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=== We're Not Afraid of Shadows ===

There are several possibilities as to the medical holdup:

HI - The club is trying to 'weasel' a backdoor clause in Felix' contract.  Form your own opinions as to whether this would be typical of the current shot-collers.

MID - There are reasonable concerns that Felix could be in for TJ in (say) 2015.

LO - Felix actually does have a frayed elbow ligament, maybe 10% or something.  This was the cause of his velocity drop in 2012.  He'll throw at a lesser pace than the other pitchers this coming week.  There's a good chance he'll miss a season in, say, 2014, but Tommy John surgery is likely to bring Felix back throwing harder than he was before it.

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=== Society of American Baseball Research, Dept. ===

Let's assume that the elbow is no big deal, which I do.  Look up the definition of "assumption" if you're confused, LrKrBoi29.  This assumption would be confirmed as soon as Felix started throwing with the rest of the club in a couple days, let's move on.

SABRMatt sez,

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The average person actually in attendance at a Mariners game spends 92 dollars on the combination of food and ticket and parking. Families of four spend $248 between 'em (a little less per person because you can bulk-buy the parking and the tickets come with deals some games).

Most of the extras who go to Felix starts are singles filling up the outfield King's Court pavilion area. But let's assume the net gain is only 4 grand per start in people and that each spends $75 and that King Felix makes about 18 home starts per year (81 / 5 = 16, but they seem to like to get Felix a few extra starts compared to the other options).

4,000 * $75 * 18 = $5,400,000

So Felix' contract actually costs us about 22 mil per year. :) That's assuming he stays healthy and remains a draw.

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Generally the idea of Starting Pitcher Draws has been debunked, but it's a poor analyst who takes a general principle and refuses to search for -- or even admit the possibility of -- exceptions to those general principles.  

I'm personally very comfortable with exceptions to general principles, because chess games are won precisely by finding exceptions to general principles.  These days, so are rotisserie leagues.  

Michael Pineda was an exception to a general principle.  Kyle Seager's emergence as a potential minor star -- not his emergence as a regular -- is an exception.  He hits the ball a lot harder than he should.  Jesus Montero could easily become one; general principles lead the unwashed blogging masses :- ) to dismiss Montero's chances to become Mike Piazza.  Tom Wilhelmsen is a glorious example of an exception to a general principle.  Michael Morse's superior state-of-mind caused him to become an exception to general principles.

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=== Gold Coin, Dept. ===

I've seen many games where the average section is like 10-20% full, while the King's Court was jammed without a single seat empty.  

SABRMatt's $5.4M figure could be whittled by the idea that some people would come to the game, but choose to sit in the Felix section - or would come to another game, but choose to come to the Felix game.

But dwarfing those concerns, the Mariners are shortly about to start opening 2 or 3 sections per game for Felix.  (Or did we see something about the M's already having done this a few times in 2012?)

The night that Safeco Field itself was King's Court, they had what, 40,000 people?  Probably sandwiched between crowds of 15,000 the night before and the night after.  Check me on those wild guesses.

Felix looks to me like the exception to a rule here.  He seems to bring people to the ballpark to watch him.  Without a doubt this "buffer" factor would have calmed the lawyers' concerns about a rich contract.  From a financial point of view, it's an ideal "tipping point" factor.

And this hypothetical $3-10M per year is just talking about potential King's Court revenue.  What about "branding"?  You've got an iconic sea of yellow crowns out there, as balanced against whatever the Seattle Mariners would have been WITHOUT Felix Hernandez.

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