The Tornado

THT的Cameron決定試著研究一個所有西雅圖居民和水手球迷都想知道的問題：What's wrong with King Felix?

Cameron透過一球一球紀錄今年Felix的表現來看看他到底怎麼回事，目前他紀錄了四場球，並且就這四場球的結果以及一些splits的成績做出了他對Felix的一些結論，文章在這裡，他最後對Felix的結論如下：

"What information can we gather from these two tables? To me, watching these games in detail, it is clear that there is a scouting report on Felix Hernandez circulating MLB that reads something like this:

“First inning, all fastballs, so go up hacking. After first inning, only swing if it's straight and hard. Struggles to throw fastball for strikes, so let him fall behind. In a good hitters count, swing for the fences—if it's a breaking ball, you can't hit anyways.”

That is what we're seeing hitters do. They are attacking Felix early in the game, knowing that they are going to get a steady diet of fastballs in their first trip to the plate, and then hoping to get him to fall behind later in the game so they can sit dead red again. 

When Felix is mixing his pitches effectively and keeping hitters off balance, he's fine. However, he's shown a tendency to become predictable at times, and major league hitters are really good at hitting what they know is coming. 

There's good news here for those rooting for the King. This is about as fixable a problem as you'll find. It should be quite simple for the Mariners to recognize this pattern, make an adjustment to his pitch selection early in the game, and let the dominoes fall into place from there. 

So, to answer the original question, what's wrong with Felix? In my opinion, it's as simple as pitch selection. As this 20-year-old kid gets more experience, he'll learn how to pitch away from predictability, and hitters will resume flailing helplessly at his arsenal. When they don't know what's coming, they don't have a chance."

雖然四場球的樣本是過小了，不過我對於他的看法大部分同意，因為大致上這也是我在比賽中看到的情形，不過我不認為單純是配球的問題，因為如果不是這樣不理想的控球，同樣的配球不會造成這樣的狀況，有太多投手在第一局時都是以fastball來estbablish themselves，不是只有Felix這樣投而已，最簡單的自然就是拿我們熟悉的王建民當例子，他第一局的sinker比例不高嗎？怎沒場場爆第一局呢？Felix是因為他的控球問題導致這樣的配球看起來像是個問題。以最近對教士、運動家、白襪這三場比賽來說，導致第一局失分的起火點都是在壘上無人時在對方一棒未揮的情況下投出保送，這很明顯地跟配球毫無關連，純粹只是Felix丟不進好球帶。而被打回分數的安打雖然也幾乎都是sinker，但也多半都在很好攻擊的位置，同樣的情況下如果能夠控到比較理想一點的進壘點，也未必會受傷。而至於球數落後時拼sinker被打，常常也是不得不為的，當一個投手就已經丟不進好球帶導致球數落後時，除了嘗試把速球丟進好球帶以外你還能做什麼？何況Felix的速球並不是一般的88mph fastball而是mid-90s以上的sinker，當他連丟兩個偏差的變化球形成零好兩壞之後，你會繼續叫他丟連續第三個變化球看這次會不會進來還是用速球？這種問題不是在丟速球被人猜到，而是在於一開始你就不應該把自己逼到不得不丟速球的死巷子裡。

不過我並不是說Cameron說Felix的配球有問題是錯的，因為我也認為在這樣的狀況下配球是有點問題，有時候我的確看到打者在sit on fastball的情況下把不應該這麼好打的球狠狠地敲出去，但是改變配球不是解決問題的根本之道，或許可以治標，但是並不能治本而且有可能會腐蝕Felix的根本。在控球沒有改善的情況下去改變配球，久而久之Felix就會變成off-speed為主力的投手，雖然以他的球威不至於變成junkballer，也說不定這樣投成績會不差，但我覺得機會並不高，因為遲早對方打者還是會做出相對應的調整，而且這也不是我想看到的Felix，但目前為止他已經有點在往這個方向靠近了，雖然使用大量off-speed的效果目前還不算差，但不是長久之計，and that's not the King Felix I had in mind.

God Bless Felix.