In a recent Sports Illustrated blurb, Joe Sheenan looked at the case for Felix Hernandez. ("The Case for Felix Hernandez, Aug 27, 2012). The piece ran just 12 days after King Felix finally achieved the elusive Perfect Game. Sheenan makes the case that Seattle should trade its long time ace for various reasons. 1). He deserves to be on a winning team after playing for the perennial cellar-dwelling Mariners. 2). He is at his peak and they can get some offensive players for him right now. Sheenan points out recent transactions such as the trade that gave the Texas Rangers their contender team when they traded Mark Teixeira. Sheenan also cites the Mariners' anemic offense as the center of their woes.
The difficulty in responding to this is to try to separate the fan part of my mind from the analytic part. I am tempted to rattle off an angry e-mail to SI because Sheenan has the audacity to suggest Seattle trade its heart and soul (undisputed heart and soul after the Ichiro trade)? I'm I being a "homer?" I can see the point that Sheenan makes. Hernandez would fetch quite a prize right now given that yesterday was his first loss since JUNE. The Yankees would probably trade handsomely for Hernandez just so they wouldn't have to face him (Felix is 2-1 with an ERA of 2.35 against the Yankees this season and is holding the vaunted Yankee lineup to a piddling .213 average with 17 strikeouts). What's more, he has ERA's of 0.00 and 0.53 against the hated Red Sox and Rays, respectively. The problem is with the Yankees riddled with injuries and still trying to make a post-season run, they don't have any established players to trade. The Mariners could probably get their entire farm system, though.
Of course, there are other teams to trade with. Boston just jettisoned stars with more money tied up in contracts than the GDP of some nations. But should they trade King Felix at all?
Seattle does have a desperate need of offense. They haven't had a feared offense since the 116-game winning season (which, by the way, was a team that didn't have certain players named Griffey, Rodriguez, or Johnson). It is true that last season, the Mariners had a horrendous streak of offensive ineptitude when they lost 14 games in a row. Many of those games were great pitching battles with scores like 1-0 or 2-0. Seattle couldn't get any runs. They couldn't string together hits.
But last season is not this season. The Mariners may still be heading toward another sub-.500 finish (or maybe they aren't--this late in the season, they're only 5 games under .500 and, technically, have a chance to make the playoffs, it's one-tenth of one percent). But this season, they aren't stringing together double-digit losing streaks. This season, they are winning games 1-0 and 2-1 (today's score against the Angels? 2-1 Mariners). They're starting to get more hitters. While this year's team doesn't have the batting averages found with the 2001 116-wins team, they are showing improvement. And they're young. That is the kicker. Jesus Montero is in his first full season. John Jaso is in his third full season and is has a higher batting average than he's had before. There are four regular position players over 30 on the team. The oldest of the position players is 34 (a tie between sometimes-starters Chone Figgins and Miguel Olivo). At 26, Felix is older than every one of the regular outfielders. This isn't a bad team, it is an inexperienced team. With experience comes higher batting averages. With experience comes offense.
The Mariners have a front end pitching staff that has been fearsome this season. Felix is at 13 wins and is carrying an ERA 60 points lower than his career 2.51 vs 3.15. Their #2 starter, Jason Vargas also has 13 wins and 116 strikeouts. Felix Hernandez and Jason Vargas give the Mariners a core to start building around, a task already underway. The team is improving. Their division got a lot harder this season with Los Angeles re-tooling to take a shot at powerhouse Texas (which also added new talent). Add them to a surging Oakland team and the AL West no longer looks like the league's forgotten division. And Seattle is starting to compete. Seattle is already within two wins of last season's total with a month yet to go. Seattle has used this season to add new talent as well. It is another season of rebuilding, but with the pitching and the flashes of potential, the Mariners show signs of life.
Sheenan points to offense being the key to filling seats. And the fact that the Mariners are 26th in attendance seems to support that. But trading Felix isn't going to help that statistic, but make it worse. Seattle has a good farm system and is growing some great up and coming pitchers. Felix is still signed for two more years, giving them time to bring the new pitchers up to shore up the later rotations. With Trayvon Robinson and Eric Thames adding life, speed, and hitting to the outfield (and both in their first two seasons), the Mariners are working on that weak offense. With the additions of Montero from the Yankees, Jaso from the Rays adding to their DH and catching corps, the team is coming along.
Trading Hernandez wouldn't just alienate the Seattle faithful, it would be restarting the progress they've already made. Seattle is one of the best defensive teams in the majors. With a young team, the expectation would be to have more errors in the field. Seattle has the fewest, 8 fewer than the next team, the White Sox. The Mariners also lead the league in fielding percentage. They are tied with Baltimore for second in putouts. With the offense improving, it is the last piece a puzzle that will take the AL by surprise next season, much the same way Baltimore has this year.
And it will all revolve around keeping the Ace. Seattle needs Felix.
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