What The Heck Is Going On With Felix Hernandez?

Generally speaking, it’s not the best idea to write back to back columns on the same very narrow subject. The readers don’t want the same thing over and over and repetition makes the writer seem to be lacking in creativity. But this early in the baseball season, the most compelling thing going on with the Seattle Mariners is the question – What the heck is going on with Felix Hernandez?

On Saturday afternoon in the Bronx, Felix managed to record his first win of the season against the New York Yankees, but it was far from pretty. Oh yeah, the announcers and the studio crew at ROOT Sports did what every homer broadcasting team across the country does when the home team wins one. They gushed with adoration for the performances of the home team players. And no home team player has gotten more gushing over the years than Hernandez.

But beneath the surface of the feel good story of Felix getting his first win of the season and tying Randy Johnson for the most strikeouts in franchise history at 2,162, lurked the fact that Hernandez threw 106 pitches in just five innings, only 60 for strikes, and walked six hitters.

He now leads the majors in the dubious statistic of walks issued per nine innings at a staggering 6.5. Equally troubling is that as the sample size slowly increases on the 2016 season, Felix’s average fastball velocity continues to head south, standing now at 89.9 mph. Consequently, he is throwing his fastball only 40.6% of the time, compared to 55.5% over the course of his career and highs in the low 60% range in 2008, 2009, and 2010.

And maybe you’re thinking, “But he’s 1-1 with a 1.00 ERA and highest K/9 rate of his career.” But that 1.00 ERA is currently disguising a 3.22 FIP (fielding independent pitching) and an even more disturbing 4.15 xFIP (expected fielding independent pitching). To put it in layman’s terms, he’s been very lucky. His BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is a ridiculously low .200. Even the most elite pitchers allow a BABIP around .300. Felix’s lifetime BABIP is .294. If he continues to put men on base at anywhere near the current pace, he will get rocked at some point as his BABIP regresses to the mean.

The one encouraging statistic I found was the fact that despite the diminishing velocity on his fastball, Hernandez as somehow managed to slow down his changeup even more to maintain that desired 10 mph+ difference between the two pitches. At the height of his fastball velocity back in 2010, he threw heat for 94.4 mph and his change for 81.6 mph. This season with his fastball sitting just under 90 mph, he is throwing changeups that are averaging 78.8 mph. It’s that difference in velocity that accounts for the swings and misses.

Many aging pitchers learn how to pitch effectively without lights out stuff. Clearly Felix has been making that transition over the past several seasons. What was not anticipated was the baffling loss of command leading to so many walks. After the game Saturday, Hernandez did say he was sharp in the pen but couldn’t find the plate during the game. Hopefully, this is just a minor mechanical issue that he and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyer, Jr. can work out. If not, this could be a really long season.