Felix Hernandez (37), who played as an ace for the Seattle Mariners in the Major League (MLB), entered the club’s Hall of Fame. 메이저놀이터
Seattle announced on the 12th (Korean time) that it had decided to induct Hernandez into the Hall of Fame. Hernandez is the 11th in the club’s Hall of Fame in its 45-year history.
Hernandez, who made his debut in Seattle in 2005, is a veteran pitcher with a career record of 169 wins and 136 losses with an ERA of 3.42. In 2010, he went 13-12 with a 2.27 earned run average and won the American League Cy Young Award, and was selected as an All-Star six times in his career.
From 2009 to 2018, he also served as an Opening Day starter for 10 consecutive years. He even achieved a perfect game against the Baltimore Orioles on August 16, 2012. Seattle fans even gave him the nickname ‘King Felix’ for his outstanding appearance since his rookie days. Hernandez has been the pride of Seattle fans throughout his career. He was also evaluated as the league’s representative ace along with Clayton Kershaw (LA Dodgers) and Justin Verlander (New York Mets), who were considered the best aces at the time.
But he’s been downhill since 2017. His velocity continued to drop, and as he relied on breaking balls, he could no longer find his previous pitches and his performance dropped. Ultimately, he left Seattle after having his worst season in 2019, going 1-8 with a 6.40 ERA.
Hernandez later signed minor league contracts with the Atlanta Braves and Baltimore Orioles, but failed to prove his competitiveness in his blunted pitch and eventually chose to retire.
Although the end of his active career was not good, he was recognized for his performance in Seattle during his heyday and left another milestone of entering the Hall of Fame.
Prior to Hernandez, Alvin Davis, Dave Niehaus, Jay Buener, Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson, Dan Wilson, Ken Griffey Jr., Lou Piniella, Jamie Moyer, and Ichiro Suzuki were all inducted into the Seattle Hall of Fame.
He’s been inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame, but getting into the MLB Hall of Fame doesn’t seem easy. Hernandez was unable to achieve 200 wins or 3,000 strikeouts in his career at the end of his career. The cumulative WAR is also lower than Kershaw and other ‘preliminary Hall of Fame members’.