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

It was nice of Sterling to jinx Da Unit's no-no, tho - after the bottom of the 5th, he announces that RJ has a no-hitter, and RJ gratiously allows a double in the 6th. Smooooooooth.

-- gygax! (gygax0...), August 22nd, 2005 3:38 PM. (gygax!)

So not only did Bruce Chen outclass King Felix last week, but (as feared) he only lasted 3 innings against the Rangers in Arlington. Can he rebound? I hope so, I took a lot of pix of him in Oakland warming up!

Hmm, how delightfully unnecessary.

http://flickr.com/photos/70149262@N00/sets/72057594085666437/

Shin splints will prevent El Rey from missing his last start of the Spring.

Rob Neyer: (3:33 PM ET ) Sure: he's fine. He made a couple of lousy pitches last week, and on Sunday he gave up two unearned runs that weren't his fault at all. His strikeout rate is excellent, his control's been okay. He's not going to win any awards this season, but I like him just as much today as I did a month ago.

Homeruns vs. Batters Faced:
2005: 1.5% (5/328)
2006: 6.0% (4/67) [The great 2006 home run explosion?]

Pitches per Plate Appearance:
2005: 3.71
2006: 5.97 [Neyer: "his control's been okay". you got that right Robbay!]

BB/9:
2005: 2.45
2006: 3.97 [see above]

Strikeout to Walk ratio:
2005: 3.35
2006: 2.60 [sure his strikeout rate is up but walk rate is up even more]

AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS allowed:
2005: .203/.263/.283/.546
2006: .375/.478/.625/1.103 <=YOWZA! probably the most shocking of all the stats IMO

Groundballs vs. Flyballs:
2005: 149/45 = 3.31
2006: 19/14 = 1.36 [ :_( ]

is Felix Hernandez your Dontrelle Willis this year, Steve?

He's not walking too many more batters (maybe one or two more per start compared to last year) but hitters are being a lot more patient with him (taking more pitches) and getting in better swings (hitting more balls in the air). Then again, he's faced some really strong offenses so far this year. Anyway, don't waive him in your fantasy league or anything dumb like that.

Recommendation: "This is a kid who throws 97 [mph], with movement," one scout said. "Why is he throwing the No. 8 hitter a change, curve, change? With his stuff, he can blow guys away. It's the best way, if you can do it. And he can do it." Generally speaking, Hernandez used his curveball as his outpitch last season after first setting up hitters with his fastball. He seems, at times, to be working backward from that formula this year. If that is indeed the case, it is easily corrected.

Total bullshit, but post-worthy.

Mariners Notebook: M's look for signs of Felix tipping pitches

Orioles appeared to guess right too many times

By JOHN HICKEY, P-I REPORTER

BALTIMORE -- Is Felix Hernandez tipping his pitches?

The Mariners aren't sure, but they are concerned that opposing hitters may have spotted something to tell what the next pitch is going to be.

The possibility arose during the five innings Hernandez pitched Saturday night in Camden Yards. He gave up four runs and eventually got the win as Seattle rallied for an 8-6 victory. At the same time, he put 13 men on base and was in constant trouble.

"The answer is that we don't know," manager Mike Hargrove said Sunday. "We were talking about that last night. It sure seems like they took a lot of close breaking pitches.

"And they were right on breaking pitches when it wasn't a breaking pitch situation. It got us wondering."

Orioles hitters were right much of the day on fastballs, too, seemingly more than random chance could account for.

Pitching coach Rafael Chaves said that if Hernandez is tipping, it's not something huge. But like at a professional poker table, even a little tip can be a big advantage to the other side.

"I saw some things that had me wondering," Chaves said. "It was nothing so blatant that you could see it right away, nothing where you could say that's the reason why they did so well against him."

Part of the trouble is that the best way to tell if a pitcher is tipping his pitches is from the batter's perspective. You can't see everything from the dugout. And the video of Hernandez from Saturday's game was exclusively from behind him, looking in at the hitter.

"It's easier here in the big leagues for hitters to pick up something the pitcher might be doing," Chaves said, "especially with all the technology available. We'll be looking at whatever we can. I've got some video work ahead of me."

yes

Felix Hernandez
Wins: 1
Losses: 3
ERA: 5.06
WHIP: 1.61
K: 28
BB: 12

Livan Hernandez
Wins: 1
Losses: 3
ERA: 5.49
WHIP: 1.50
K: 25
BB: 9

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.