And I'm glad to hear the last Seattle holdout has become a fan. Even being a fan already and having optimistic views of our very own eventual inner circle HOF pitcher, the videos affected me quite a bit. The difference may be between the hope and faith of him not only staying, but wanting to, now feeling more like knowledge. Also we've heard about his personality with care and ease around all people he encounters, but I've probably read more about that from multiple sources in the last week than in at least a year before it. Sounds like the best aspects between the personalities of Buhner or Griffey and Edgar. No questions about his on field talent and it seems like he's just that special in every aspect of life. He's quickly becoming my favorite athlete ever.
.
... after watching this video.
Felix starts speaking at about the 3:00 mark in the video, and right away he's trembling with nerves.
It isn't anxiety. His hands are open, his arm gestures expressive. When he says "thank you to my family," he chops with his hands, a gesture of extreme dominance -- he's chopping off the discussion. He reaches over and "comforts" his pal "Jack" in a "you can be part of this" motion - Zduriencik works for him, which is not inappropriate; Phil Jackson worked for Michael Jordan. Felix' arms are comfortably territorial and his hands are in a pensive-authority position.
So, what are the nerves about?
It can't be the money. Felix has earned over $40,000,000 already. Even if he'd been totally careless, he's got $10,000,000+ in his accounts, a team of lawyers, a team of accountants. He has been a very rich man for a long time.
Felix' reaction to his next $25M per year salary arrangement, that does not mean the same thing to a super-rich man as it would to you and me. Any rich guy will tell you that the first $5M meant more than the billion that came after.
And yet Felix got very emotional when thanking his agents first.
...............
We sat there trying to pin it down, and the answer came when he talked about Seattle. This is my home, my fam-i-ly, says Felix, and he says it again "chopping off" the discussion.
..............
There was a hospital patient who had a near-death experience. He complained to his "guide" that he'd been disadvantaged in his environments, growing up in poor areas. "Your environment is the people around you," the guide told him smilingly. It's irrelevant whether you take this as an anecdote or as a Grimm's fairy tale, as I tend to. It goes to the question of basal human psychology.
I've known many elderly people who grew up in the Great Depression, who farmed in the Dust Bowl, who picked huge bags of cotton as 7-year-olds. They remember their childhoods very fondly. Their moms and dads got along great, the family sat and roasted peanuts at night while their dads read books to them, they picked cotton and chatted with their sisters all day.
Who's to say that a Nintendo DS system, and a mom and dad who are divorcing, gives a boy a better environment simply because he has soft furniture to sit on and a nerve-jangling TV in front of him.
.............
Jered Weaver showed wisdom beyond his years, and took a mere $75M to pitch at home the next five years. It's surprising that more athletes don't emphasize the family that loves them, over strange pastures and a few extra millions that won't change their life happiness to any degree.
It has been proven that pay raises affect your happiness only for a very short time. The "trophy" contract absolutely will not affect an athlete's long-term happiness and contentment as much as his sports family will affect him. How long is it until an athlete wants to renegotiate his last trophy contract? And maybe is even angry about his last contract?
Our life environments are the people around us. Athletes go for the ego-stroking recruiting tours and the contracts they can be "proud" of, but often it becomes a trap, a sell-out to a short-term buzz. Peace and contentment is at home. ARod's karma didn't work out well for him.
Felix' sweetheart (the Mariners) agreed to marry him, to be his for life, and his wildest life dreams became reality with this contract. His emotional intensity was touching.
I think we're all glad that Felix is going to be one of the people around us for the next decade or so.
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Comments
...I always get that feeling when Felix pitches - even when our team is horrible - that on that night, we don't stink anymore. The other players seem to ramp up their intensity and try that little bit harder to be great for him. That is the mark of a special athlete. He makes everyone else proud of themselves that day, no matter how they've been playing every other day.
Best way we could return the favor is get him some runs and let him come out of games earlier to save his elbow, particularly with our shut-down pen.
The Indians are overloaded in the outfield now and need pitching help badly. Could we pull of a last-second swap of, say, Hultzen for Stubbs, straight up?
I don't buy that our players increase their intensity for Felix's starts. How many games have we seen in recent years with virtually no run support for a great Felix outing, ending in a loss or ND? Carlton won nearly half of the Phillies' games in 1972, and pitched about a quarter of their innings, 346! The Phillies were the worst team in the league. Were their hitters any better/worse than ours? I expect more from Felix, the my bar for him this year starts at 20 Wins. With the acquisitions this off-season, I don't want to hear any excuses. I expect leadership from him that makes players better around him.
Doc, I would love to read your take on what specifically makes Felix such a rare and unique player/personality. Toss-up for others, as well :-)
For example, was listening to a sports radio show who's hosts could only collectively cite Kevin Garnett of the T'Wolves as the only professional sports star to remain with his losing team for so much of his career.
Talent, humility, leadership, charisma, and determination are just some of the outstanding traits that, especially in combination, make King Felix a unique and compelling figure (in professional sports. #supportourtroops).
Thank you.
Doc,
This is your best blog post - and I've read them all. The video is powerful because it shines light on the fact that we not only have someone who is an incredible athlete but ALSO someone who has a depth of character that appears to be rare at this level.
Mark one down for the talent scout in all of us - We know special when we see it.
My first thought is his family growing up, but even with that people will be who they are in the long run. There's still those choices we all make and in character building it seems he made a lot of right ones. From the age of 14 on I think the Mariners can possibly take a bit of credit but many people are fairly developed by then. I would say that learning to deal with media is a bit of work for most people, but he seems so natural doing it. He's just being himself. Maybe it was with working on things that he got to that point. He has always seemed comfortable and respectful talking to everyone though. The first interview I saw he was 17 and at ease, so I can't speak for earlier than that. So he had good upbringing and family support, kept his head on straight and had good guidance as a professional. Other that that he it's who he chose to be and in my opinion ultimately gets the bulk of the credit. Being who he is, he'd certainly deflect that credit though.
People from other countries tend to be harder working, more humble and respectful. How many thousands before him were not from this continent though?
On the superstar staying with a losing team, baseball with 7 year contracts really limits it to pathetically long losing. To lose for 7 years it takes a bit of mismanagement, but then if they chose to stay and the team started winning we wouldn't even notice them in this. So really we're talking about 5+ years of poor management followed by 5+ of rebuilding coinciding with a star coming up and staying. Technically the Mariners with Felix have had 2 winning seasons but no postseason. Still a lot of losing. I think it's hard because hardly anybody had been staying with hardly any team since the onset of free agency in baseball. There were certainly many before free agency. Recently there have been more getting locked up with their first team. Mike Sweeney with the Royals maybe? Not quite a superstar. There are few teams that even fit that length of ineptitude though.
I think Garnett is alone in basketball. How can you lose, get a star like him, lose some more and never put anything together with all the picks? Like Duncan and Robinson back to back #1s because the team was horrible. Heck, the Storm did the exact same thing with Bird and Jackson back to back years. you have to screw up a lot of drafting to consistently lose in basketball because the rosters are so small. 14 players, to be over.500 you only have to be about 8 deep, maybe 9 that are decent or better. 2 stars can keep a roster that's weak after the first 6 over.500 at times. Man, the Timberwolves were bad.
The best answers may be in football which I'm not familiar enough with. Maybe hockey which I know less about. I could name a bunch of winners in those sports. Or futbol which I know practically nothing about.
That's my final answer. One NLCS loss before he reupped one NLDS loss total in his 15 years with the Cubs. Wait, does it count even though he had 6 AB with the Phillies before going to Chicago?
In that case I'll change my answer to Todd Helton, no playoffs before extending. In fact 83 and 82 wins were the best until his 11th year when they went to the '07 series. Helton looks like the trump to me.
Got snubbed for the HOF repeatedly because he played on mostly bad teams...but he was a loyal friend and true to Chicago and the Cubs.
Helton's TEAM wasn't winning, but playing in that park helped make him a borderline Hall of Famer statistically (and helped him get those bigger contracts for said production).
Does Safeco help Felix? A little bit, but playing on this team has cost him something like 20+ wins over his career already. He's a near statistical twin to Verlander, but certainly not in wins:
Justin: 1553 IP (232 starts), 124-65 record.
Felix: 1620 IP (238 starts), 98-76 record.
Games with 0-2 Runs scored for him:
Justin - 6-42 (!!) in 57 games with a 4.01 ERA
Felix - 16-48 in EIGHTY FOUR games with a 2.80 ERA
27 more games under those conditions? That's almost an entire season in which Felix got 2 runs or less support and Verlander did not. Justin is 49-17 with 3-5 runs of support while Felix is 41-23. If you get him 3-4 runs, Felix will win. going from a 1-in-5 chance to get a win to better than 2-to-1 for all his other starts makes a bit of a difference.
This team is hurting Felix's Hall of Fame credentials, since wins still matter to voters. A guy looking for personal glory would leave. Felix wants team glory so badly it's choking him up just trying to talk about it.
I hope we back him better in the next 10 years of his career than we did his first 10. Loyalty deserves rewards on the field, not just off of it.
Of course, maybe Felix was paying attention to the Griffey thing. "No one will love you like your first team" was the advice Griffey ignored when he left, and he spent a good deal of time being hated in Cincy. Like you said Doc, "home" is a powerful thing.
But I still think our home needs a little decorating touch, so let's hang some banners in this thing, yeah?
~G
He has sort of plateaud the last 4 years but we're talking about age 22-26 being in the conversation for Cy Young all but 1 year. He is still learning about pitching which isn't strange for a guy his age. Anybody think there's anyone ever with a better repertoire? I don't think we've yet seen his best. Scoring more runs and being a competitive team might inspire that extra gear too. His focus at times seems to have been something he could improve on. I felt like I saw that solid focus and extra gear the last 3 innings of his perfecto. Playing for contention may help him stay there more often. He hasn't had the career year that most HOF pitchers have at 27-30 but he also hasn't played those ages yet. It's not even rare for quality pitchers to not have their career year until they're into their 30's. What he's accomplished at his age is almost entirely unique. I would not be surprised to see a 1 something ERA in his future but he only really has to be what he has already for another 7 years to be a pretty certain hall of famer if not first ballot. At 34. Randy Johnson had his career year at 38, next best at 31 which was 95. I can handle waiting until he's played into his 30's to say he hadn't had that league dominating season on a historic level because I don't think we'll be able to say that anymore. Any reason you think he can't perform better at 27-31 than he did at 22-26? Then he's still 32 with years left to potentially still dominate.
I don't even consider comparing innings of pitchers in 3-4 man rotations to the guys now who have no choice but to sit 4 of every 5. I understand the point was more about an epic season like quite a few had in the 60's. Actually I think you were talking more about the team winning more and playing better while he's on the mound. Carlton in 72 posted the 87th (tied with 4 others) highest ERA+ in the history of the game at 182. Pedro in 2000 is #2 on that list at 291 just behind the 1880 season by Tim Keefe of 293. Carlton was credited with 45.7% of his teams wins that year but started 26.3% of them. Felix will never be in a 4 man rotation although there are 6 more games per season now. Carlton in 72 was incredible even with those considerations but I look at the 1.93 ERA and see the next best starter on that team was 4.26. That's a huge aberration.
BTW, Carlton was 27 in 72 and hadn't really posted a better season than Felix has through age 26. 164 ERA+ in 69 vs 171 and 174 for Felix in 09 and 10.
for a mariners rookie pitcher to Iwakuma last year by .02, how about he takes Moyers win record of 21 away this year? Nothing against Moyer at all.
I love that Felix went to his agent and told him (paraphrasing) "your job is to get this done".
Very well put Doc! As a counterpoint to your post, I'd say "Felix Became My Favorite Athlete Today"! God bless you Felix.
Brantley instead of Stubbs. If the Indians took Carp, they could play Swisher in RF and rotate Carp and Reynolds at 1B/DH. Then add Noesi and Mitchell for SP candidates and to get a 40-man slot for Brantley. Offer Beaven instead if they don't think they can straighten out Noesi. Keep shuffling (Carraway, Vasquez, Gilheeney, Ruffin, Medina, Hensley) until we have Brantley or Brantley and LaPorta (non-40-man for Tacoma) in return, and hopefully 1 extra 40-man slot for Garland or Bonderman.
The fact that Felix has lost more close games than most other pitchers doesn't immediately imply that the players aren't out there playing at a more intense level. At a certain point, if you suck, no matter how hard you are playing, you still suck. And in fact, frequently, if you're not good...you'll be worse when trying harder.
Drew Stubbs is Casper Wells's secret twin brother. Good defense, can play all three outfield positions, questionable bat, way too many strikeouts, large platoon splits, the whole package. Only difference is that Stubbs is a slightly better defensive center fielder and Wells has considerably more pop in his bat. Taken as a whole, they're equivalently valuable players.
"But Casper Wells isn't a full time player!" Over his entire 2012 season--not a five-week sample that could've easily been a fluke, but a whole season--Stubbs had an even worse batting line than Casper did during his five-week "failed audition". If Wells is not a full time player, Stubbs is not a full time player. Would you trade Danny Hultzen for Casper Wells, straight up? I sure wouldn't. I wouldn't trade for Stubbs at all. He's not good enough to displace Morse, Saunders, or Gutierrez, so he'd be a fourth OF, and the current fourth OF is Casper, so... given Casper=Stubbs, would you really give up anything of value to "upgrade" from one to the other?
Brantley on the other hand, now there's an interesting fellow. Wouldn't mind giving up something for him to come in and displace Morse to 1B and Smoak down to AAA. You could even sort of platoon him with Wells, so that Wells sees playing time vs. lefties only and Saunders/Brantley get regular days off vLHP. But the Indians apparently intend to play Swisher at 1B with an outfield of Bourn/Brantley/Stubbs, which I certainly can't fault them for given how disastrous their DH/1B situation was.
They obviously enjoy having him out there, but now that you mention it Watcher, I haven't noticed ANY extra focus or production when Felix pitches.
Randy Johnson had a stretch in which the Mariners won 46 of 50 starts for him. SOME of that, I thought, was based on swagger.
Thanks for saying.
And notice that it's fine for a writer to type up the things that are going on, but the substance here is Felix' actual personality. He's the one doing the hard part, as it were.
Isn't something a young club with hitting woes seems likely to me to show. I see all that and agree with the differences, but if this club were in the Kingdome or were more seasoned the comparison would be more fair. Between 95 and 97 Randy was 43-6 with a Cy young and a 2nd place finish sandwiched aroundvery injury shortened 96. I mentioned ERA+ in the 170s for Felix, Randy's were 193, 136 and 197 those years. If they brought it more when Randy was out there they were better equipped to. I get the point though. Hopefully we see more production this year in the offense to where an extra gear is notable. Defensively I have read that they step it up in his games and would agree from what I've seen.
Johnson was 31-33 those years.
Boy is that true, and I even your opponents and opponents fans will hate you more for leaving.
A really interesting retrospective on A-Rods down fall by Psonanski today:http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/50877666/ns/sports-baseball//
Posnanski (and I ) am struck by how similar A-Rod and Jeter really are. Same egotism, same glamour girl-friends, similar huge contracts, both breaking down do to age, yet Jeter is loved and revered, while A-Rod is despised by all, even his current team's fans. The main difference is that Jeter is the loyal home town boy who never jumped ship while A-Rod chased the green and left town (note they both still got huge contracts, one stayed, one left to get it).
How beloved would A-Rod be now if he had taken Seattle's 192 mil instead of Texas' 252 and he had stayed here to set every Mariner record there ever was, and stayed here and became the best SS to ever play (he wouldn't have had to move to 3B)? I bet we would have all turned a blind eye to the steroid stuff even, Or maybe he wouldn't have ever been tempted to take the roids?
Oh well, we could have loved you as much as we love Felix, Alex...
LONG LIVE THE KING!