Seattle Mariners Season Preview: Hisashi Iwakuma

“First pitch… Jackson, he’s there, got a read on it! Hisashi Iwakuma has thrown a no hitter!”

I was at work that mid-August day, watching MLB.com live look in. That day Hisashi Iwakuma pitched the second Mariners no no in three years. I watched as the guy who pitched the other no-no (almost three years to the day), Felix Hernandez, run out of the dugout in that damn bear hat. In that moment, I finally realized something about why Hisashi Iwakuma will always be important to me. His no-no last year stands for a way of thinking that Mariners fans have become accustomed to. As Mariners fans, we are conditioned to take singular moments of an otherwise less than promising season. We rationalize them into a overwhelmingly apparent silver lining, and that silver lining is what to use to justify why we are still fans of the Seattle Mariners.

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This off season, Iwakuma was not supposed to return to the Seattle Mariners. He was going to go off into smog filled pastures, pitch for a team that has the other Seager and not look back. For yet another undisclosed reason something did not happen in his career, Kuma found his way back to the Mariners. I’d like to think that Iwakuma understands why he is so special to the Seattle Mariners. I want to believe that he understands how these moments, like the no hitter he threw, represent so much more than just an individual’s accomplishments. It represents a continued hope for a better future. It represents a need/desire to have people believe again, but most importantly it cultivates a hope that the next season we’ll have so much more to be excited about than just one rainy day in August.

The Good

Going into the off season, Jerry Dipoto made it clear that resigning Iwakuma was a top priority. After the unconventional road it took to get Hisashi back in Seattle, it seems that he remains someone integral to the success of the 2016 Mariners. A lot of the value I find in Iwakuma airs on the side of sentimentality, but there is still a lot that points toward Iwakuma being a valuable pitcher.

His career WHIP sits at shiny 1.07, and should only marginally increase as he enters his age 35 season. Kuma will never evoke the type of fanfare that pitchers like Felix or even Taijuan Walker warrant, but (when healthy) I’m confident he will remain as remarkably consistent as he has his whole career. If none of this assures you, at the very least remember that we’ll always have that goofy grin (and a bear hat if you’re lucky).

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The Bad

Iwakuma’s injury history is something that is glaringly apparent to us here in Seattle. It’s the reason the Dodgers did not see him as a multiple year investment, it’s the reason he missed playing time in both 2014 & 2015 and why the Mariners could retain him on such a team friendly deal. He has persistent shoulder issues. He doesn’t always pitch deep into games because he’s fatigued easily.

All of these are legitimate arguments that anyone could make about the past and future of Hisashi Iwakuma. Anytime an aging pitcher with a penchant for a certain degree of weakness takes the mound, there will always be concern for the pitcher and how he can produce. While concerns are valid, fans should still expect a decent year out of Iwakuma.

Next: Mariners Season Preview: Wade Miley

The Future

There is not much that we can concretely say of Iwakuma’s future in Seattle. We already know that his expected time of productive service is limited, based on the contract Dipoto gave him. This being said, Fangraphs and Steamers still show respectable numbers for our dear Kuma bear, projecting him to finish overall a bit over .500, mid 3 ERA, and a promising FIP at 3.57. They also anticipate him as a nearly 3-win player (2.8 WAR), and providing he does not have another shortened season (knocks on eternal wood) he will be invaluable to this rotation. Remember folks, there is never such a thing as having too much pitching. Welcome home, Kuma. We’re glad to have you.

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