Livan Hernandez had a nice start for the Nationals yesterday, tossing a complete game shutout with 6 K’s against the Cardinals. That dropped his season ERA down to 3.77, and once again brought up the question of how long the 36 year old right-hander who hasn’t seen his fastball cross 90 mph with any consistency in years can keep on getting major league hitters out. Not many pitchers can stick around for a long time throwing under 85 mph, which immediately brought up the Jamie Moyer comparison. The lefty does get bonus points for which arm he throws with, but they’re not terribly dissimilar pitchers.
ERAs by age (Hernandez, Moyer):
23: 4.72, 5.05
24: 4.64, 5.10
25: 3.75, 3.48
26: 5.24, 4.86
27: 4.38, 4.66
28: 3.20, 5.74
29: 3.60, injured
30: 3.98, 3.43
31: 4.83, 4.77
32: 4.93, 5.21
33: 6.05, 3.98
34: 5.44, 3.86
35: 3.66, 3.53
36: 3.77, 3.87
Relatively similar. Moyer’s late 20s weren’t as good as Livan’s, but he got on track quicker in his early 30s. Jamie would pitch 11 more seasons after that – a few with sub-4 ERAs.
Neither starter was a big strike-out guy, even in his prime, but they would both K enough to help themselves out. Career: Livan – 5.8 K/9, Moyer – 5.6 K/9. Both had good control; Jamie’s was better (2.6 BB/9 to 3 BB/9), but he also gave up more home runs (1.1 HR/9 to 1 HR/9). Hernandez has actually been able to drop his walks recently despite throwing a lot of pitches out of the strike-zone; he’s been able to you really work on – and just off – the corners.
Stuff-wise, they’re not all that different either. Moyer never threw as hard as Hernandez did, though by their later 30s I don’t think they’ll be too far off (the earliest data on Moyer has him throwing ~83 mph at age 38, while Livan is at ~84 mph now). The lefty’s primary off-speed pitch was his slow-slower-slowest change-up, whereas Hernandez tends to stick with the not-too-slow-slow-slower breaking-ball.
One difference, at least through age 36, is durability. Livan has 10 200+ IP seasons under his belt, while Moyer only had 4 (and two of those had come over ten years in the past). Of course Moyer started knocking out those 200 IP season pretty consistently after age 34, so maybe they’ll line-up well that way too.
I’m not saying Hernandez will pitch another decade, but if he can hang on to the adjustments he’s made as he’s lost his fastball, he should be able to stick around as a veteran at the back end of somebody’s rotation. And if he does become the right-handed Jamie Moyer, that would be pretty neat.
