Felix Hernandez recently agreed on a five-year deal with the Seattle Mariners worth $78 million.  Furthermore, the deal includes a bunch of incentives for Hernandez including: $50,000 each time he’s an All-Star, $50,000 each time he wins an LCS MVP award, $50.000 each time he wins a Gold Glove, $100,000 for each World Series MVP and $200,000 each time he wins a Cy Young Award.  “King Felix”, as he is often referred to as by his fans from Seattle all the way to his home country of Venezuela, is coming off of his best year yet in his four-year career in which he posted a 19-5 record with 2 complete games, 1 shutout, 217 strikeouts, and a 2.49 ERA in 238.2 innings pitched.  Things look like they can only get better for Felix and, if he continues his dominance, will most likely break C.C. Sabathia’s contract record after this five-year deal is over with.

Grade for Mariners: A+ ; The Mariners NEEDED to bring King Felix back for this amount of time especially with all the rebuilding that the Mariners have been doing this offseason.  The Mariners starting rotation should fare quite well this season while being headed by 2 Cy Young candidates in Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee.  Also, signing Chone Figgins and Milton Bradley, re-signing Ken Griffey Jr., Mark Lowe, Brandon League, and David Aardsma, AND trading for Casey Kotchman is significantly going to help the M’s out this year.  Look for the Mariners to make a serious run for the playoffs this year, folks.

Hunter Pence also recently signed a deal with the Houston Astros in order to avoid arbitration; which is only for one year and worth $3.5 million.  This contract is more than SEVEN TIMES his salary that he made last year which was $464,000.  Last year, Pence batted .282 with 25 HRs, 26 2Bs, 5 3Bs and 72 RBIs while also leading all MLB outfielders with 16 assists.  Also interesting to note that the deal is $600,000 less than what Pence was asking for in arbitration.

Grade for Astros: B- ; I, personally, really like Hunter Pence and the way that he plays.  He’s not necessarily the best player out on the field but does a great job in every aspect of the game.  He has an absolute CANNON from right field and, as I mentioned before, led the league’s outfielders with 16 assists.  Although his best year was his rookie year, his numbers haven’t dropped off THAT much since that time and has still remained consistant in hitting 25 HRs in both the 2008 and 2009 season.  I don’t think this is an AMAZING deal which is why I probably only would have given the Astros a B or B+ at most, but what led me to the B- is the fact that they only signed him for one year.  To be honest, he deserved at least a two-year contract out of the ‘Stros.

-JR