterday the King was numero uno.

Jim Callis: (2:12 PM ET ) I believe they have him on a 200-inning limit, counting spring training. Unless they're still in contention, I don't believe they'll allow him to exceed it. Which makes sense. Don't fire those bullets unless you have to when it comes to such a talented, young arm.

Recommendation: Earlier reports said Hernandez was in the best shape of his career, but losing 20 pounds makes that a bit more believable. He's at 226, four pounds below the Mariners' goal, after an offseason in which he changed his diet, eating more vegetables, and a daily exercise program.

Will Carroll: Peavy by far, on both counts.

I think Hernandez was so hyped last season that his performance is perceived as worse than it actually was. He was basically a league-average starter with pretty good peripherals (24 Stuff score, far above average). After some early-season issues with hit rate and home-run rate, both of those figures came down to expected ranges, and with them, his ERA. I see no reason why the projections from a season ago can’t be Hernandez’s baseline for '07. He’s the only pitcher other than Johan Santana I can see deserving the AL Cy Young Award.