Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - 9-27-19 Locked on Mariners Episode 32: Long live the King

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

Felix Hernandez threw what was very likely his final game in a Seattle Mariners uniform on Thursday, tossing 5.1 innings against the Oakland A's and leaving to a standing ovation. Host Andy Patton talks about the emotion from the game, and then in segment two he dives deeper into the legacy of King Felix in the city of Seattle, and even his chances of making the Hall of Fame. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What is up Mariners fans? I'm Seattle Sports Media's utility infielder Andy Patton, and you're listening to the Lockdown Mariners podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Well, it's no surprise what I'm going to talk to you guys about today. The king, Felix Hernandez, through what is perhaps the final start that he will make in a Mariners uniform and potentially in a major league uniform yesterday. He had a solid outing against the Oakland A's. The crowd was electric. It was a beautiful send-off for one of probably the best pitcher in Mariners history. I think I'm comfortable saying that. I'm going to talk a little bit about the game in the first segment, and then the second segment,

we're just going to talk about Felix. We're going to talk about what he meant to me personally. We're going to talk about what he meant to the city of Seattle, his impact on the game of baseball, maybe even getting his Hall of Fame chances a little bit. Who knows? I have a feeling this is going to be a hard podcast to limit time-wise, because I got a lot of thoughts on Felix Hernandez. So we're going to get to all of that between segment one and segment two. Of course, we're going to do our Mariner birthdays to celebrate at the end of the podcast, but this is going to be a very Felix-centric podcast for today. First, though, let's talk about Bombas.

Bombas are the most comfortable socks in the history of feet. With every pair purchased, a pair is donated. Go to Bombas.com slash Locked Now to get 20% off your first purchase. All right, for those of you who may have missed yesterday's game, I encourage you to at least watch highlights or go back, try to rewatch the game. It's a game that will be talked about for a very long time in Mariners history. I'm very confident about that. King Felix Hernandez, who started his major league career with the Seattle Mariners as a 19-year-old on August 4th, 2005,

made what very well may have been his final start in a Mariners uniform and potentially even in a big league uniform. He pitched against the Oakland A's. He had a solid outing. It wasn't great. Five in a third innings. He gave up three earned runs. He walked four.

He struck out three. That's not really what matters. I do think his numbers should have been better. He had what appeared to be a strikeout on Marcus Semyon. The umpire ended up ruling that Semyon did not go around. It ended up costing him as he got on base and then Matt Chapman hit a two-run home run. But that's neither here nor there. It's not the most important part of the game.

Felix managed to make it into the sixth inning. He came out onto the field in the second. sixth inning by himself, just along with catcher Omar Narvaeus. The rest of the fielders let Felix take the mound himself. He got out, he got to fly out to start the ending and ended up coming out after that at 106 pitches. It was an extremely emotional moment. He had tears in his eyes. He probably waved and bowed to the crowd more times than I can count. The crowd was electric. You know, they put almost everybody in yellow shirts.

The King Felix shirts from the infamous King's Court was no longer limited to just Section 150 out there in left field. It was pretty much the entire park. And it was quite a moment. For all that Felix was and is, and we're going to talk a lot more about that in the second segment, I think that his passion and his emotion for not just the game of baseball, but for the Seattle Mariners in this franchise was. is undeniable.

You know, I think you look at some of the other greats on this team, you know, the Griffey's and the Edgars and the Alvin Davis's and the Randy Johnson's and everybody. And I don't think anybody cared about this franchise as much as Felix Hernandez did. And there's some heartbreak in that in the sense that this team was never able to get him where he ultimately deserved to go. You know, in the playoffs, he never managed to make it there. He came so close. He was so close in 2014, you know, that he came off the mound right after the team had gotten eliminated because of, I think, Oakland, actually.

Or maybe they were playing Oakland. I don't remember. But I know that he, that was as close as he ever got. And it was just, you know, it was a bummer that this team was never able to get him there. But his unwavering love and support for this franchise will never be paralleled. I think that that's very confident. I'm very confident in saying that. I think that this, you know, this was a man who.

who came to this team, a boy, basically. You know, he made his debut at 19. He signed with the team when he was 16. This has been his entire life. And it hasn't been pretty the last couple years. Nobody's debating that. I mean, his start today did lower his ERA, but it's still 640 on the season.

He had a 1-8 record. But that doesn't really matter. You know, this was a beautiful night. It was an amazing atmosphere to see the king off. You know, it was proof that as jaded and his... cynical as some Mariners fans have gotten with his rebuild and the fact of the team is 66 and 93 and that they're not appearing to be that close to a playoff run. None of that matter in this game.

The crowd was electric. It was loud. It was yellow. And Felix could feel it and the Mariners themselves could feel it even if they didn't pull out the win and Scott Surveas could feel it. You could tell the Oakland players could feel it. They got out and they were stepped out on. the top steps cheering for Felix when he came out of the game.

It was, yeah, it's such an interesting thing, you know, I mean, Felix has not, this isn't a victory lap to or this isn't what Dwayne Wade or Dirk Novitsky did in the NBA or what Derek Jeter did or Mariano Rivera or so many of those guys where they kind of said, hey, this is it, you know, like I'm going to be done at the end of this year. Felix never said that. He has made zero indication that he plans to retire. I don't believe that he is planning to retire. there's a small part of me and maybe it's denial.

I'm not sure. I'm not confident, but there's a part of me that believes that maybe he is coming back. You know, the Mariners only really have two committed starters next year in Yusay Kekuchi and Marco Gonzalez. Wade LeBlanc is a free agent. Tommy Malone's a free agent. Felix is a free agent, obviously, and they may need some back end of the rotation help. And maybe they want to bring back a familiar face in Felix. but after today, man, it sure feels like this is it for him, at least in a Mariners uniform.

And maybe he can find a team who needs somebody to eat up some innings at the back of rotation or who thinks they saw something that they can maybe work on with Felix and maybe turn him back into at least something more resembling his self from 8 to 10 years ago. But there's a real chance that this is it that he's done as a major league pitcher. And if that's the case, then long live the king. It's not a whole lot else to say. We could talk more about this game, I guess. Dylan Moore made a great catch.

That was circumstantially one of the best plays of the season. An amazing catch over his shoulder on, a Chad Pender hit that should have easily fallen for a double. Kyle Sager had a couple hits. That was nice. Nola had another RBI. He's got 30 on the year. The bullpen pitched great. Brandon, Brennan, Sam, Tivulula, Dan Altevia, Matt Whistler combined.

It didn't give up any runs. Only gave up one hit and one walk. I've been kind of harping on how good the bullpen's been lately, and that was another case of that last night. You know, they looked good, which is encouraging, especially for Felix, who has often had the bullpen be a source of pain for him, and it was good that that wasn't the case,

although, of course, him throwing what was very close to being a quality start and losing is somewhat indicative of his entire career in Seattle. All right, the goal was to focus a little bit more on the game and segment. one and a little bit more on Felix in segment two, but that proved to be pretty challenging. So we're coming up on segment two. I'm going to focus more on the history of Felix Hernandez, some of his statistical accomplishments, and maybe what that could mean for him in Cooperstown someday. Felix Hernandez pitched for the Mariners for 15 seasons. He's the longest tenured mariner pitcher. He has nearly every mariner's pitching record. It's just, it's remarkable how

how much his numbers really lit up. You know, I think it's easy to forget baseball fans, sports fans in general have short memories. And I think that the last couple years have soured a lot of people on Felix Hernandez. I understand that, you know, especially the three years prior to this year, excuse me, where the Mariners were really finally starting to contend. You know, they had Nelson Cruz, they had Robinson Canoe. They had a team that was built to make a push to the playoffs.

Felix just couldn't be there for them. You know, 2016, he was okay. He had an 11-88 record, 3.82 ERA. He was roughly league average, a little bit better than that. The following year, 2017, Mariners had a great chance to make in the playoffs. Felix only made 16 starts that year. He was 6 and 5 record 4.36 ERA below league average that year. 2018 was very bad.

5.55 ERA 8 and 14 record. He was just not himself, not even close. And then this year, you know, his ERA, he lowered it to 640. But it's just no player, I feel, and obviously there's bias here because I watched him for so long. But I have a hard time remembering a player who was so good when the team wasn't ready to be good behind him. And then fell off right when the team really needed. him. You know, it's just, it's tragic. There's just no other way to look at it. It's a tragedy. Felix didn't deserve this. He deserved better from the Mariners, and he knows that, and the

Mariners know that. And I mean, Kyle Seeger talked about it a little bit in a pregame interview. He said, hey, I wish we'd been able to get him some more wins. You know, I think when you talk about the Hall of Fame, which we're going to talk about the Hall of Fame here in a second, but, you know, if you look at Felix Hernandez's stats on baseball reference or wherever, the first thing that's going to jump out is that he has 169 career wins. That's not enough, you know, and I don't believe in wins as a very important stat, and I know a lot of Mariners fans agree with me because Felix has kind of embodied that that you can be a great pitcher without getting wins.

But it's just, it's not going to, I'm worried it's not going to get him there. You know, there's a lot to like about Felix Hernandez's career. You know, he led the league in win-loss percentage one year. He led it in ERA twice. Game started twice. Innings pitched once. Whip one time. He gave up the fewest hits per nine three times, the fewest home runs per nine once.

He was a six-time all-star. And strangely enough, was not an all-star the year that he won his Young Award in 2010. So you could very easily argue that he should have been a seven-time all-star, probably should have been an eight-time all-star because he deserved to, make it in 2008, but that doesn't matter anymore. But he's a guy who just didn't peak at the right time for the Mariners. Or maybe the Mariners didn't peek at the right time around him. Maybe we'll call it that.

They tried, you know, they tried to build that team to be ready to go right when he hit 30, and he just, you know, he didn't turn the corner well at age 30. It just didn't come with him. And some may say that it was because he refused to adjust some of the way that he pitched you know, he started to lose his velocity, and instead of trying to become more of a finesse pitcher, he just kept trying what worked. I don't know if that's true.

I don't have any sources on that or anything. But the proof is, you know, it didn't work. Whatever he tried to do after he turned 30 didn't help him, and that's unfortunate because that's when the Mariners could have used him, but it doesn't take away from the incredible career that he had prior to that. the amount of, you know, the fact that he made seven straight all-star games, if you count his Sy Young's season as an all-star season. He finished top ten in Cy Young voting six times, which is just incredible.

He placed an MVP voting five times as a pitcher, which is very rare. He hit a grand slam off Johann Santana. He threw a perfect game. I mean, this man was undefeated in making incredible stories for the Mariners. you know, every, every Marys fan knows where they were when he threw the perfect game. I was coming home from work. I was a summer job in college working at a paint company, and I didn't have my phone all day, and I turned it on because I had a car charger on my way home, my phone was just blowing up,

and I got home just in time to start watching the replay of the game. I didn't get to see it live, unfortunately. I remember when he hit the home runoff of Johan Santana, because the story was that he closed his eyes and swung as hard as he could, and everybody I knew didn't believe that. Didn't believe that that was the case. And then Felix said, yeah, no, that's what happened. How many home runs did Johann Santana?

How many Grand Slam did Johan Santana give up? I don't know the number, but I got to imagine that that's not a big group of people with the fact that Felix Hernandez is among them is pretty remarkable. From a Hall of Fame perspective, I'd love to say he's going to get there. I'm not sure that I see it. obviously this may not be the end of his career that was discussed a little bit in segment one, but it's hard to imagine that he adds much to his career at this point. You know, he's got a career area of 3.42.

I have a hard time imagining him if he pitches more, lowering that number. But he'd certainly add to his strikeout total, which currently sits at 2,521. He's unlikely to get to 3,000, which would much, which would strengthen his case considerably, but he could get to 2,700 maybe. 2800 maybe maybe but yeah he just you know you look at statistically where he's at he's got you know 50.2 war for pitchers is 101st all time that's very good but the average starting pitcher has a war of 73.2 which is much higher baseball reference does a similar pitching score where they take a bunch of your statistics and they can kind of compound them and compare them to other

pitchers and right now the top five pitchers most statistically similar to Felix Hernandez are Cole Hamels Kevin Apier Jake Peavy Zach Granky and Brett Saberhagen a very good group of pitchers none of them are Hall of Famers obviously Hamels and Granky are still active pitchers Hamill seems unlikely to make it Granky I think will but it will be because he will add to his career totals from here on out Saberhagen never made it Apier never made it PV did not make it Justin Verlander's on this list, but he will make it because he has years left as well, similar to Gricky.

So, yeah, it's just he's, I think he's going to go down, unfortunately, if this is really the end for him. I think he's going to go down as one of the best pitchers to probably not make the Hall of Fame. I think he'll get some support. Most of those guys don't have a perfect, none of those guys have a perfect game on their record. and I think Felix just stands alone in his memory. You know, he's so recognizable. He was the king.

You know, who doesn't love the king? The Mariners, the king's court was such an iconic thing for him to cement his legacy outside of just the city of Seattle. I think he was known around the league for not just his dominance and not just the fact that he was good in spite of being on the Mariners, but he was known as the king. And I think that that will help cement, the legacy that he's going to leave behind on the game of baseball,

but I'm just, I'm not sure that it's going to be enough to get him into the Hall of Fame. But, you know, it doesn't take away from the career that he had. It doesn't take away from the memory of 15 years' worth of kids and fans of this team. And it doesn't, you know, it doesn't take away from his nickname. So I guess one last time, hopefully, maybe he'll come back, but if not, then long live the king. Guys, let's talk about sex. Good sex. Remember the days when you were always ready to go?

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He is turning 54 today. Romero only played seven games in the major leagues with the Seattle Mariners in 1997. He hit 333 in those games. He had a pair of RBIs, three hits all singles. Kind of a bummer that he never got another shot in the big leagues. He was already 31 by the time he made it up with the Mariners in 97, but he had some really solid years in the minor leagues up to that point. In 1996, he hit 344 with 28 home runs for the Padre system.

and then he played a little bit with the Mariners in 97, and that was on the strength of a ridiculous season at AAA Tacoma. He had 3rd, or excuse me, he had 297 with 33 home runs and 120 RBIs. That got him a little glimpse. And then in 1998, they sent him back down to AAA, and he had 25 home runs with 104 RBIs and a 286 batting average. But because they had David Segui and Jay Buneer and Ken Griffey Jr. And so many other power-hitting guys, they just never needed him. And so unfortunately he only got his little tiny cup of coffee, but at least he made it to the major leagues.

And that is enough for him to get a happy birthday celebration from me. So happy 54th birthday to Dan Roarmier. Last but not least is Carlos Lopez. Carlos Lopez is celebrating his 71st birthday. He played with the inaugural Seattle Mariners team, not the Seattle Pilots, but the Seattle Mariners in 1977. He was a 28-year-old outfielder at the time. He actually had a pretty solid year. He played 99 games, hit eight home runs, stole 16 bases, hit 283.

But that was the only year he spent in Seattle. He was spent the following year with Baltimore. He did not hit nearly as well. He only hit 238 that year, and that was it for his big league career, unfortunately. But I put together a nice little season for that first Mariners squad. So happy 71st birthday to him. All right, I'm going to be back on Monday to recap the final few games of the 2019 season, while also taking some questions for our Mariners Mailbag Monday segment.

Once again, I'm Andy Patton. You can find me on Twitter at Andy Patton, S-E-A. You can find the Locked-on Mariners podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening, and go Mariners.