5:25pm: X-rays came back negative, the club announced (h/t Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times, via Twitter), so it seems the worst-case scenario has been avoided.
3:27pm: Mariners right-hander Felix Hernandez took a comebacker off his right arm during today’s Cactus League contest against the Cubs and exited the game without throwing another pitch. Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times has a video of the play in his initial column on the injury. Hernandez immediately drops his glove, does not try to pick up the ball, and leaves the field with head trainer Rob Nodine holding his right arm. Divish further tweets that the Mariners are sending Hernandez back to their facility in Peoria for evaluation. For now, they’re only saying that he was struck on the “upper forearm.”
The Mariners struggled through a dismal 2017 season in terms of rotation health, relying largely on a revolving door of depth pieces and journeymen to get through the year while Hernandez, James Paxton, Yovani Gallardo and a host of others dealt with injury issues. Seattle picked up Mike Leake, Erasmo Ramirez and Marco Gonzales last summer with an eye toward bolstering the 2018 rotation, but the M’s haven’t added an established starter to their ranks all offseason with the exception of re-signing Hisashi Iwakuma. However, Iwakuma is still recovering from shoulder surgery and isn’t expected to be an immediate factor in the rotation. (Christian Bergman and Casey Lawrence re-signed with the Mariners on minor league deals this offseason.)
[Related: Seattle Mariners depth chart]
The free-agent market, of course, still has several notable names in the form of Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb and Lance Lynn. A significant absence for King Felix could, speculatively, push the Mariners to add further depth — even if it’s not one of those top three names. Trevor Cahill, Brett Anderson and Ricky Nolasco are among the other unsigned rotation options at this point, while the trade/waiver market continues to feature myriad possibilities.
Hernandez, 32 in April, was limited to 86 2/3 innings last season due to shoulder and biceps injuries. He pitched to a 4.36 ERA (second-highest of his career) with 8.1 K/9, 2.7 BB/9, 1.77 HR/9 and a 46.9 percent ground-ball rate in that time.
Ouch that’s some luck might even cut the Mariners chances of wild card pretty strongly. Hopefully he’ll be back ok.
I’m an O’s Fan but the league is better with him in it.
Hope the King is ok!
They’ll be forced to sign someone if he’s out for awhile if the want to win.
You could argue that they need to find someone regardless if he’s out for a while or not.
Definitely, but what will make it so Dipoto makes a move?
Maybe this?
I can’t imagine he would start the season with both of his reserve starters, Miranda and Moore, in the rotation–even if only for a start or two. I certainly hope he wouldn’t, anyway. If we learn that Felix will miss the start of the season (he probably won’t), I would anticipate another move.
Ramirez concerns me more at this point, as his issue is a lat strain. I still think a player like Wilmer Font, who’s out of options and unlikely to break camp with the Dodgers, would make a lot of sense. They could move him to the bullpen if necessary when the time comes.
Breaking News: Jake Arrieta signs with the Mariners.
I wish
No you don’t
Don’t even joke about that
Good god I hope not. it’s for 3 years, maybe, but god, that guy is a walking disaster waiting to happen.
Dipoto has zero interest in long-term expensive contracts–especially those that would cost them a pick needed to help replenish a depleted farm.
Maybe–maybe–Cobb would interest him on a back-loaded 4/60 deal. I still think a cost-controlled pitcher with high upside, such as Wilmer Font, would be more likely. He’s out of options an unlikely to break camp with the Dodgers.
Seattle is having a rough start to spring with all the injuries, hope King Felix is ok.
Without King Felix, the Mariners season is over before it begins. Wow.
AngerBot angry at your negativity. News bad, but Mariners had team WAR of 31 without King last year. Good pieces to make trade if need undented arm.
Felix has been an average MLB hurler for the past couple of seasons.
Average would be welcomed for a team that relied heavily on minor league free agents and waiver claims last season….
Ouch. At his best, King Felix is among the best I’ve ever seen; the best the game has ever seen.
Hope he can get well. Baseball is better when he’s pitching.
Felix is a very good pitcher but let’s hold off on the “among the best the game has ever seen” claims. He good, has won a Cy Young but very far from one of the best the game has ever seen. I could easily name a hundred better pitchers from the past 25 years.
Agreed. I”m a huge Mariner fan, but even I don’t think he is among the best ever. Not even close.
He’s a sure fire Hall of Famer. To me that puts him among the greats of all time.
Is he in the tippity top of the HOF class, no.
He did have a pretty solid peak from 09′ to 14′. If he can product around 15 WAR before retiring, he’s definitely a hall of famer.
Name your #75-100 list that’s better.
Check that, 50 would be more accurate.
The “Age Based Similarity Score” lists Mickey Lolich, John Smoltz, Dwight Gooden, Fergie Jenkins and Don Sutton the most similar to Hernandez through age 31. Pretty decent company.
Just saying.
Felix came up so young and was overworked in that early-20s injury nexus that claims a lot of pitchers; at least, it did before teams got wise. Felix threw 240 innings at age-23 and 250 the next season. We probably shouldn’t be surprised he broke down so completely. He put a ton of miles on that arm between age 20-29. I mean, he threw 191 innings at age 20! No team would do that now. But I suppose it was worth it for all those championships the M’s won.
But no, Felix is easily, in his prime, one of the 20 best pitchers of the last 20 seasons. To argue he’s not even in the top-100 as someone did above is absurd. He is also a cautionary tale about why we should limit the workloads of young pitchers, especially guys like Felix who had a high-effort delivery.
Check to see how many innings Bob Feller tossed when he was 20!
I’m too lazy to check LOL.
350?
The argument that a heavy workload at an early age hurts pitchers is nonsense. Bob Feller threw 278 innings at age 19, followed by 296 and then 320.
At age 32, he went 22-8 and pitched 250 innings.
It probably has much more to do with the modern diet and many other variables.
Feller, of course, also didn’t pitch for three years in the middle of his career because he was in the war. Yes, Feller went 22-8 as a 32 year old, and walked as many batters as he struck out with a below-league-average ERA. He was toast that year, and his last year he was good was age 27.
In his prime, few were better. He has 1 Cy Young, probably should have 2 or 3 and he has a perfect game under his belt. You haven’t seen a hundred pitchers do that….
“Oh no! We suck again!”
Wow, this is ridiculous. I hope it’s not broken. Divish’s tweet said Felix dropped multiple audible f bombs.
In Spanish, though, so it was okay for broadcast.
GET A DAMN STARTER.
Thank God it wasn’t his head.
Look on the bright side, at least they will have a ton of excuses on why they finish third yet again like last year….
Oh well, guess we’ll finally get a good look at our top pitching prospect Luiz Goh–
*i suffer a tear in my ulnar collateral ligament while typing this*
He strained something the other day. Still the braves thank you for your generosity.
I realize he’s still fragile, as is any young pitcher anymore, but that trade stings and burns worse than Gohara’s biyearly trip to his conditioning program ever did when he was a Mariners prospect. If we still had Mallex Smith and a healthy Shae Simmons; that would help, but I’d still be bumming because of our (lack of) pitching depth. The Drew Smyly thing just sucks though.
That nice and honest man John Coppolella did well to look past Gohara’s reported shoulder concerns, it looks like. Then again maybe he just had dirt on Dipoto or offered him some much desired cooking recipes under the table.
There were off-field issues with both Gohara and Jackson, so maybe Dipoto knew what he was doing, just got less than stellar returns?
I’ve definitely read the same multiple times, Stevil. I’m betting you and I share similar sentiments on the outcome of the trade overall, only I’m just worse at hiding my jealousy for having a shiny (and potentially filthy) pitching prospect who is practically MLB-ready.
Gohara and Jackson likely didn’t fit into the ‘culture’ Dipoto has gone to lengths to establish in his reign (not considering any health or conditioning issues Gohara had/has); and while that’s all dandy for the sake of positivity, a young exciting arm is just what this team needs right now. I’ve never really been high on Alex Jackson and his development seemed doomed ever since he misplayed the fly ball back in 2014, so it sucks we didn’t cash in sooner, but I’m not losing any hair over it.
Here’s hoping Marco Gonzales is that young, electric armed starter we need so badly.
Yeah, I think getting value in the returns is important and that’s the bigger issue here. Maybe Povse and Whalen will work out, and the Smyly deal isn’t completely on him, though I didn’t care for that deal because 2 years of control for players with full control and high upside is a considerable overpay. O’Neill likely didn’t have the value many fans, myself included, thought he had. Strike out-prone power hitters simply aren’t expensive anymore. Morrison just got a humble deal. Dickerson was DFA’d and moved cheaply, Gomez signed a team-friendly deal, etc. Martinez got paid, but not the 25 million AAV everyone thought he would get.
I can easily see the blueprint for what Jerry is trying to build, though. I just think it’s odd he went after so many back-end starters, basically looking for quantity over quality.
To be fair, most teams haven’t been eager to trade away elite pitching talent that are cost controlled without a significant return and it may be that he’s been trying to fill in the middle and back-end cheap with the intention to spend in free agency for front-line starters in 2019-2020. We’ll see.
Jerry has been successful in getting the team younger and poised for for the future, despite depleting the farm in the process. There’s still a load of promising relievers in the system, plus a handful of solid prospects who could help the team as others fade out of the spotlight. It was encouraging to see the deal for Leake and Ramirez, because it represented an acknowledgement that fly ball pitchers weren’t cutting it, and he got both players for a great value. Even Gonzales is promising, because every statistic shows that players who come back from surgery and retain their velocity typically find themselves in top form with a year+ removed from surgery. Gonzales is throwing harder than he ever has, having changed his arm slot and now he’s reintroducing his cutter.
Anyway, I agree about a young, exciting arm. I just don’t think that deal is there. Maybe the closest possibility is a Wilmer Font, or a Yonny Chirinos (if Tampa were willing to move him).
Yea! Good luck with that. Been waiting for Gonzo to break out for the last couple years as a Cards fan!
He’s no Lance Lynn…
Man Victor Caratini has hit two pitchers in less then a year now. Felix Hernandez in the arm and Daniel Poncedeleon in the head
Come on man!!! bad news already
Well that’s not good
Hate to see anything bad happen to Felix. I’m a fan of a division rival but the man has earned my respect and I really enjoy watching him play the game.
nice black screen video
King Felix out? Poor Mariners…
Minor miracle. Let him rest for at least a week or more if necessary.
Hopefully, he’ll be ok.
He’ll be ok. But I think it’s a good case for Lance Lynn. Eh Jerry?