It was only a matter of time before “King” Felix Hernandez got paid, I just didn’t think he would be getting paid this kind of money from the Seattle Mariners. Hernandez reportedly agreed to a five year, $135.5 million dollar contract extension on Thursday and he’s still under contract from his original 2010 extension, which will pay him $39.5 million over the next two years. This new extension will pay him an average of $27.1 million dollars per year, which happens to be the highest average salary given to a pitcher in MLB history.

As Mariners fans rejoice and celebrate that arguably the most dominant pitcher in all of baseball has re-signed with their team, not everyone thought it was the right move. Regardless of what the initial reactions to the reported extension are it’s always best to reserve judgment until after we run the numbers and then determine, using something more than knee-jerk reactionism, to properly judge this contract.

The total value of this new extension included with the remaining two years of the one from 2010 is $175 million dollars. In terms of WAR value the Mariners are paying Hernandez to provide them with 42.7 Wins Above Replacement over the next seven years, or to average 6.1 WAR per year from now until it expires. Essentially he’s being paid to match, or better, his 2012 performance through his age 33 season. While that’s not completely unimaginable for him to do he has still only done it twice in his career – 2009 (6.8) and 2012 (6.1 WAR).

To put that kind of performance into context, just 23 performances (excluding Hernandez’s two) of 6.1 WAR or better by starting pitchers have occurred since Hernandez’s first in 2009. Of those 23 just five have done it more than once, again not counting Hernandez, so it bodes well for the “King” as he has at least been able to repeat such a performance. The real question is whether he can do it again, and again, and again, and you get the point.

Currently the longest streak of seasons with 6.1 or better WAR by a starter is held by Justin Verlander who has put together four straight seasons of such performance. Interestingly enough, Verlander is probably the one pitcher that Hernandez compares closest to in regards to where each has been at performance wise since they came into the league together in 2005. The biggest difference being that Hernandez is three years younger and appears to have a higher peak or ceiling than Verlander at this point due to that age difference. That statement alone is pretty alarming considering how insanely brilliant Verlander is on the mound.

Verlander didn’t truly hit his peak until his age 26 season, which took place in 2009, and it appears that Hernandez may be on his way to doing the same after another brilliant season in 2012 at the age of 26. How I know that is by looking at Verlander’s kwERA over his career and it gives a pretty clear indication that he finally peaked at 26 years old.

Here is Verlander’s kwERA from his rookie season (2005) until now; you’ll see the peak in performance that I’m talking about.

As you can see, there was a serious peak in Verlander’s performance in 2009 when you compare it to the 2008 season – and we want to pay most of our attention to the kwERA. Through the first four seasons of his career he was sometimes good but far from great and certainly nothing close to what he is now. While it’s not my intention to do a direct comparison of Verlander and Hernandez it’s almost necessary to an extent because they are two of the greatest pitchers in the game today. Plus, this is part of my method for trying to make a determination as to whether Hernandez will be able to string together the consecutive years of a certain kind of performance to live up to his newfound contract or not.

Now let’s take a look at Hernandez’s kwERA from his rookie season (2005) until now and see if he has peaked yet.

The interesting thing in regards to Hernandez’s performance over his career is that it doesn’t appear his floor performance was ever quite as low as Verlander’s was through their first four years in the big leagues. However, in Hernandez’s case it really took him five seasons to really become the dominant pitcher he is today, which I’m assuming has to do partly with age, whereas it took Verlander just four.

What really works in Hernandez’s favor though, especially since we’re comparing him to one of the greatest active pitchers in the game right now, is that he is three years younger as I already mentioned. What that means is that he’ll have more experience at the big league level to really hone in and take advantage of those peak years – which are likely just beginning and should at least last through his age 29 season.

Even though it’s nice to dream about Hernandez putting together a string of 6.1 WAR type seasons seven years in a row, it is extremely unlikely. Looking at what he’ll have to do in order to live up to the years he has left in Seattle I find it doubtful that he’ll be putting up 6.1+ WAR seasons beyond his age 29 season. To further illustrate my point; pitchers 30 or more years of age have only posted 6.1+ WAR seasons 32 times since the 2000 season. That number goes down to 25 for pitchers at 31 years of age or more and goes down to 19 for pitchers 32 years of age or more.

And for one more “driving the point even further home”, here is an aging curve for starting pitchers and when they really start to decline. Obviously there’s no definitive way to say whether Hernandez will follow along this same path or not but it is something we have to take into consideration.

The odds are clearly stacked against Hernandez to live up to this contract and even though I’d like to believe he, of all pitchers, could actually do it I just don’t think he will. That’s not to say that he won’t provide the 42.7 Wins Above Replacement necessary to cover the total value of these next seven years, but he’s going to have to exceed that 6.1 WAR mark by a good amount a few times over the next three or four seasons to make up for the final three or four that he probably won’t reach it.