Archive for felix hernandez

The slow progression that leads to a self-acknowledged decline was a process Felix Hernandez, unfortunately, entirely skipped. His career arch was a natural regression to average, injury, failure to adjust; sudden, poignant, and ridden of organizational, cognitive bias. The stark drop-off resulted in a split between a player who once meant everything being the roughest point in a rotation embattled in a playoff race. The hope that Hernandez could return to a balanced tactician on the mound was probably maintained one game too long – the last time he held a team to no runs was on opening day. Even more egregious, there was no subtle change to change his approach. The long leash of hope allowed him to stay stagnantly desperate.

His last outing against the Texas Rangers was the final capitulation to put him into the bullpen, no longer scheduled to make his start on Sunday August 12. The seven runs he allowed were built off his consist frustration leading to a parochial process. He no longer worked through counts with cognition for how batters were attacking – he was simply throwing. Analytically, Hernandez works from a fastball to a breaking ball; speed leading to mistimed swinging later in the count. Simply put, his fastball is necessary for leading into the breaking ball, and with his fastball dead in the water, his breaking ball is also dead. Batters no longer deceived now look forward to teeing off on a very predictable and forced breaking ball.

As the arm dies, the fastball dies. The changeup and breaking ball, however, does not always die. Furthermore, spin may die on the curveball, but spin rate makes an average curve deadly. Henceforth, Hernandez, does not need an incredible fastball to work toward an average changeup/curve. Yet, as a starter he has failed to figure out how to work into his changeup; he is beholden to a fastball which no longer averages 90 MPH. Experimenting with velocity and pitch utilization reached a maxim in 2018, leading to nowhere even after dropping the four-seam fastball. It is a crutch he has been unable to move past.

The following charts display how Hernandez has attacked batters based on the count from 2012, 2016, and 2018. As stated, in 2012, he used his fastball to work into a changeup on ahead counts ahead or a sinker when behind. Through 2016 and 2018, injury forced him to drop the fastball on the opening pitch, instead of using the fastball sinker. This creates two problems: the sinker is no longer effective to land a strike when behind counts because it is used as the opening pitch and the sinker becomes exposed to each batter, leading to the predictable approach. His sinker now owns a 1.64 BB/K ratio with a 1.001 OPS.

Moving to the bullpen should not necessarily be a point to fix Hernandez for an eventual transition as a starter. He is, for better or worse, an abbreviated pitcher, and as of right now, cannot endure multiple innings. His limited arsenal establishes him as a stretch reliever for two innings at best. To become an endurance starter, he needs to improve his curveball to break across both sides of the plate – or, McCullerize himself.

The focus for 2018 Hernandez is bullpen effectiveness and no more. Unfortunately, precedent for a pitcher in the Statcast era who utilizes a slow fastball and curveball/changeup is limited; limited to Sean Marshall. (This is assuming that Hernandez continues to forego his fastball in the bullpen. Most curveball relievers have a fastball which averages 93-97 MPH. Fernando Rodney is another reliever who is comparable with a sinker/changeup arsenal, but even he has maintained a 94 MPH sinker at age 41.) Thus, there is some new paths to be paved with Hernandez in the bullpen, making the transition even more intriguing.

The main goal in the bullpen is inducing ground balls; that was the magic of Hernandez’s changeup in his prime. Marshall achieved this in his prime with ground ball rates of 52.2, 57.5, and 56.3 percent from 2010 to 2012. He opened his counts with a slider, moving to a curveball when ahead and staying with his slider when behind. His curveball broke left (right from Marshall’s view) and was best when slyly placed out of the zone.

Hernandez breaks his curveball in the same style, just the opposite direction. In fact, while the spin rate has dropped, without injury, there is a clear improvement in control (2018 curve map versus 2015 curve map). Using the curve to introduce batters can theoretically be complemented by a changeup which paints the other side of the plate. Even so, his changeup is falling more in the zone as he ages (implicative of lack of a fastball to paint the inside, 2012 changeup versus 2018 changeup).

Putting the different strings together, a bullpen focused Hernandez would utilize a curveball to specialize for attacking the right side of the plate, with an increase to break across both aspects. His changeup then becomes the quick out option to force quick ground balls. If he slowly beings to move that pitch into the corner of the zone again, he can end at-bats on weak contact and topped contact. Despite his demise, the changeup is a quality pitch for inducing topped contact if he is ahead of counts. (Emphasis on if, and, there is a base loss of control which cannot be ignored; again, the point he is a limited inning pitcher with an onus on control). Thus, control with the curve to land a strike or foul from the corner can lead to an inning of what might remain of a magical changeup.

It’s no secret that Felix Hernandez struggled in 2016, looking little like the ace Mariners fans had come to expect from 2009-2014. After a good-but-not great 2015, there was some hope that Hernandez would fix what ailed him and come back as the fire-breathing ace he’s been for more than a half-decade.

Instead, he had the worst season of his career, striking out 7.2 per nine, walking 3.8 per nine, and allowing 1.1 home runs per nine. His sudden decline from ace to barely-passable fourth starter has baffled fans and media members alike. Many point to his declining velocity — his fastball averaged just 90.5 miles per hour in 2016, the lowest of his career.

Of course, the real answer has nothing to do with velocity. The answer is far simpler. The Muddy Mound Game Conspiracy has been hidden from the public’s memory for long enough, and it’s time to wake up, sheeple! Those close to me have called me a “muddy-mound truther,” as if that’s a negative thing. But, folks, don’t believe what they’re telling you. I’ve got the facts, and once you’ve taken in this mind-blowing information, you’re not likely to ever trust a grounds crew again.

The muddy-mound game is the day everything changed for Hernandez. I’m talking, of course, about June 1, 2015, when the Mariners faced the Yankees at home.

Because of a malfunction with the Safeco Field roof, rain covered the mound, making it muddy and slippery. Hernandez visibly had trouble with his stride leg in his delivery, and was seen at times scraping the dirt out from between his cleats.

Through the first three innings, Hernandez was perfect, striking out three and inducing five ground-ball outs. And then, in the top of the fourth inning, as the rain came down harder and covered the mound, Hernandez appeared to land awkwardly on his first pitch to the inning’s second batter, Chase Headley.

At that point, it was clear something wasn’t right. Hernandez would walk five batters in the next inning-and-two-thirds (after having walked just 15 in 70.2 total innings up until that point in 2015) and give up seven runs before being removed.

This is the point, almost exactly, where Hernandez’s command abandoned him. From this game forward, Hernandez has had 46 starts, and has walked 3.4 per nine. In the 46 starts leading up to this game, he was averaging just 1.9 walks per nine. It seems unlikely that an ace pitcher would lose his command entirely in the span of two innings, but the numbers say that’s exactly what has happened.

Mariners fans may recall that in 2009, Hernandez began to add a Luis Tiant/Fernando Valenzuela-esque twist to his windup. Hernandez himself said that he had picked it up from watching teammate Erik Bedard. It should be noted that Hernandez made the jump from “promising young pitcher” to “perennial Cy Young contender” in 2009. The twist in his windup may not be directly responsible for Hernandez’s ascension to the throne, but it certainly played a large role.

In the chart below, you’ll see four sets of data. The first column is from when Hernandez debuted through the 2008 season. Row two spans 2009 until June 1, 2015 — from when he first started adding the twist, until the muddy-mound game. Row three is the 46 starts before June 1, 2015, and row four shows us the 46 games including, and since, the muddy-mound game.

So, not only has Hernandez declined dramatically since the fourth inning of that game, but it’s actually been the worst stretch he’s had in his entire career. Oddly enough, this stretch has come right after the best stretch of his career.

But there’s more! It’s not just boring data that shows dramatic decline. There’s been a visible change in Hernandez windup over the last year and a half since this game. I’m going to play right into my enemies’ hands here — as they would say, I’m putting on my tinfoil hat. But, the joke is on them, because now they can’t hear my thoughts.

Three things stand out — Hernandez has reduced the torque of his twist, he’s lowered his hands, and the position of his stride leg is inconsistent. I took a series of images of Hernandez at the top of his windup, detailing the changes. To the undeniable proof!

First, we have an image from Hernandez’s perfect game against Tampa Bay on August 19, 2012:

The twist is as prominent as ever in this game; the front of Hernandez’s shoulder is basically facing the viewer. His hands are close to his neck, and his arms are raised high enough for us to read the jersey script. Hernandez’s drive leg is bent at a slight angle. Considering he threw a perfect game with 12 strikeouts with these mechanics, it would seem that these represent a good version of his windup.

Let’s jump ahead. This one comes from April 18, 2015 — Hernandez’s second home start of the year.

For the most part, things look similar here. He’s turning slightly less, but we can still read the jersey script, and see most of the front of his left shoulder. Moving on!

Nothing appeared too different in his next few starts, though he didn’t look exactly the same as the previous image. This image is from the first inning of the infamous muddy mound game itself:

Some small tweaks, but for the most part, things appear the same. Considering Hernandez was dominating during this stretch, it’s hard to argue with the results.

Here’s an image from Hernandez’s first slip off the mound in the fourth inning:

Unfortunately, Hernandez spent most of the rest of his outing after slipping pitching from the stretch, so it’s hard to find an example of his windup immediately after the injury. It’s hard to tell from this image, but this came on the first pitch of the second at-bat of the fourth inning. Hernandez falls off the mound, looks a little ginger on his left foot, but shakes it off and returns to the mound. The story is the same for the very next pitch. Hernandez appears to be visibly uncomfortable, on his way to walking five batters and throwing a wild pitch.

Small changes to his motion became evident throughout the rest of 2015, and the best example of these changes came on September 10 against the Rangers:

It’s clear that his hands have lowered, though his front shoulder still seems pretty well twisted to face us, the viewer. It’s also notable that Hernandez’s stride leg is now wrapped more around him at an angle, whereas before it was closer to perpendicular with the ground. Hernandez didn’t give up a run in this game, but did walk four batters.

In Hernandez’s second home start of 2016, April 29 against the Royals, we see not much has changed:

His hands have raised slightly, but still cover the jersey script more than before. Where his shoulder once squarely faced the camera, it appears almost to be pointing straight at the batter in this picture. His stride leg still appears to be almost wrapped around his drive leg — consistent with the last image, but more dramatic than at any point before that. It’s worth noting that Hernandez walked 18 batters in just 32.2 April innings in 2016.

Skipping ahead to Hernandez’s return from the disabled list, things appear to be more problematic:

Hernandez’s hands are now at an all-time low, almost entirely covering the jersey script. The front shoulder still faces the batter more than it used to, and the angle of his stride leg seems as wrapped over the drive leg’s knee as ever.

The last exhibit from the 2016 season comes on September 5 against Texas:

Hernandez’s hands appear to have lowered even a little further. His stride leg is angled so much that it’s almost passing over his drive leg’s knee from our point of view. While his front shoulder once looked square and broad to the viewer, we now essentially just see the side of Hernandez’s arm, and little of the shoulder itself. At this point, he’s twisting less than ever, his hands are at their low point, and his stride leg is the most out-of-whack it’s ever been.

The final piece of evidence — and I apologize for the quality, but winter-league baseball isn’t streamed at the quality of MLB games — is from Winter Ball. Observe:

The camera angle here isn’t exactly the same as Safeco Field, but as the most recent piece of evidence of what Felix is doing, it should be included. First, some good news: Hernandez’s stride leg is more perpendicular with the ground than it has been since the first three innings of the muddy-mound game itself. His hands have been raised up above the jersey script partially, though not quite as high as before the injury occurred.

The bad news, though, is the worst news. Hernandez has less of a torso-twist in his windup than ever. In fact, we can’t even see his shoulder at the top of his windup — the only image where this is true.

Watching the video, the twist seems less dramatic than at any point. It should be mentioned that in the video this was lifted from, Hernandez’s line is: 1 IP, 2 H, 2R, 2BB, 1 K. He also threw a wild pitch with no one aboard, and threw the ball into center field for an error when the runner on first took off early.

So why did the King stop twisting so much? It’s hard to say. Hernandez has been known throughout his career as a guy that doesn’t watch much film of himself. He didn’t even start throwing bullpens in between starts until late in 2016. I exchanged messages with 710 ESPN Mariners Insider, Shannon Drayer, to confirm that both of those statements are true.

My hypothesis? He subtly changed his motion to not feel pain in his ankle after slipping on the muddy mound. Less twist means less torque, which means less force landing on the ankle, and that his legs will land just a bit sooner. This has caused his legs to be “ahead” of the motion of his upper body, and with that he’s lost his feel for his command.

As someone who doesn’t watch film, it seems entirely believable that once Hernandez got healthy, he didn’t realize he was doing anything wrong, and the bad habits he picked up to compensate for his injury became his new normal.

Velocity would be nice, but Hernandez, more than anything, needs to rediscover his command. He pitched at an ace level in 2013 with a 91.3 MPH average fastball. Velocity doesn’t usually return with age, but command can.

The path toward re-discovering his command appears clear. Hernandez needs to return to his older wind-up, when he twisted so much that the batters could read his name and number on his jersey. He became an ace when he began twisting, and began falling apart when he stopped twisting.

It appears that he made progress in winter ball with his hands and his stride leg. Though I remain skeptical that his performance is going to rebound in any significant way until he makes like Chubby Checker and starts doing the twist again.

Brett Miller does the agate page for the print edition of the Seattle Times. He is also a proud Washington State University alum, and good at drinking beer and taking criticism. Complain about this article directly to him at bmiller@seattletimes.com.

It’s no trade secret that playing to the strengths of your ballpark helps your chances to succeed. To gain an advantage, franchises can exploit, and even sometimes manipulate their home ballpark. If you run the Astros or Reds, who play baseball in a lunchbox, you can succeed by employing otherwise-flawed home-run hitters with little regard for who gets on base ahead of them. When you play half your games in an airplane hangar, however, stubbornly attempting to put the ball over 900 foot fences is foolish. A foolish strategy common of recent Mariners teams. A foolish strategy that wasn’t working.

If you have a weak stomach, do not view the last few rows.

The Mariners wrote the Greatest Hits on failing to get on base and, not surprisingly, struggled to win games during those seasons. For years and years, the Mariners tried succeeding with players like Logan Morrison, Michael Morse, and Mark Trumbo, desperately clinging to the home run as the heralded harbinger of scoring runs. Whether this was evidence of a failing regime by general manager Jack Zduriencik remains up for debate, but the front office had seen enough. Around the same time, a wayward GM separated cleanly from the Mariners division rival Angels was seeking asylum, armed with his own vision of building a team.

Strategy 1: Get on Base

Jerry Dipoto, presumably having read Moneyball, understood the value of getting baserunners, and how to get players on base.

“Command the Strike zone” Dipoto told Justin Myers and Gee Scott on their ESPN 710 Seattle radio segment. “From the top of the lineup to the bottom, we will command the strike zone”.

Dipoto began addressing the team’s glaring need for baserunners by signing catcher Chris Iannetta, who had played for Dipoto in Anaheim, and had posted OBP numbers over .350 in 2011, 2013 and 2014. Dipoto found further help by trading for Adam Lind (.350 OBP in 2015) and  signing free agent Norichika Aoki (.353 OBP in 2015, 6.4 K%).

None of these moves were meant to be earth-shattering, but each undoubtedly made the Mariners lineup better. With a solid core of Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz, and Kyle Seager, Dipoto’s goal was to fill the remaining slots with valuable role players, each of whom is more than capable of getting on base.

Here is a table of several key Mariners offseason additions, with 2015 statistics, and 2016 ZIPS projections courtesy of Dan Szymborski. Note that season projections are often more conservative estimates, as they account for a certain level of player regression.

Strategy 2: Prevent runs, Create runs

Dipoto, addressing the fallbacks of that revolutionary A’s season, also understood the value of defense and speed. “We see ourselves as a run-prevention club. You can create a lot of advantage playing good defense. We also see our overall team defense as our biggest area in need of improvement.”

Dipoto went primarily after well-rounded players, but several moves in particular focused on defense and speed. In November, Dipoto traded closer Tom Wilhelmsen to Texas in exchange for Leonys Martin, a light-hitting center fielder with blazing speed. Martin didn’t quite play enough innings (334) in 2015 to qualify for the CF leaderboard, but his 15.4 Ultimate Zone Rating/150 would have ranked him 5^th best among MLB center fielders, just above Lorenzo Cain. Martin, by the FanGraphs arm strength statistic, also had the strongest arm of any center fielder in baseball.

In terms of speed, Martin is as fast as they come. He’s been consistently valuable on the basepaths, posting a 4.3 and 4.2 BRR in 2014 and 2013 respectively (BRR is Baseball Prospectus’s baserunning statistic, where 0 represents an average baserunner). Martin posted a lower total BRR in 2015 (1.5), mostly because his on-base percentage dropped 61 points from 2014, and he appeared at the plate 273 fewer times (generally it’s harder to be a valuable baserunner if you don’t get on base as often).

The second move was to acquire Boog Powell, young center field prospect, from Tampa Bay. Powell was part of a larger trade, wherein Seattle received starting pitcher Nate Karns and Powell, and sent Logan Morrison and shortstop Brad Miller to the Rays. We’ll talk about Karns in the last section, but Powell further embodies Dipoto’s vision of commanding the strike zone, getting on base, and playing defense.

Powell’s defensive statistics are less clear than Martin’s, since Powell has never stepped foot in the major leagues, but he’s consistently graded out in the minor leagues as a plus defender. Powell is 22, and serves as outfield depth should Martin fall down a well in center field.

It’s clear that Dipoto aggressively wanted to improve the outfield defense. In his wild spree of moves, he also made his infield defense better. In trading for Lind, he incrementally made first base a more well-defended position (Lind posted a 3.8 UZR in 2015, compared to Logan Morrison’s -2.9). Brad Miller was a plus defensive shortstop (1.1 UZR, 4.6 dWAR), but with the emergence of talented, young Ketel Marte (1.2 UZR, 2.8 dWAR in 310 fewer innings at SS), Dipoto knew he could afford to trade Miller.

If one looks around at the Mariners in the field, Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz are currently the only remaining defensive liabilities, and Cruz might not see much right-field time this year. Kyle Seager is a plus defender, Aoki is capable in left, and Seth Smith improved his defense dramatically last season. The team re-signed Franklin Guitierrez (3.4 UZR, 1.9 dWAR) to split Right Field with Smith and Cruz. At the catcher position, both Iannetta and Mike Zunino are among the 10 best pitch framers in baseball, saving an aggregate 26.8 runs in 2015.

The Mariners were the 5^th worst defensive team in 2015, but that looks likely to improve in 2016.

Strategy 3: Taking advantage of Dinger-hitting tendencies

When you play baseball in an extreme pitcher-friendly park, in a sea-level city whose summer nights are cool and humid, home runs are a rare commodity. The Mariners understand they won’t win by hitting home runs, but they also understand that the same difficulty exists for opposing teams. Thus, the Mariners can fill their starting rotation with pitchers with higher than average fly-ball rates. Here are the totals from Mariners starters in 2015. WARP is Baseball Prospectus’s cumulative wins above replacement player statistic.

Normally we’d expect a higher GB rate to correlate with a higher BABIP, since it’s more likely for ground balls to find holes and become hits than it is for fly balls. Felix has the highest GB rate of that table, and still maintained a better-than-average BABIP. That’s because he’s Felix Hernandez, and he’s better than you. Iwakuma, 34, also posted a ground-ball rate of 50%, and he’s never posted a BABIP above .287. After 2000 balls in play, a pitchers BABIP will normalize, and Iwakuma is quickly approaching that. Walker has the highest FB rate, so it’s probably good that he pitches where he does.

Before you even get beyond the innings pitched column, however, it’s clear the Mariners were thin on reliable starting pitching depth in 2015. Out of the players above, only Hernandez and Walker eclipsed 130 innings, only those two and Iwakuma provided any sort of positive contribution, and Roenis Elias is now on the Red Sox.  So the offseason began, and Dipoto got to work.

Earlier we mentioned Boog Powell becoming a Mariner, but he came over as secondary piece that landed the team starting pitcher Nate Karns from Tampa Bay. Karns had a quasi-breakout season in 2015, posting a 3.67 ERA and 3.90 xFIP in 147.2 innings pitched (xFIP is a Fielding Independent Pitching statistic that takes fly-ball rate into account). This was the first full season for the 27-year-old Karns, who also had a 36.5% fly-ball rate in 2015. Of those fly balls, 12.5% went for home runs, an above-average rate for a starting pitcher. While Tropicana Field is not an especially friendly ballpark for hitters, every other park in the AL East dramatically favors home runs, and Karns’s HR rate was likely hurt by pitching frequently at parks like Yankee Stadium and Camden Yards.

Karns should be aided by the expansive parks of the American League West, where more fly balls will become outs. If Karns matches, or even exceeds his peripherals in 2016, while maintaining his high fly-ball rate (fly-ball rate normalizes after 70 fly balls, a total Karns exceeded long ago), he should lower his home-run rate, and his BABIP. Karns also has room for regression, as HR/FB doesn’t normalize until after about 500 IP.

There is a question of Karns’s durability, having only one major-league season with over 100 innings pitched, but no such question exists with Dipoto’s next trade target. A month after grabbing Karns, Dipoto traded Elias and closer Carson Smith to Boston for Wade Miley, one of the most consistently durable left-handed starters in the game. Smith was a bright spot in a bad Mariners bullpen, so Dipoto had to give up some value to acquire Miley, but the GM took that risk to bolster a shaky rotation. Miley has pitched more than 190 innings in four consecutive seasons: 2015 in Boston, and the previous three in Arizona. All of those years have featured FIPs below 4, and improvements across many categories in 2015, lowering his home run/9 rate by .24 despite pitching in the AL East. It’s no stretch of the imagination for Miley to improve even further in 2016, playing in front of an overhauled Mariners defense.

Miley and Karns, 2015 Statistics

You start to see how exploiting these park advantages becomes mutually beneficial. A speedy outfield defense will turn more of Nate Karns’ fly balls into outs, and a more solid infield defense will help turn Miley’s ground-ball hits into outs as well. On the offensive side, players who don’t strike out will put the ball in play more often, and the increased speed of the lineup will turn more of those balls in play into hits, increasing the number of baserunners. If, with all of these improvements, we still believe in Nelson Cruz’s power, Kyle Seager’s upward trajectory, and continued King Felix domination, we believe in Mariners success.