Kuzul

This week, the Seattle Mariners rebuffed fan demands and shunned fan favorite Bobby Valentine in favor of former Cleveland manager Eric Wedge.    

Perhaps it’s not the end of the world, because the last time the fans had a favorite, it was for the bench-riding, manager-in-waiting Joey Cora of the Chicago White Sox. Not exactly a household name known for multiple pennants, and not someone other teams have jumped to hire, Cora is known more for cute pins on his baseball cap than his management prowess. 

In Seattle, most fans feel they know more about hiring baseball managers than the Mariners‘ team management does.  

Long-suffering Seattle fans have been very patient with their sports teams, but that patience seems to be wearing thin if initial reactions to the hiring of Eric Wedge is any indication.  Most were aghast with worry, with some older fans still gnashing their teeth at the bad-luck loss of the beloved and cherished Lou Piniella nearly a decade ago.  Nobody seemed to be in a mood for parades or celebrations.   

Yes, we all giggled at the press conference yesterday, with all the witty comments made by kiss-up pundits.  

Yes, we patted Chuck and Howard on the back and thanked them for saving baseball in Seattle and their wonderful two decades of stellar leadership.  

Yes, we acknowledged the seven years of Cleveland bliss under Eric Wedge.  

Yes, we heard all of the futuristic comments of what winning will be like. 

But nevertheless, fans clearly are not buying the sales pitch like they have in years past.

Now I gotta admit, neither was I, which is very odd because normally I’m such a positive guy budding with optimism.  When a used car salesman tells me “this car was driven by an old lady to church”  in spite of the clearly tampered-with odometer on the dented 1973 Dodge Dart, I celebrate!   

When Bill Clinton said he “did not have sexual relations with that woman” and that he used the cigar for smoking and not for—well, you know—I believed Bubba. 

When George W said the “Mission was Accomplished” and the troops would soon be home soon and the world was saved from unsavory terrorists with WMDs, I believed that too! 

When Obama promised the new health care bill would cover everyone in this country and possibly others for “not a dime more than we’re now spending,” I was so very happy!    

Why? Because I am an optimist. That’s just how I am. I believe what most people tell me.

But with this new managerial change for the Mariners, like most fans, I’m finding myself just a tad bit skeptical.   Perhaps it’s because I’ve heard this so many times before? 

Half a dozen times since Lou, we Seattle fans have been told the same thing: that the losing days of old are gone, that the culture will be changed, that this is the guy who will lead us out of the wilderness and into the promised land of milk and honey and World Series rings.

Yesterday, the mystified Mariner management seemed dumbfounded over public skepticism. “Why would they not trust us, we of incredible baseball wisdom long since demonstrated?” And as radio hosts and newspaper columnists danced on tables and were downright giddy over the Eric Wedge hiring, we fans…not so much. There was a muted suspicion of being conned once again, with most fans saying they would wait to pop the corks until they saw what this guy actually did. No, they were not pronouncing judgment of impending doom, but they weren’t caught up in yesterday’s hoopla either.  

Now why would fans be skeptical?  Well, let’s take a look at the press conferences of the last seven managers hired and you might see a pattern:

On November 16, 2002, the Mariners hired 41-year-old Bob Melvin, saying “We think we’ve got a real gem in Bob, as you’ll all learn when you get to know and respect him. He’s going to bring us a winning team and a championship.” 

The local press speculated that Melvin was more even-tempered than the fiery Piniella. Mariners chairman Howard Lincoln said, “He brings to this position not only baseball expertise but high energy, good judgment, intelligence, leadership and communication skills.” Others noted that since he was a catcher and was so much younger than Lou, he would communicate better with the players.  

Less than two years later they fired him.

On October 20, 2004, the Mariners announced the signing of Mike Hargrove, who had led the Cleveland Indians past the Mariners in the 1995 ALCS. 

Mariner management said, “We went for an impact manager, one who can have immediate success on the field.” Others wrote that Hargrove “is saltier, a more savvy figure than Melvin, more along the lines of Lou Piniella, who will be the gold standard for all subsequent Mariners managers.” Still others penned, “As with Piniella, he sees season-long clubhouse management as his top priority.” 

Turns out Hargrove shared one other trait with Piniella.  He was burned out, tired of managing, and thus drove out of town in a red pickup during an eight-game winning streak on July 1, 2007.

Hargrove was succeeded by 55-year-old John McLaren, who the Mariners were again very optimistic about.   Upon accepting the job, McLaren said, “I am really looking forward to the challenge of taking over this club and continuing to build on what Mike has established here. When I came back I said I wanted to be a part of taking this team to the postseason, and back to what our fans expect and deserve. That’s still the case. My focus, and the focus of every one of my coaches is to help these players achieve what they are capable of, and that’s getting this team back to the postseason.”

McLaren had managed in the Toronto minor league system for eight years prior to working as a major league coach. He made his managerial debut with Medicine Hat in the Pioneer League in 1978. He guided Kinston to the first half title in 1981 and managed Southern League Championship clubs in 1984 and 1985. He was named Co-Manager of the Year in the Southern League in 1985. 

But on June 19, 2008, he too was fired by the Seattle Mariners, replaced by Jim Riggleman. 

What did the Mariners say about Riggleman when he got the job? “Jim’s going to bring what we think is a different style than Mac had.  Just the depth and breadth of his experience and how he presents himself.  We’re happy to have Jim!” Others in the community wrote, “He’s a pretty standard-issue manager. It’ll be a huge improvement in terms of consistent lineups and bullpen usage.”  

But apparently experienced standard-issue managers were also not what the Mariners wanted, and he too was fired at the end of the same season, replaced by then 45-year-old and relative unknown Don Wakamatsu.

Wak had no major league experience as a manager.   He had spent five years as a bench coach and third-base coach in Texas, then one year as bench coach for the A’s before Seattle called.  He had never managed above Double-A prior to the Mariners hiring him.  In fact, none of the six candidates interviewed by the Mariners had big league experience as managers.

Nevertheless, pundits exclaimed how Wakamatsu was the first Asian-American manager in major league history, and how he was the first significant hire in the new era of new general manager Jack Zduriencik. The New York Times wrote a special article celebrating how his family had overcome unjust internment during World War II and noted his heritage.

Wakamatsu himself said, “I welcome the challenge here to bring a world championship to Seattle and the fans of the Mariners” and added that “communication and leadership will be key and this will carry over to the team.”

Observers, mostly quite pleased with the hire, noted that the Mariners had a league-worst offense in 2008 and that Wak “had a daunting task to reverse the culture and performance of a team that last season became the first to lose 100 games with a $100 million payroll.” 

In his first year as Mariners manager, the team put up 85 victories, of which a MLB season-high 35 were one-run triumphs, as well as 13 walk-off wins.   Everyone was optimistic and giddy. 

During the spring of this past year, general manager Jack Zduriencik gushed about his own confidence in the Mariners’ clubhouse culture.  “Don Wakamatsu lets players be themselves, and the veteran Ken Griffey Jr. keeps teammates loose with biting humor and nearly nonstop commentary on everything that crosses his line of vision.”

Don Wakamatsu was fired this past August 9th because of the clubhouse culture.  This month team philosophy apparently reversed once again, and now is focused only on experienced managers with a depth of big league experience, according to the same yet unhired Joey Cora.   The Seattle Mariners have settled on Eric Wedge in spite of wailing from the fans yearning for the four decades of experience offered by Bobby Valentine.

Yesterday at the press conference, questions were fired off by hundreds by writers and TV personalities, all skippy and happy (or at least putting on a good act). Optimism was flowing. We the fans are told we should jump for joy over this wonderful new hire for the Seattle Mariners. Things will change. You’ll see. This time it will be different!

Yes, and perhaps that flat-white, dented Dodge Dart did actually only have 10,000 miles on it.

But with a league-worst offense and a spotty pitching staff, surrounded by bad-attitude underperforming free agents with multi-year contracts, this team again looks to be in trouble, and no manager is going to change that without serious help from the front office.   Like years past, and it probably wasn’t a manager issue in the first place.  

Perhaps the team is cursed by a field built over an ancient burial site? 

Whatever the problem is with baseball in this city, I wouldn’t bet your house on the Seattle Mariners going to the World Series with Eric Wedge at the helm.  And I’m sorry if that sounds negative and pessimistic, but we’ve been down this road six times since Lou.

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Yesterday the Seattle Mariner front office garnered similar fan enthusiasm for their latest choice to manage the team, as one might find at an exciting university lecture on Wave Particle Duality and how that relates to quantum physics.

Lots of snoring, cat-calling, muttering, outright grumbling amidst the masses, scattered with skeptical “who the crap is that??!?

That’s right Seattle sports fans!  Your stellar ownership group has once again opted to rebuff your wants for proven winner Bobby Valentine and his four decades of baseball success, in favor of Cleveland’s cast-off manager and far more dubious Eric Wedge.

Yet another in a series of brilliant public relation moves by your pals Chuck Armstrong and Howard Lincoln!

You would think at this point, given the track record of the past three years, that if Seattle fans wanted Snookie Polizzi and her Jersey Shore cast collegues to manage the team, Mariner management would have obliged!  Given that this ownership team has brought us four managers and two 101 loss seasons during the past three seasons.

Seven managers since Lou Pinella quit abruptly,  with some pundits suggesting this ownership team is difficult to work with and a tad arrogant. From the fan’s perspective, that suggests any one of us could write random names on a tree stump, cast darts at it, and likely come up with a manager who might deliver more wins than what we’ve just seen.

So the “Wedgie” choice is not likely to motivate fan excitement nor higher ticket sales and camping overnight for best seats.  Not until management demonstrates that they know more about these decisions than your average garbage man or beer delivery person.

Seattle fans wanted a man like Bobby Valentine, with a strong personality and a willingness to fight for what he needed.  Fans specifically made clear that they were tired of “yes men” managing the team.  And the larger question is how many more wins will Eric Wedge deliver over what Bobby Valentine would have?  Few believe there would be more wins under Wedge, so why not give the fans what they wanted?

Today, after the announcement, fans were apathetic and irate, assuming more of the same.

How do I know this?

Well, other than the scathing fan remarks from talk shows and comment sections in local newspapers,  Thursday I did my own poll research using roughly the same scientific methods that those polling the Patty Murray/Dino Rossi senatorial race are using.

We just put a question up and let anyone who wanted to, respond, happy to accept multiple votes from the same party.

And with this scientific method, my research indicates that roughly 92.4 percent of Seattle fans insisted on Bobby Valentine managing this team. Over all the other choices. Numbers that Saddam Hussein would be jealous of.

Now the Mariners, being the Mariners, of course did not listen to the fans. They felt it wiser to go with the mostly unknown former Cleveland Indians manager.  And perhaps this is indeed the better choice from a baseball perspective, but Seattle fans are very skeptical.

And this in spite of well-known sports talk hosts and newspaper columnists in Seattle, using the better part of the past few days trying to convince us that this was indeed the best choice available.

Similar arguments, ironically, to those presented at the hiring’s of Del Crandel, Chuck Cottier, Bill Plummer, and Jim Rigglemen.  

Predictably they’re having about as much luck convincing us as McCain & Palin did with the wisdom of the Bush economic policies in 2008.  So pardon me if my enthusiasm wanes, but I, like most Seattle baseball fans, am wondering why the Seattle Mariners fired Don Wakamatsu three months ago if a manager with the same skill set is what this team allegedly needs?

The Mariners claim they want a leader who works well with young players. Exactly the skills former-manager Don Wakamatsu was gifted at.

Interim manager Darren Brown had no better luck managing this team with it’s impotent offense, than Wak did.

Clearly it was never a manager issue.   It was a player decision and talent issue.

So the challenge for those running the Seattle Mariners this offseason will be in convincing skeptical and likely former-season ticket holders, why they should feel any more optimistic over the 2011 version of the Seattle Mariners than what we just saw with the 2010 version.

And at this point, many of us remain unconvinced that these latest moves made any difference whatsoever!

If anything, there is more egg on the faces of those running the organization and less fan confidence.

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“Six-and-a-half games back and not playing very well in a season we thought we ought to be in contention.  I think we were losing ground with the field,” Ranger managing general partner George W. Bush said in June of 1992 upon firing his manager.

The manager?  None other than Bobby Valentine, a baseball man with nearly four decades of baseball experience sorely needed in the dullard Seattle Mariner organization, made famous for its uncanny ability to create 100-loss seasons regardless of the payroll or who is running it.  Valentine has the personality horsepower needed to confront a dogmatic front office that Mariner fans are ready to run out of town amidst a mob of ropes and flaming torches.

The Texas Rangers were 46-41 at the time of the firing, and were in third place in the division, 5.5 behind first-place Minnesota in the days of dual divisions in each league.   Valentine then in his 25th baseball season at the age of 41, his eighth with the Rangers,  he had been the third-longest tenured manager in the major leagues behind only baseball icons Tommy Lasorda of the Dodgers and Sparky Anderson of the Detroit Tigers.  Bobby Valentine had been the youngest manager in the major leagues when offered the job on May 16, 1985.  A former Dodger, he had long been a favorite of Lasorda and once was thought to be his heir apparent as manager of the Dodgers.  

Almost a decade later on a different team, Valentine was again fired, but this time following a tumultuous and controversial summer of 2002 in New York.  The Mets finished with a 75-86 record in spite of their $102 million payroll, in last place in the NL East for the first time since 1993 and below .500 for the first time in six years.  It had been a mere two years after Valentine had led them to the first Subway Series in four decades.

Many felt Valentine had taken the fall for then knucklehead general-manager Steve Phillips.  Valentine left with an overall record of 536-467, reaching the playoffs in 1999 and 2000.  But in late-season 2002 came one of the worst months in team history with a 12-game losing streak where the Mets didn’t win a game at Shea Stadium in August, during a NL-record 15-game home losing streak.

Earlier that summer Mets part owner Fred Wilpon issued several dreaded “votes of confidence,” but by mid September was fed up with underperforming players, seven of whom Newsweek magazine had claimed were caught smoking marijuana and goofing off.  “The team just did not respond to the manager,” Wilpon explained at a packed news conference after the fact.  “Whatever grip Bobby had on the team was gone by the end of the season.”

Sports pundits ripped the move.  Ian O’Conner of USA Today wrote a scathing column insisting the Mets had fired the wrong guy, and that the Mets “should’ve fired his loser of a general manager, Steve Phillips.”  Phillips had embarrassed Valentine by refusing to allow him to attend the winter meetings and embarrassed the franchise with rumors of an extramarital affair with a subordinate.”

Valentine himself said, “I told Fred that that he had to give the next manager authority in the clubhouse and on the field, that he had to get Steve off the field and out of the clubhouse.  You can’t let a GM high-five guys and joke around after a win and then after a loss act like it’s the end of the world. Get him out of there for the sake of the next guy.”

Sobering words for Mariner fans, given that current Mariners manager Jack Zduriencik spent a large part of July and August this past summer hobnobbing in the dugout with Mariner icons while “evaluating” soon-to-be fired manager Don Wakamatsu, claiming that Wak too had “lost control of the team.”   

Mariner fans responded in ways not seen before.  Fed up with a perceived meddling by an incompetent front office, radio talk shows and newspaper comments were bombarded with scathing rebukes of long-time Mariner management figures Chuck Armstrong and Howard Lincoln.  Fans weren’t buying management’s latest line about “needing change, ” considering the next hire will be the team’s seventh manager since Lou Pinella left in 2002.

If this franchise was a horse, it would have been shot two decades ago.

The Seattle Mariners are in dire need of a manager like the only successful manager in team history: Lou Pinella.  Unlike his predecessors, Pinella routinely had shouting matches with owners who felt they knew baseball better than he did.  Pinella had no problem getting in the face of decision-makers and publicly scolding them for failed or non-existent moves.  Valentine is a guy who shares this trait.

Whatever the real story in the clubhouse as Mets manager, off the field Valentine had been a force for compassion following the unsettling attacks at 9/11.  People close to the manager felt his unyielding commitment to the families of victims put things in perspective for Valentine, and perhaps made sports far less important.  Gone was the focus, some claimed, which led to apathy towards superstar tantrums during his last season in New York.

He has held various jobs in baseball other than his managing stints.  Following his departure from Texas, early in January 1993 Valentine was hired by the Cincinnati Reds to be an advance scout that included consulting player personnel and watching talent on other teams during spring training. 

Also spending part of the last decade in Japan managing the Chiba Lotte Marines, Valentine was soon headed back to the United States for reasons other than on-the-field success.  Making somewhere around $3.9 million a year, he priced himself out of the market and was told by Marines management that the club would not be able to afford him after the 2009 season, regardless of how many games his team wins.  Thus he returned to commentating on ESPN this past season.

Valentine’s players may have been chided for misbehaving, but he too has been known to be part of on-field mishaps and mayhem.  In December of 1998 he admitted he made a “bad guess” when he speculated why Todd Hundley blamed him for being replaced by Mike Piazza.  Hundley felt Valentine had it in for him, but Valentine blew it off saying, “It’s an Italian thing.  He thinks that I would do something because he’s not Italian or because I am Italian.  I think that’s ridiculous.”

And then who can forget the infamous if not somewhat humorous two-game ban and $5,000 fine in June of 1999?  While Met manager, Valentine returned to the dugout during a game versus Toronto donning a fake mustache and glasses after being ejected from a game against the Blue Jays.

He might need that humor if hired in Seattle, since this is only one of three organizations that have never played in a World Series.  But clearly Valentine would hold the most baseball experience of anyone in the organization.  On a team in Seattle with cranky fans still living in memories of the past, hiring Bobby Valentine should be a no-brainer.

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Seattle Mariners manager Jack Zduriencik announced today that they are shutting down star pitcher Felix Hernandez for the rest of the season.

He’s only missing one start, but come on, Mariners—you can’t be serious.

I understand being cautious with your franchise cornerstone, but Hernandez is in the midst of a tight Cy Young race, and one more win could certainly push him into the lead.

In a season filled with such disappointment for the Mariners, you would think they would let Hernandez make one more statement to Cy Young voters, giving him a chance to finally give Mariners fans something to smile about.

Unfortunately, writers will have a lot of difficulty voting for a pitcher with a 13-12 record, regardless of the fact that he has pitched 30 quality starts out of a possible 34.

Hernandez also leads AL starters in innings pitched (249.2), strikeouts (232), ERA (2.27), and WHIP (1.06).

In past years, King Felix wouldn’t have a chance of capturing the award, but in today’s modern game, dominated by sabermetrics and analytical stats, all of which favor Hernandez, maybe he can pull it off.

I certainly think he deserves it.

One more start would certainly help his case, though.

What do you think, did the Mariners make the right decision, and will he win the Cy Young anyway?

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In his last 10 starts Felix Hernandez has been nothing short of brilliant, giving up no earned runs in five of those outings and one earned run in four other games during that stretch.

He went eight innings in half of the starts, and if the Mariners didn’t hit like the Bad News Bears, Hernandez would win the AL Cy Young award this year by a landslide.

Blame it on bad luck, mismanagement by the front office, or unfortunate timing, but Felix deserves better. He is the best pitcher in baseball right now, and all the attention has been focused on CC Sabathia and David Price.

Perhaps this is because the Yankees and the Rays are in a slugfest for the best record in baseball. Perhaps this is because Felix plays for a miserable Mariners team.

In my opinion this is just another case of the East Coast bias rearing its ugly head.

Felix pitches in Seattle, which is geographically isolated. There are no major markets between Seattle and San Francisco (these two cities are 800 miles apart), so the Mariners get very little exposure and media coverage.

CC Sabathia pitches for the most storied franchise in professional sports and the media capital of the world, while David Price plays for a team that is considered a fly in the ointment and a source of irritation for the Bronx Bombers.

Seattle will never compare to New York in the amount of attention it receives, nor should it. New York is 18 times bigger with transplants all over the country and an unrivaled fanbase. However, those facts shouldn’t overshadow the season Felix has put together. Felix should be acknowledged for his pitching dominance without bias.

In the end I think his body of work speaks for itself, and he’s made a stronger case for the Cy Young Award than anyone else, but he does pitch in Seattle, WA. We’ll see if the sports writers overlook that fact and do the right thing. Good luck Felix.

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Felix Hernandez is your 2010 American League Cy Young Award winner…if only it were that easy.

In reality, it should be that easy.

After going eight innings, giving up one run on five hits and two walks while striking out five, Hernandez got the all-important erroneous stat. 

The stat that for some reason voters and baseball fans feel is nerdy to overlook.

Hernandez got the win and is now 13-12. Happy?

Oh, he also has the best ERA (2.27), most quality starts (30), most innings pitched (249.2), most strikeouts (232), and lowest batting average against (.212) in the American League. He is second in WHIP (1.06) to Cliff Lee, not CC Sabathia or David Price.

Sabathia and Price were also in action Tuesday.

Sabathia went 8.1 innings, giving up one earned run on three hits and two walks while striking out eight.

He too picked up another win, pushing his record to 21-7. Wins is the only category Sabathia leads the AL in.

Sabathia now has a 3.18 ERA with 26 quality starts, 237.2 innings pitched, 197 strikeouts, a 1.19 WHIP, and a .239 batting average against.

Impressive numbers, but they do not match Hernandez.

Price went eight shutout innings, giving up six hits, zero walks, and striking out eight, and picked up a win to move to 19-6. Price does not lead the AL in any pitching category. 

He has a 2.73 ERA, 25 quality starts, 207.2 innings pitched, 187 strikeouts, a 1.20 WHIP, and a .222 batting average against.

Also impressive, but they do not match Hernandez.

Baseball is a bunch of individuals playing a team sport. All you can control in the field, at the plate, or on the mound is what you do.

Luck occurs here and there, but after so many games and so many innings, luck tends to run out and at the very least things even out.

If your lineup is weak around you, then you will not score runs or have a high number of RBI, so we look at your on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS to see your value.

If your team does not score for you or play defense behind you while you’re on the mound, then we look at strikeouts to see how often you take your defense out of the equation and ERA and WHIP to see how often you put your weak offensive team in position to win.

One stat that is based on the sum of a team’s parts is wins, and that stat generally earns a World Series championship, but basing an individual award on it is completely and ridiculously unfair.

A Cy Young Award is not a Most Valuable Player Award where we can argue the definition of “value.” The Cy Young Award is simply for the best pitcher.

Voters got it correct last year, giving the Cy Young to Zack Greinke with an all-time AL Cy Young-low 16 wins, and in the National League Tim Lincecum won it with a 15-7 record.

Hernandez’s offense has supplied him with zero runs while he was on the mound in seven of his last 14 starts, and he has pitched into the seventh inning in a team-record 25 consecutive starts.

I think he has done all he can to win for the Seattle Mariners.

Anyone with eyes can see Hernandez has the best pitching numbers. Sabathia and Price have the better team stat, so they were awarded with the playoffs.

The Cy Young, however, should clearly be awarded to Hernandez.

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Not many pitchers with a 12-12 record would ever make a compelling case to win a Cy Young Award. But Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners not only has a legitimate case, he is the most deserving to win in the American League.

Forget the 12-12 record for now. Hernandez’s numbers are tremendous. His 2.31 earned run average is currently second in major league baseball by a single point and is nearly a full run lower than CC Sabathia, who has eight more wins and is also one of the favorites for the Cy Young.

His 227 strikeouts are also second in baseball. He is tied with Roy Halladay with the most innings pitched with 241.2. He also leads baseball in quality starts and start percentage. 

Hernandez also pitches for a team with the second fewest wins in baseball as the Mariners currently sit 28 games out of first place at 59-96.

In his 12 losses, he has received a grand total of seven runs of support. The Mariners have scored won or fewer runs in 10 of 33 starts, and two or fewer runs 15 times and have not scored a run in seven of his last 13 starts.

And finally, and not surprisingly, he has the fewest run support in the American League with 3.09 runs per start. And while Sabathia pitches for the best offense in baseball, Hernandez pitches for the worst.

His support neutral win-loss of 21-12 is the best in MLB. Now would Sabathia have nearly as good of a record that he does if he pitched for the Mariners? 

Absolutely not.

The bottom line is that wins are not the only statistic to judge a pitcher by. And if you take away King Felix’s win-loss record, he would be a shoo-in to win the AL Cy Young. But he should be one anyways.

If Felix Hernandez does not win the American League Cy Young, it will be an absolute shame. 

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Felix Hernandez is having a season to remember.

The Cy Young Award is hardly a gimme in Major League Baseball.

Reserved for what is supposed to be the best pitcher in his respective league that year, the pinnacle of a season’s pitching achievements sometimes is not given to truly the top thrower.

Though his record may not portray Hernandez’s position among the best, the Seattle Mariners unquestionably boast a top candidate for this year’s AL Cy Young.

Among the competition are Boston’s Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester, New York’s CC Sabathia, Tampa Bay’s David Price, Oakland’s Trevor Cahill, and LA’s Jared Weaver.

But none other than King Felix is the most deserving.

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A lot of noise has been made in the sabermetrics community stating that Felix Hernandez should win the 2010 Cy Young Award.

While most of the arguments are rational and valid, they tend to be shortsighted, comparing King Felix to only CC Sabathia.

Advanced metrics and statistical analysis show that while Felix has won only 12 games while losing 11, he’s actually pitched much better than Sabathia this season.

Felix boasts strikeout rates, walk rates, home run rates, ground ball rates, and accumulated Wins Above Replacement (WAR) that are all superior to that of Sabathia.

Each has been a dependable workhorse, pitching well over 200 innings this season. However, writer perception, combined with a Zack Greinke victory in award voting last year, which he won out from under Felix Hernandez, has spawned a pretty heated debate, where perhaps some people who were chanting Felix’s name last year are now again in his corner, but for completely opposite reasons.

However, the season that Greinke had last year was very special by all measures. His nine WAR were the best by a pitcher since Pedro Martinez’s 10.1 WAR season in 2000, a season often considered to be the most impressive by any pitcher ever considering the hitting environment in which it was pitched.

Greinke posted a FIP of 2.33 and an ERA of 2.16 on a Royals team that played pretty bad defense. He won 16 games while losing only eight and led the league in strikeouts. So while the league eschewed three wins for each of Hernandez, Justin Verlander, and Sabathia, they didn’t completely diverge from accumulation statistics or conventional metrics.

The reality is that while once again Felix has been impressive, even more impressive than his amazing 2009 season, he still falls to second-best in terms of peripheral statistics, especially when combined with conventional measures.

R.J. Anderson of FanGraphs wrote about the guy that should truly win, Francisco Liriano.

Liriano is 14-7 with a 3.28 ERA and 189 strikeouts in 178.1 innings. While Felix tops all of those numbers in terms of total count, Liriano has the King beat in most rate stats. Liriano has more strikeouts per nine innings pitched, a lower FIP, a higher ground-ball rate, and has given up only four home runs this season, good for 0.20 per nine innings.

Most impressively, however, is that Liriano has managed to accumulate 6.3 WAR in about 55 fewer innings than it has taken Hernandez to accumulate 6.1. Liriano has four less starts and is averaging close to an inning less per start, but when he’s been on the mound, he’s been significantly more effective.

That’s not to take away from Hernandez, who has had yet another tremendous year, but if he’s given the Cy Young Award, it will truly be a multi-year award, as once again Felix has been the second-best pitcher in the American League by most contemporary measures, as well as the most traditional.

As much as Sabathia’s 20 wins (and counting) will help his case with the most dusty, closed-minded voters, Liriano may be hurt by not reaching a similar plateau. David Cone is the only starting pitcher to win the American League Cy Young Award without pitching at least 200 innings, which he did in the strike-shortened 1994 season.

The lowest inning count for a full-season starting pitcher American League Cy Young Award winner was 213.1, done by Pedro Martinez in 1999. He also won the award with 217 innings in 2000. Each of those seasons he won the award unanimously after posting two of the best modern-era pitching seasons ever.

ZiPS projects that Liriano will receive two more starts (and a relief appearance) before the end of the season for only 15 innings. That would put him at 193 innings for the season, a full 20 innings behind Pedro Martinez’s 1999 mark.

But while a low inning count may hurt Liriano, it seems like a much easier argument to make. While several closers have won the award, there have been a couple of National League winners to win the award, even pre-sabermetrics, without 200 innings or a recorded save.

In 1981, another strike-shortened season, Fernando Valenzuela won the Cy Young Award with 192.1 innings pitched in a season where the Dodgers played only 110 games.

1984 may be the best argument, however, for Liriano’s candidacy in 2010. In a full season, Rick Sutcliffe pitched only 20 games for 150.1 innings. He won the award unanimously but also boasted a 16-1 record. Sutcliffe benefitted from an ERA before advanced statistical analysis, as his 10th-place ranking in WAR that season (3.7 WAR) would hardly fly in 2010.

Either way, the reality is that Sabathia will probably win, but if he doesn’t, Liriano should be the guy, as he better fulfills the combined criteria of both traditional and contemporary metrics.

Check out more articles about Seattle sports at North and South of Royal Brougham.

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It’s been a sad year for the Seattle Mariners, but their AAA affiliate, the Tacoma Rainiers, is getting ready to play the A’s AAA affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats, for the Pacific Coast League title starting tonight.

Last year I talked with Kevin Kalal, a longtime Rainiers official, about the 1995 Rainiers and Mariners. To help get fans ready for the playoff series, here, from the interview, is his story about how the Rainiers went from being the A’s affiliate to the Mariners affiliate in ’95.

Kevin Kalal: We’d been the A’s affiliate from 1981 to 1994, and there was some benefit to that. We got to see Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Walt Weiss, three Rookies of the Year in a row. But in ’94 we had an expiring contract, and so did Calgary, the Mariners’ affiliate.

When we posted scores for the major league games, our fans would do nothing when the A’s scored, but they’d cheer when the Mariners scored. The A’s were so much farther away; a lot of fans would never see the Tigers’ players again. It was a natural fit with the Mariners, and in October of 1994 we announced we were going to be with the Mariners the next season. There was a lot of enthusiasm in anticipation of the season.

Actually even before that the Mariners, because of the tiles falling from the Kingdome in ’94, they were going to play their games at Cheney Stadium, or in Anaheim, while they fixed the Kingdome roof. Of course the strike stopped that, but it still shifted attention to our organization, our facilities. Around that time we were playing the Cannons, and Alex Rodriguez hit a homer in extra innings to win the game.

’95 was an exciting time. There were these questions about what’s going to happen if the season doesn’t start on time, will we use scab players, replacements.

In fact, five or seven of the guys who started the season, people like Terrell Hansen and Marty Pevey, were not everyday guys, they wouldn’t’ve ordinarily been on the team. We had one fireman who’d been a player and he made the team. Then when the major league rosters got readjusted after the strike ended we had brand new players.

We had a major turnover in our front office staff going from the A’s to the Mariners. We needed to break away from the green and gold, so we came up with a new logo, a new team name.

A lot of people really didn’t like the decision to be called the Rainiers. The detractors didn’t like “Rainiers;” they said it was too tied up with Seattle. “Why were we naming the team after a Seattle franchise?” They said our teams were the Tigers, and some of them would wear Tigers clothes to the game.

We had a really good team in ’95, but lots of transition, guys coming and going. Two great shortstops, Alex Rodriguez and Andy Sheets.

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