Félix was literally the best

The Mariners current rotation is pretty good, too

On this date 12 years ago, Félix Hernández took his throne.

In the final two months of 2010, Félix averaged 7+ innings with a 0.96 ERA, 2.81 FIP, and a 19.7% K-BB (which was still very impressive at the time). The stretch of excellence was the finishing touch on his Cy Young season.

It also raised his weighted enhanced game score two full points to 60.3, which was the highest in MLB at the time. That meant on Sept. 23, 2010, Félix had a somewhat objective claim to the title of Best Pitcher in Baseball.

Here’s the rankings from that day:

Game score measures the quality of a starting pitcher’s performance. Bill James developed it in the 1980s, and Tom Tango created a new and improved version in 2016. Basically, a pitcher gets credit for recording outs and gets dinged for allowing base runners. Scores range from 0 to 100 and roughly represent expected winning percentage—i.e., a pitcher that averages a game score of 65 will win about 65% of the time.

In addition to developing the new scoring method itself, Tango developed a tool to track performance overtime. Rather than a simple moving average, the tool weights outings from the last 1,000 days, giving greater consideration to recent performance while still factoring consistency and longevity.

Here’s Félix’s ranking over time:

His reign was brief—Roy Halladay took back the title just four days later. But only 40 pitchers since 1976 have held the distinction of number one pitcher in baseball.

Félix was one of them.

And if you know anything about Félix’s career, you’ll know this isn’t actually when he peaked. Félix was a game score darling in 2014 when he set the record for consecutive quality starts. His peak score from that streak ranks 21st all time. Unfortunately, that run just so happened to coincide with possibly the most dominant starting pitching stretch in MLB history when Clayton Kershaw held the top spot for more than five seasons.

Here’s their rolling game score averages side by side:

Note: The red point is Sept. 23, 2010, the date Félix took the top spot.

Félix was a true ace. He gave his team a chance to win every time he stepped on the mound. And he did that so well and so consistently for so long that, at one point, no other pitcher in the league could say they did it better.

The current rotation

There’s already discussion about the hierarchy of the Mariners starting pitchers and how Scott Servais should deploy his rotation in the postseason. And to be clear, I don’t think game score has the answer. The Mariners should start whoever gives them the best chance to win at the time of the game, and I’m sure they have all sorts of elaborate data to figure that out.

But I think the tool provides a framework to help us understand the Mariners rotation from 30,000 feet, even if it’s just toward better narrative and smarter barstool conversations.

And what they have is a really good rotation! Here are the current starters with their scores and rankings:

54.2 Luis Castillo - 28th
53.2 Robbie Ray - 33rd
51.9 Logan Gilbert - 43rd
51.3 George Kirby - 48th
47.5 Marco Gonzales - 91st

And a graph:

As of 9/21/22

The Mariners have depth

Let’s assume each team has five starting pitcher slots, so there’s 150 slots league wide. The average team would expect to have the following rankings for each slot:

1. 15th (1-30)

2. 45th (31-60)

3. 75th (61-90)

4. 105th (91-120)

5. 135th (121-150)

Obviously it doesn’t actually work like this. Some teams have six-man rotations, others use openers, and few teams have been healthy enough to create such clean labels—349 pitchers have started a game in MLB this year.

But if you want to summarize the Mariners rotation normatively and in brief:

1. Luis Castillo - bad 1, great 2

2. Robbie Ray - bad 1, great 2

3. Logan Gilbert - average 2

4. George Kirby - average 2

5. Marco Gonzales - bad 3, great 4

So how should they set their rotation?

Honestly, I have no clue.

The strength of the Mariners rotation is depth. They don’t really have a Félix or another ace who they could turn to at any time to absolutely delver a win. But they do have four starting pitchers who I trust to hold their own in any Big playoff game against any other pitcher in MLB.

Again, I don’t really know how they can leverage that depth in the playoffs where series are short. Perhaps it just means they won’t have to run Castillo on three days rest. Or possibly they can avoid any cascading effects if one of their starters gets shelled early. At the very least, they’ll be better served as they win and advance.

And hell, the season still has two more weeks and injuries seem to be mounting…Starting pitching depth is always good.

Marco is good for what he is

I say four starting pitchers, but Marco Gonzales really deserves some recognition.

I know Twitter isn’t representative of how all Mariners fans feel, but there’s an elevated sense of doom and gloom Online when he’s pitching. I get that it’s easy to watch him pitch, wonder how his stats compare, and go to Fangraphs to see him ranked dead last in fWAR with a 5.09 FIP. But Marco is also one of 51 starting pitchers in MLB to qualify for that leaderboard—only 15% of pitchers who have started a game this year qualify. He’s made a lot of starts and thrown a lot of innings, and that’s worth something.

Now, I’m not saying he should start a playoff game this year, and I’m not saying he’s good. If you want to argue his results and game score inflate his true talent, I’m sure you can make that case. I just think it’s worth pointing out he’s provided above average outings for his slot, and the Mariners could do a lot worse for a fifth starter.

And many teams do, even great teams! The Dodgers are top five in fWAR for starting pitchers, and their fifth starter on Roster Resource is Andrew Heaney, who ranks 97th.

Heaney is the anti-Marco: he’s good

The Mariners rotation has consistently given them a chance to win every night, and Marco is absolutely part of that.

There’s room to add

On that note, I will again bring up that the Mariners lack a true ace, and there’s room to add one.

Castillo and Ray are great and I would feel confident running either in any game this postseason. But there’s still a substantial gap between them and the best starting pitchers in MLB.

I don’t think there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. If a team chooses to constrain its resources, the most efficient way to allocate those resources is probably the way the Mariners have. Their rotation, as a whole, is very good.

But here are the rankings of some pitchers who could be free agents this year:

• Jacob deGrom - 1st

• Justin Verlander - 3rd

• Carlos Rodón - 7th

• Aaron Nola - 15th

• Clayton Kershaw - 16th

• Chris Bassit - 24th

• Adam Wainwright - 27th

I assume Wainwright will retire and the Phillies will take Nola’s club option. And it’s possible some of the others will take their player option as well. But there’s a chance a few great pitchers—of a caliber the Mariners do not currently have—will hit the market this offseason.

I liked the deal Max Scherzer got last year, and I think something similar for deGrom makes sense, especially if the Mariners want to go deep in the playoffs. I don’t think it should be their top priority or the place they can improve the most, but there’s still room to add wins in the rotation.

Kirby’s debut is remarkable

It’s also possible the Mariners already have their next true ace.

George Kirby has been extremely impressive this year, especially the last two months.¹ I knew very little about him coming into the year and had no clue what to expect, so his dominance has been a fun surprise. I don’t have a ton else to say about him other than I look forward to his spot in the rotation every week.

Just for fun, here's his chart versus Félix by days:

He’s been just a bit better to this point in his career. But then again, the same was true of Michael Pineda.

I’m admittedly a bit of a pitching agnostic. What makes a pitcher good or effective or valuable is a mystery to me, and I generally stay away from discussing the particulars. One reason I like the game score tool is that it’s hard to fool. It doesn’t evaluate pitching at the macro level of a season, where stats involuntarily accumulate over time. And it doesn’t evaluate the hypothetical promise of pitcher, like whiffs or spin rate or whatever.

Game score evaluates pitchers by the quality of their outings alone, and it rewards consistent excellence over time. That’s what made Félix the Best Pitcher in Baseball, and we haven’t seen anything like it since.

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1. I wrote this before his Thursday outing. Forgive me.