Who’s the ace of the Seattle Mariners’ pitching staff? Felix Hernandez has held that title for more than a decade, but James Paxton is stating his case. Let’s look at the numbers.

First, here’s their statistics just for this season:

JAMES PAXTON

Starts	Record	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
7	4-0	1.26	43.0	29	7	6	0	11	51	0.930

FELIX HERNANDEZ

Starts	Record	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
5	2-2	4.73	26.2	39	14	14	6	3	22	1.575

Now here’s their combined numbers over the past two seasons:

JAMES PAXTON

Starts	Record	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
27	10-7	3.13	164.0	163	69	57	9	35	168	1.207

FELIX HERNANDEZ

Starts	Record	ERA	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	WHIP
30	13-10	3.95	180.0	177	90	79	25	68	144	1.361

One last set of numbers I want to present are the players’ strikeouts per nine innings and wins above replacement for 2017. Paxton entered the weekend averaging 10.67 strikeouts per nine innings, which ranked 11th among the 128 pitchers with more than 40 innings pitched. Hernandez was averaging 7.43 strikeouts per nine innings, and although he’s below 40 innings, he would have tied for 76th. In wins above replacement, according to FanGraphs.com Paxton ranked fifth at 2.1, despite missing nearly a month of a season that’s just two months old. Hernandez was worth 0.1 (essentially replacement level), which would have been tied for 108th.