How Long Will Livan Last?

By Jack Flynn
Posted Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Livan Hernandez is a stat head’s nightmare.

The new fifth starter for the New York Mets has been confounding baseball observers ever since finishing second in Rookie of the Year Award voting in 1997. Year after year, the Cuban-born righthander defies his peripherals and finds a way to finish with at least 10 wins for the team that employs him.

He has turned this trick 10 times now, and during each of the last nine seasons. The Mets are hoping that the inexplicable trend continues in 2009, especially considering that there aren’t many teams in baseball who can bank on 10 wins from their fifth starter.

Hernandez has found a way to win 147 games in his career, but you’d be hard pressed to explain exactly why he has been able to do so. Especially in recent years, Hernandez has been among the worst starting pitchers in baseball – although you’d surely never know it by his won-loss record.

His career WHIP stands at 1.442 – a shockingly high number for a pitcher who has already thrown over 2,500 innings in his career. Hernandez has given up the most hits in a season of any National League pitcher five different times in his career. This consistent level of futility is all the more remarkable considering that he’s only spent 10 full seasons in the Senior Circuit.

Here’s a sobering thought – if Livan Hernandez somehow makes it through the entire 2009 season in the Mets rotation, his career trends put the odds of him leading the league in hits allowed at 2 to 1.

Of course, the odds of Hernandez making it to October 1 as a Met are probably lower than 50 percent. Mets general manager Omar Minaya signed Hernandez to a minor-league deal in February with a $1 million base and up to $1 million in incentives. If the last decade is any indication, the Mets will end up paying Hernandez somewhat less than $2 million when all is said and done.

So why is Hernandez even taking the mound for the Mets on Saturday night as they face the Marlins in the first place? Other than his well-deserved reputation as a workhorse, it’s hard to understand what any talent evaluator still sees in him.

Hernandez is durable, there’s no denying that. He earned his reputation with a seven-year stretch of throwing at least 216 innings per season that was finally broken in 2007. Hernandez has made 30 or more starts in each of the last 11 seasons and has yet to miss significant time due to injury at any point in his major league career.

Still, does Hernandez’s ability to eat innings make up for the fact that he’s unlikely to actually string many good innings together in a single game? Yes, Livan Hernandez is capable of giving the Mets seven innings every time he takes the mound. That is a luxury that nearly no other team in baseball can bank on from a fifth starter.

Unfortunately, Livan Hernandez is also a threat to allow seven runs and 13 baserunners every time he pitches that many innings. Quantity doesn’t always amount to quality.

Hernandez has never quite lived up to the promise that he showed as a member of the world champion Florida Marlins during his rookie season. He was named the Most Valuable Player of both the NLCS and the World Series that year and seemed destined for stardom. Instead, Hernandez has carved a niche for himself as one of the most enigmatic figures in the game today.

He compiled a historically bad campaign in 2008, one in which Hernandez finished with a 6.05 ERA and the third highest WHIP among all major league starters. Yet somehow, he still finished the season with a 13-11 record while pitching for Minnesota and Colorado (after the Twins released him mid-season).

The tepid level of interest that Hernandez was paid in the off-season was an indication that, after many years of being seduced by the number of innings pitched and his win totals, major league GMs had finally recognized a pitcher that would do more harm then good to their ballclub.

Minaya swooped in on Valentine’s Day, no longer able to avoid giving in to his apparent obsession with collecting members of the 2004 Montreal Expos. Incredibly, Hernandez is the seventh member of that team to be employed by Minaya since taking over with the Mets. (Who’s next – Zach Day? Tony Batista?)

But with Jon Niese waiting in the wings in Buffalo, Tim Redding rehabbing during a conveniently-timed trip to the disabled list and Freddy Garcia still trying to turn the clock back to 2006, the Mets have internal options should Hernandez flop as completely as he did last season.

He will be given every chance to succeed – it’s hard to see Minaya pulling the plug after less than 10 starts. If Hernandez takes a regular turn in the rotation for the first two months of the season, then his 10th start would come on May 31 against the Marlins. That will probably be enough time to decide whether or not Minaya’s gamble on Hernandez is worth sticking with.

(You can read more of Jack’s work on his blog, Productive Outs and Crackerjack.)