FELIX HERNANDEZ - Starting Pitcher, Seattle Mariners
We're finally down to the top 5 athletes under the age of 25. Felix Hernandez is another star athlete stuck in a terrible situation. Playing for the Mariners in the most remote MLB city (great town, just not a major media market and far from other MLB teams) has led to Hernandez being mired in obscurity. Hardcore seam heads and saber metrics statisticians, who live in their pajamas and eat a diet consisting of spaghettios, regard Hernandez as the best pitcher in baseball. However, since he plays on one of the worst teams in the league that is essentially devoid of national attention outside of the occasional Ichiro highlight, he is a bit unknown to those who don't follow the game so closely.
That's not going to hold him down on this list, however. After becoming the starting pitcher with the fewest wins to ever win a Cy Young Award in 2010, Hernandez has finally started to get some of the attention he deserves. Unfortunately for the rest of baseball I highly doubt that he'll remain on the irrelevant Mariners very much longer. He'll probably be spending his Octobers helping some team win WS titles in the near future.
Before the world had even heard of King Felix, as he's known to his loyal followers, Hernandez was just your average teenage Venezuelan - if the average 14 yr old Venezuelan could throw 94 mph! Discovered by a Mariners scout at that tender age, the team began following him closely and once he had graduated from high school he signed his first pro contract. He chose the Mariners because Freddy Garcia was his favorite player and was playing for Seattle at the time. Oh youngsters and their silly role models.
From there it was a quick jaunt through the Mariners' farm system. In 2003 he tore through the lower levels, and by 2005 he was in AAA and was considered the best pitching prospect in baseball. He made his major league debut on August 4 of that year and finished the season. He wears number 34 for Seattle to honor Freddy Garcia, who has since bounced around the big leagues with various clubs.
2006 marked Hernandez's first full season of big league action, and he has been nothing short of individually dominant since - despite Seattle being a constant doormat in the A.L. West. In order, since 2006, their record has been 78-84, 88-74, 61-101, 85-77, and 61-101 again in 2010. Gross. And yet, Hernandez has managed a Win-Loss record of 71-53, nearly 20 games over .500. Remarkable.
Among his big league achievements are last year's Cy Young Award and 2010 league leader in ERA. He has also pitched an immaculate inning, where the pitcher strikes out the side on 9 pitches - he is only the 13th pitcher to accomplish that feat. He also has managed to strike out 4 batters in one inning - an incredibly rare feat that requires a hitter to reach base following a strike out on a wild pitch.
I pointed out a lot of Hernandez's amazing accomplishments in
a post near the end of last MLB season.
At just 24 years old, he is among baseball's most dominant starting pitchers, and along with guys like Tim Lincecum, David Price and Stephen Strasburg will be ushering in the new era of the pitcher as baseball continues to distance itself from the era of steroids and behemoths with size 9 hats that made bats look like toothpicks. Were Hernandez on a really good team he could be a threat for 300 wins, something that baseball may not see again for a long while due to a number of factors. Unfortunately, he's wasted a few too many good seasons with the Mariners and will need to start averaging 20 wins a year right now and do it for a long time to have a good shot. Not likely. Mariners fans are hoping they can somehow put some semblance of a decent team around him before he bolts for a major market contender, or they're forced to trade him. But baseball fans will just be happy to enjoy his dominance, wherever it may happen.
