Felix Hernandez gets another reprieve from relieving

Tom Gatto

Felix Hernandez gets another reprieve from relieving image

Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto, perhaps unwittingly, said something refreshingly old-school Thursday as he informed reporters that Felix Hernandez would begin the season in Seattle's rotation.

It was Dipoto's reasoning for keeping Hernandez in his accustomed role rather than making him, say, the successor to traded closer Edwin Diaz. From the Seattle Times:

"He's a starting pitcher," Dipoto said. "That’s what kind of stuff he has. Starting pitcher stuff. He needs the game to evolve to use all his weapons. And frankly his strength is not necessarily coming out and firing the first 20 pitches. His strength has been to incorporate all of his stuff and pitch over the long innings."

Note two parts of that quote. To these eyes, they address something that appears to be fading from the game: 

". . . needs the game to evolve to use all his weapons."
". . . incorporate all of his stuff and pitch over the long innings."

That sure reads like code for "knowing how to pitch," "making adjustments" and "setting up hitters." The closest modern term may be "sequencing," but that practice appears to be more data-driven than responsive to in-game movements.

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Noticing hitters' swings, knowing in real time what pitches are working best and intentionally altering patterns (i.e., throwing a first-pitch slider to a hitter the third time through after throwing first-pitch fastballs the first two times) should continue to be embraced, and pitchers who are good at it should be rewarded with more batters and more innings. There's more to "pitching backward" than sliders in hitters' counts followed by four-seamers above the hands, or offspeed pitches on 3-2 counts.

Hernandez has shown adaptability by using his fastball less and less. He has thrown it no more than 46 percent in a season over the past five years; before then, his low was 53.6 percent in 2011. He threw it a career-low 42.8 percent last year, according to Fangraphs.

The bad news is that the 32-year-old former ace posted a career-high 5.55 ERA last season and earned a demotion to the bullpen, only to be saved when James Paxton was injured. Like a lot of starting pitchers, he faltered the third time (and first time, for that matter) through the batting order:

TIME PA BA OBP SLG
First 252 .288 .351 .562
Second 249 .231 .291 .342
Third 150 .280 .396 .456

With those numbers, it's difficult to say Hernandez's "stuff" and savvy are keeping him in the rotation. The more plausible reason is that Seattle doesn't have veteran starting depth. Behind the team's top five — Marco Gonzales, Yusei Kikuchi, Wade LeBlanc, Mike Leake and Hernandez — are mostly prospects acquired in offseason trades (Justus Sheffield, Erik Swanson and Justin Dunn) who need more time to develop.

Dipoto has time to add arms before spring training begins. If that happens, there's a good chance he'll be back to explain to reporters why Hernandez is better suited as a multi-inning reliever than an innings-eater at the back of the rotation.

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.