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Tuesday, July 16th, 2013

KIng Felix is one of the main reason experts now pay more attention to Pitcher’s peripheral stats to decipher whether or not he is ‘CY Young Worthy’ based on his 2009 AL Cy Young Award Winning Season. Despite a 13 – 12 record, he lugged 249.2 IP, carried an ERA of 2.27 in the AL – and a WHIP of 1.057.  His 13 Wins were the fewest wins ever by a Cy Young Winner.  The 9 year veteran will be in New York City tonight for the ALL – Star Game.

The young Mariners roster has a lot of talented, exciting players competing at an All-Star type level at the moment, but almost all of those players haven’t been this way for long enough to be considered for the All-Star Game.

Felix Hernandez, 27, has been the same pitcher in 2013 that Mariners fans have loved watching over the past nine years. His 4.2 WAR and 138.2 outstanding innings pitched are numbers that can rival practically any pitcher in the game today

. For this reason, Felix Hernandez will be the Mariners lone representative, heading to his fourth All-Star Game.

SEA@HOU: Felix fans nine en route to 100th career win

King Felix reached his 100th career win this season. Perhaps if he pitched for another organization – he would have been there a few season earlier. With his 7 YR/$175 MIL extension with the franchise, he will have to hope for internal improvement – so that he can be quicker to 200 wins.  Hernandez is leading the American League with IP (138.2), GS (20) and an impressive 2.53 ERA.  For his 9 Year Career, he is 108 – 80, with a 3.16 ERA.  This ALL – Star game represents his 4th selection in the last 5 years.  Unless the man runs into injury – he will also complete his 6th straight season of throwing over 200+ IP and probably his 5th straight season with 200+ SO.  He is well on his way to authoring a Hall Of Fame Career.

Felix Hernandez currently has his lowest FIP, 2.66, of his career in 2013. Considering he has already won a Cy Young Award and thrown a perfect game, this is even more impressive.

He is currently on pace for 8.4 WAR, which would be the highest single-season WAR total since Zack Greinke had 9.1 in 2009.

Hernandez is striking more than one batter per inning, something he has never been able to do for a whole season, and walking under two hitters per nine, another career-best.

Felix Hernandez is as good as he ever has been, and it’s hard to imagine an American League pitcher more worthy of an All-Star nomination.

Compared to other pitchers in the Majors, Felix Hernandez is right at the top. Aside from Matt Harvey and Adam Wainwright, Felix Hernandez has been the top pitcher in the Majors this season.

Amongst those three, one would expect Hernandez to be the most likely to be able to keep pitching at this level.

The American League has yet to name their starting pitcher, and I wouldn’t be surprised if King Felix got the nod.

His statistics in pretty much every category can stack up with every starting pitcher in the game right now.

Originally, the Mariners were going to have two pitchers pitching in the All-Star Game.However, because Hisashi Iwakuma pitched on Sunday, he will have to be replaced by Royals pitcher Greg Holland. Iwakuma owns a 3.02 ERA with a 1.30 BB/9 in 20 starts on the season.

Despite only having 36 career starts in the Majors, Iwakuma is 32 years old, so I’d expect him to be able to keep up these numbers in the second half. Iwakuma could use the much needed rest he will get by sitting out at the All-Star Game.

Nonetheless, it still is kind of a bummer that the rest of the country won’t get a chance to see Iwakuma at the top of his game.

Regardless of whether he’s starting or not, it will be a joy to watch Felix Hernandez pitch in the 2013 All-Star Game at Citi Field. Hernandez is one of the easiest players to like in all of Major League Baseball.

From his million dollar smile to his nasty breaking ball, Felix Hernandez is impossible to dislike, unless your team is facing him. The Mariners organization has to be proud of King Felix and all the work he has done culminating in his fourth All-Star Game. 

King Felix’s fastball isn’t sitting at the 95 MPH that it was a few years ago, but Felix has still managed to be effective sitting at around 92 MPH.  His SO rate of 9.1/per 9 IP is actually the highest ever for his career currently.

*** The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of mlbreports.com and their partners***

A big thank-you goes out to our ‘Marlins and Mariners Correspondent’ Sam Evans for preparing today’s featured article. Sam is a high school student from the greater Seattle area. 

He is a longtime Mariners fan, and has been an off-and-on season ticket holder for the last five years.

Sam enjoys interacting with readers and using statistical analysis to dig beneath the surface to find the truth in baseball.  Sam was our 2nd Intern who has graduated to the position of  Baseball Writer. For all of Sam’s archived articles – click here. 

You can follow Sam on Twitter: Sam Also writes for the Marlins website Fish Stripes.Follow @RJA206

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