Just how good is Felix?

[MarinersFan87]

King Felix, the best pitcher in the last 35 years?

You’ve probably come across “build a perfect player” columns before. They always include a bevy of superstar names entrenched in a wishlist of the most desirable traits from each player – Roger Clemens’ this or Barry Bonds’ that. Or maybe you’ve made your own version, something along the lines of utilizing the create-a-player mode on any one of EA’s line of sports games. Now imagine that, by some fluke of nature, your create-a-player, your wishlist of the best and most perfect attributes imaginable, somehow became real. Not a joke. Not a movie. But honest to God, completely provably real. All I’m going to build is the viewfinder in which to see him.

Felix Hernandez is real. There are pictures of him on the internet. Fantasy baseball players have accrued stats from him for the past few weeks. Thousands (and soon to be millions) have watched him on mlb.tv or their home Seattle stations. It’s not a joke. It isn’t a CGI creation in a movie. The Seattle Mariners’ 19-year-old phenom, King Felix, is the create-a-player that video game owners dream up every afternoon. He’s the player ESPN columnists lament about once a year just to find something to fill up a few pages of their magazine. He’s what everyone’s been imagining for as long as imagination has been around in sports, and yet no one really knows it just yet.

http://shortporch.blogspot.com/2005/...n-last-35.html

[MarinersFan87]

I read the other day in a Peter Gammons Insider article on ESPN that when “nearly 70 general managers, front office officials, scouts, managers and coaches [who] were asked which of this year's arrivals they think will be the best players five years from now,” a list was made ranking those players. The requisite list was ranked as follows:

1. Rickie Weeks
2. Conor Jackson
3. Jeff Francoeur
4. Huston Street
5. Zach Duke
6. (finally) Felix Hernandez

Now, I can’t speak for the hitters. That’s an entirely different area of analysis. But as it stands, if Huston Street and Zach Duke both rank above Felix Hernandez in terms of ability in five years, Felix has some work to do. He’d have to lose over half of his current skillset to be that bad. Bryan Price anyone?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Fire Price, unless we want another chronic shoulder problem on our hands in Felix.

[Porter]

Jim Rome yesterday on his show flat out said he was the best young pitcher EVER for about 20 minutes, He never talks about anything Seattle for that long. So for him to be 6TH on the list is laughable from Gammons.