Generally, I think he'll be better sooner than that projection, barring early injury (I think he's capable of 3.00 ERAs right away), but I think that is a pretty fair guess.

Felix Hernandez debuted for the Seattle Mariners in the fall of 2005, and never looked back.  His first two full seasons were good, but not great.  In 2008, it appeared that Felix was on his way to his first Cy Young award.  He started the All-Star game that season, and was 12-4 heading into August.  As is common these days for pitchers, an arm injury and Tommy John surgery occured.  The Mariners were cautious in Hernandez's return, waiting until mid-August of 2009 to allow him to return.

Hernandez seemed to come back stronger than ever in 2010, posting career highs in wins, K's, and innings.  2011 was the breakout year for Felix.  He won his first Cy Young award, leading the AL in wins, innings, strikeouts, complete games, shutouts, and ERA.  That season also marked the end of his run with the Mariners.

The New York Mets, in need of a star pitcher since Pedro Martinez retired, signed Hernandez to a 4 year $80 million deal.  The 2012 season is a strong year for Hernandez, setting career highs for innings pitched and strikeouts.  The following season, Felix wins his second Cy Young award, his first in the NL.  He finishes first in win %, first in ERA, second in wins, and second in strikeouts.

In 2013, Hernandez leads the Mets to an NL East title, picking up his third Cy Young along the way.  Felix finishes the regular season first in wins, win %, and ERA, while finishing third in innings and strikeouts.  Hernandez leads the Mets to a World Series win, picking up the NLCS and World Series MVP awards.  For the postseason, Hernandez goes 6-0, with a 1.17 ERA, and 50K's in 54 innings.  

In the offseason, the Mets resign Hernandez to a 3 year, $63 million deal.  Unfortunately, in July Hernandez suffers a torn rotator cuff and missed over a year, not returning until late in September 2016.  While 2017 was poor by his standards, Felix rebounded fairly well from the rotator cuff injury.  At the deadline in 2018, with the Mets out of contention and Hernandez in his final season of his contract, he is traded to the Cubs.

He pitches the Cubs to the NLCS, but they can't overcome the defending champion Cardinals.  In 2019, the Cubs resign Hernandez to a 3 year $48 million deal.  A couple of small injuries keep Hernandez from breaking the 200 inning barrier in 2019, and Cub fans begin to bemoan the signing.  Hernandez silences his critics by leading the Cubs to a World Series victory in 2020.  His very average 2021 season leads the Cubs to not entertain thoughts of bringing him back.

The Mets, desperate to make the playoffs again after a 7 year absence, bring Hernandez back to NYC with a 3 year, $36 million deal.  Hernandez has one solid year left in him, and two very mediocre ones, which disappoint the Mets and their fans.  Seattle brings Felix back in 2025, with a minor league contract.  He starts the year in the pen, and assume a starting spot due to an injury to another pitcher.  He comes back in 2026, but decides to hang it up in June of that year.

One thing that jumped out at me, though - in 2012, you've got Hernandez due to throw 32 games and over 250 innings, which works out to nearly 8 innings per start. (7.9something to be a bit more precise)

Normally I'd just dismiss this as something of a fluke, kind of like Carlos Silva's unreal walk total this season. But then I noticed your comment about the Mariners not throwing him 250 innings right away.

In an era of pitch counts, five-man rotations, and set-up relievers, is 250 innings a realistic target for a starting pitcher anymore? Consider that if Hernandez has, say, three starts in 2012 where he's knocked out before the fifth inning, he'd need something like ten complete games to keep his per-start average high enough to top 250 innings. And I think ten complete games would be a pretty bold prediction for almost any pitcher.

Now, it's possible that their current slides could end that, but right now it's just not true.

That doesn't mean that Felix won't leave, but it really overstates the case to say Seattle is low revenue.

I enjoy these crystal ball features, but I do feel like they're more smoothing exercises than anything else.  Gooden and Prior were exceptional talents who produced exceptional/anomalous results very early in their careers, but Felix's predicted path doesn't look exceptional:  it looks like every other pitcher's path, simply scaled up.

I guess my question is- do these numbers say anything specific about Felix Hernandez, or are they just (regular pitcher) x 1.8?  For example, the fact that he seems to have poise/physical maturity so soon might lead one to expect his early #s will be closer to his peak than average (closer than, say, pipe-cleaner armed Zack Greinke).

I think if I were going to do a crystal ball here, I'd give two outcomes:  maybe one with frequent injuries, a few dominant seasons but lots of starts/stops; and another that's primarily healthy, Doc Gooden realized, with once-in-a-generation totals.

With respect, the above numbers look like expected mean values rather than any one particular outcome.

Felix has stated the Ms were his favorite team as a kid growing up - and sure that can change - but there's no reason to believe it's going to change as he's already said "no" to the Mets and others who came-a-courtin' (some with more $$$ than Seattle offered).

Anyway, is it too much to ask to prognosticate his career assuming he plays his entire career in pitcher-friendly Safeco for the very, very "high revenue" Ms?