A couple of years ago, Gil Meche who at one time was the most prized arm prospect in the organization told me that he wished there had been a veteran on the pitching staff that he could look up to. He said it wasn’t a knock on Jamie Moyer, it was just in his mind a soft tossing lefty wasn’t someone who could help him out. He wished there was a veteran right hander who threw hard and somewhat resembled him that could be his mentor.

When Gil returned from surgery at age 24 in 2003 his rotation mates were Jamie, Ryan Franklin, Freddie Garcia and Joel Pineiro. With the exception of a fading Aaron Sele in 2004 the rotation had not had a veteran right handed power/somewhat power pitcher in his tenure with the team. Gil, Joel and Ryan never had someone who was older and like them that they could turn to on the staff if they needed help.

I don’t know if Gil ever voiced this to the organization and I don’t think that not having such a mentor was the main problem with him but could it have helped? In retrospect, it certainly would have been worth a try.

This season the Mariners did not take that chance with Felix. In the off season Bill Bavasi traveled to the Dominican Republic and made Miguel Batista an offer he could not refuse. Some looked at Miguel’s numbers and shook their heads. The St Louis Cardinals were not in that group, they in fact offered Miguel a slightly more lucrative deal, but came in with the offer after he had committed to the Mariners.

Bavasi wasn’t just going after an arm; he was looking for someone who could help guide Felix. Miguel fit the bill being a veteran right hander who could throw hard, but also knew how to pitch. Add to that the fact that he is Latin and had the reputation for being very disciplined with his workouts; it looked like they could get more out of Miguel than a start every five days.

You could tell early that the team was pushing the relationship as Miguel and Felix’s lockers were assigned next to each other in Arizona and Seattle. Miguel is a proud man and wanted to make it clear that he was not brought here just to baby sit. Despite that the two took to each other and could be seen together on the field for much of spring training. Miguel downplayed things saying that he was grateful to have Felix as he was new to the team and had no idea where to go or how the drills in the spring were run.

When we got back to Seattle and the season started I didn’t see much interaction between the two. This changed after what is now called Felix’s meltdown in Toronto. After the game John McLaren asked Miguel if he would talk to Felix. Yes, Felix has a manager and a pitching coach, but often teammates can be of great help when a player is struggling. Batista told Mac he wanted to let Felix cool down for a day then he would see what he could do.

The next day Miguel grabbed Felix and said “Let’s play catch.” The two have been throwing partners ever since. If you were to get to the stadium while the Mariners were taking batting practice you would see them talking and playing catch. You would also see Miguel get down in a catchers crouch to let Felix pitch to him. When warm up was over and the hitters were hitting you would see the two standing in right field talking, or more accurately, you would mostly see Miguel talking and Felix listening. I asked Miguel recently just what he was trying to do with Felix and here is what he told me.

The most important thing was to try to get Felix to understand just how good his stuff is. In Miguel’s opinion Felix was messing around, throwing too much junk to what he calls the little guys. An example was a game against Anaheim earlier this year. The game fell apart for Felix in the fifth inning and it was easy for Miguel to see why.

“I told him you got yourself in trouble in that inning because you wanted to throw your curve ball too hard to strike out Willits, and he’s a little guy! You don’t want to walk that guy then here comes Cabrera who you haven’t got out all game and then here comes Guerrero with two guys on, you don’t want to do that.”

Miguel’s point was that he walked the little guy by messing around with him. The approach he would like to see Felix take is to attack the smaller hitters, then battle the big ones.

“You don’t want a big guy to come to the plate with little guys you have on base because you walked them or messed around with them by throwing too much junk. Attacking is going right after them, being a predator. If you go at them they will have to defend themselves against you.

Battling is when you go against a guy who has as many weapons as you do. Then you have to find the hole for you to punch through. With good hitters you have to make them think too much at the plate, you have to force them to get themselves out.

It’s different with little guys, with little guys you go after them with good stuff, here it is, hit it. In and out, then when you got them throw the breaking ball. If they don’t go there, fast ball here it is, hit it….you want the little hitters to earn their way to the bag, you don’t want to give it to them.

That is usually a big part of winning games knowing when and when not to challenge.
That is why the big guys you are going to battle and you are going to walk. Just walk him, he’s a big guy. Don’t worry, just go to first and get the other guy.”

It helps to know your stuff, which is something that Miguel is not convinced Felix does yet as evidenced by his “messing around” with hitters.

“Some guys don’t understand a good fast ball or a good breaking ball when it is really sharp you don’t have to throw it on the the black. That’s why it’s good, because you don’t have to throw it on the black. If you are throwing your breaking ball on the black, your breaking ball is not what is good, what is outstanding is your command, but when your breaking ball is good , you can throw it right down the middle of the plate and guys are going to swing and miss because it is sharp.”

Miguel says that Felix can use his breaking ball more, but he needs to learn to use it right.
Right now Miguel believes that Felix is too predictable. It is his second full year and the league has had plenty of time to figure him out. What can he do?

“You are going to know you are a great pitcher the day you know you can play around with a good hitter. You say you know what, I am going to give you the pitch you want, but not at the speed you want, maybe not at the location you want.

He needs to do that, he needs to learn to play around with his pitches and make more out of them instead of fighting his way through. I told him after the Anaheim game, why are you trying to throw your breaking ball so hard because your breaking ball is an out pitch, take some off.

When you know a guy is looking for the breaking ball throw the big loopy one, take something off. I'm going to give you the pitch, but a different speed. Sometime you are going to have to learn how to do that.”

When he does, look out. Miguel echoed what many in the organization have in that Felix is young and expectations by the fans at this point and time may be too high. That is not to say that he can not live up to those expectations sooner rather than later. There is learning to be done however.

“You can get by with stuff for a couple of years then people catch up with you. Happened to Nolan Ryan. He won 22 games his first year, struck out 300 but walked 200. It was a good year, but after that he got wild, walked himself out of games. He understood later in his career and then was preaching to people like Randy Johnson and Kevin Brown how important mechanics were to get command of the breaking ball, and that was Nolan Ryan! The man with the great fast ball.

The greatest pitchers in my opinion are not the Nolan Ryan’s with the fastball they are the Jamie Moyers, the Tom Glavines, the Kenny Rogers the guys who you are the hitter going how the hell did he get me out with that?

Because he pitched. Nolan Ryan had such a good fastball he could make a mistake down the middle of the plate and the guy would swing and miss, but if you don’t have that power you need to pitch because you cannot afford mistakes. If you can teach a guy like Felix to understand that part and emphasize on the now, imagine when he gets to be twenty five years old and he can have the ability to elevate his game to that level with the understanding of the power that he possess. Nolan Ryan is going to be in trouble with all of his records because the guy will have an outstanding understanding at an early age which is unusual.”

Miguel doesn’t think getting Felix to that place will be a problem because Felix is extremely coachable and doesn’t have the attitude that he is here because he has got it all figured out.

Miguel is more than happy to help out.

“This is how a veteran player can make an easier life for a young player. I wish I had that person when I was younger. I wish I would have had that opportunity with people taking the time, but I ended up doing it on my own, because I was very curious. I asked the biggest superstars in the game, picked their brains about what was pitching. I knew it wasn’t hard work because nobody worked harder when I was little. I would work 12 months a year. Work here then play winter ball. The training was exhausting. Then a veteran finally told me it is not how much you work, you can do too much.

With him it will be interesting to see how much he can learn. I believe what we all want him to do is make him understand some things about pitching so when he gets to be twenty five he can be a phenom not because of his ability but because of how he uses it.”