So as we all know, the King of the north isn’t the same right now. His 2.14 ERA in 2014 turned into 3.53, 3.82, and now 4.44. It’s clear something isn’t right.

Velocity

Felix Hernandez throws a 4-seam fastball, a 2-seam fastball/sinker, his signature deadly changeup, a slider, a curve, and on occasions, a cutter.

Many believe his lowered velocity is the cause of his troubles, particularly with his fastball. What may surprise a lot of people is his fastball really isn’t that much slower than it used to be. The average fastball during his career has floated between 90.3 MPH and 92.8 MPH

Bold indicates a top 5 CYA finish

Clearly Felix isn’t the fireballer he used to be, but this is nothing new. His fastball dropped dramatically between 2011 and 2012 and has changed by very little from 2014, his last elite season, to now. Finishing top 5 in CYA in 2012 and 2014 can show that Felix doesn’t need overpowering hard stuff to be an elite pitcher.

So if it’s not his fastball, what’s the matter?

I believe the problem lies in his changeup, that world-famous put-away pitch that haunted the AL for five years. In 2014, Felix Hernandez changed the way he pitched. He started using his changeup a lot more. From 2009-2013 he used his changeup 18% of the time. From 2014-present, that has shot up to 27%. That’s a good thing, right? His change is so good, he’d be dumb not to use it! Not quite; it seems with his increased changeup use, the league got pretty good at reading it. When he used the change ~18% of the time, he got swings and misses on 28% of changeups thrown. Ever since, that percentage has dropped down to 19% swings and misses. His sinker, a pitch with similar movement, has remained at ~5% even through his off years.

What has led to this dramatic decrease in whiffs? He’s not locating them well at all.  When using his changeup more sparingly, very few of them were in the zone.

Compare this to recently, where you can see a significantly higher amount of changeups find their way into the zone.

What does this lead to? It took his changeup from unhittable to terribly easy to hit hard, especially in that lower zone his changes find themselves in.

This dramatic shift is not seen in his curve and sinker when thrown in the zone. In both parts of his career, sinkers and curves left in the zone were hit hard, but not changeups.

The Yankees Game

For those who don’t know, in late 2015, there was a game where Felix slipped on the mound due to rain. Many believe this is the cause of his troubles. Here’s his performance before that day:

18 GS, 11-5, 117 IP, 2.84 ERA, 112 Ks

And after:

13 GS, 7-6, 84.1 IP, 4.48 ERA, 79 Ks

What changed about him after that start? We know it’s not velocity. One thing I’ve found is Felix threw a lot fewer breaking balls .

Last year, he was actually pretty good until June. 63 IP, 2.86 ERA, 53 Ks, compared to 90 IP, 4.48 ERA, and 69 Ks, when he returned. If you notice this graph again:

…his offspeed pitches stopped fooling people around the time he performed poorly. Him slipping on the mound is just a coincidence since his movement hasn’t been affected at all.

My conclusion

Felix no longer has an elite changeup. Whether or not it’s due to overuse or poor location, it’s getting hit hard, whereas his fastball, sinker, and breaking pitches have remained pretty much as effective as they have been his whole career.

His changeup usage continues to be just as high as it was previously. His performance might have little to do with an age-related decline. He is only 31 years old, and his velocities across the board haven’t changed by much since his elite 2014 season.