Mariners Felix Hernandez: The king giving up his throne in 2018

Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez was a dominant force in fantasy baseball for many years. Unfortunately, the king’s reign is coming to an end.

The Seattle Mariners have been one of the few teams to have been blessed with the services of an ace pitcher for many years. It’s even better when those services lead to a Cy Young award and six All-Star game appearances. Felix Hernandez, or “King Felix,” was a top pitcher for a while.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. On Tuesday, the Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto said, “I don’t know how we’re going to get him through 33 starts without managing it in a little different way than we managed it this year.”

Hernandez hasn’t made 30 starts in either of his last two seasons. He made 16 this year and 25 in 2016. While injuries played a part of it, Father Time is also catching up. While Hernandez is just 31 years old, he’s been in the league for 13 seasons, throwing over 2,500 innings in that time.

What I expect caused the reaction from Dipoto is how badly Hernandez performed this season. In just 86.2 innings, he posted a 4.36 ERA, 1.292 WHIP, 5.02 FIP, 8.1 K/9 and 2.7 BB/9. The strikeout and walk rates were actually improvements from last season but the ERA and FIP went in the wrong direction.

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Hernandez missed a total of 92 days between two DL stints. That roughly equates to another 16 starts missed.

It’s been a slow but noticeable decline for Hernandez from 2014 until now. He had a 2.14 ERA, 0.915 WHIP, 9.5 K/9 and 1.8 BB/9 just four seasons ago. It hasn’t just been the typical stats, his batted ball stats have regressed as well.

He had a 56.2% ground ball and 26.3% fly ball rate in that 2014 season. Hernandez posted a 46.9% ground ball and 29.9% fly ball this year. Opposing batters were starting to pick up his fastball and make better contact, too.

He went from a 26.3 hard hit rate in 2014 to a 30.7 this year. His fastball lost 1.9 MPH over the last four seasons. This resulted in a 2.4 percent drop in his swinging strike rate and a 5.7 percent rise in his contact rate.

This is all from a player who was the 33rd starting pitcher drafted in ESPN leagues, 132.8 ADP. After the performance he gave us in 2016, I would have waited another five rounds before selecting Hernandez. I wrote about him before the 2017 season started, likely one of the few things I got right this year. He finished as the No. 110 starter on the Player Rater.

Only two of Hernandez’s 16 starts went seven innings. He averaged just under 5.5 innings per start. While he would qualify for the win after five innings, he wasn’t providing enough in the other categories to make owning him worth it.

“I don’t know that he can try and stay healthier. Once you know you have these issues, it’s just a matter of maintenance,” Dipoto said. “But we can’t place expectations that we’re magically going to fix something and he’ll throw 180 innings. That’s not realistic.”

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With the prospect of Hernandez throwing 150-160 innings, he is no longer “King Felix.” I wouldn’t say “Joker Felix” either, but he’s more of a prince now.

He can still have value in AL-only or deeper leagues, but that’s about it. I can’t see him making it into my top-75 starters. It’s a sad day but this is the reality. It was a dominant run, so let’s hope he has one more good season before he says goodbye.