The 2020 Seattle Mariners have been weirdly successful this season, and you don’t have to look any further than their No. 1 pitcher Marco Gonzales to prove that point. Gonzales is the No. 1 pitcher by default on the squad, but has bolstered his case with a rather nice year, tied for No. 20 in the league in fWAR at 1.5.

In a normal year, Gonzales would be on pace for a six-fWAR season, blowing past his career-high of 3.7, which he recorded in 2019. Gonzales has, for the most part, faced talented offenses for a majority of these outings. He has two games against the AAA+ Rangers, one in which he dominated and one he did not. His six other starts include three games against the Angels (No. 10 offense by wRC+), and one game against the Padres (No. 2), Dodgers (No. 5), and Astros (No. 15). In his eight appearances this season, he has two poor, one mediocre, and five good starts.

Looking at Gonzales’ stats, a lot of his numbers are similar to last year. He owns a LOB% of 69.2, same as last season. His ground ball rate is down a bit and his HR/FB is just a shade up. He’s using his fastball and cutter more, and he has relaxed a bit on his changeup. Gonzales has never been an overpowering pitcher throughout the minors, and when he was traded for Tyler O’Neill back in the day, it seemed like offsetting a high-risk/high-reward prospect with a middle-of-the-road/unfinished-basement-height-ceiling pitcher.

There is one area in which Gonzales has improved this season–he has cut down dramatically on the number of walks. Go figure, the less guys you put on base, the less runs are scored. Prior to 2020, Gonzales averaged 2.44 walks per nine innings. This season, that’s down to 0.71. He has a grand total of four walks on the season, and hasn’t issued more than one free base in a game this season. That, along with a new trick of being less hittable in general, has helped lower his WHIP to a career-low 0.87.

Interestingly, Gonzales has achieved this despite the fact he is throwing fewer first-pitch strikes than he did last season (65.7% in 2019 vs. 62.8% in 2020). After that, Gonzales has seen a bit of better success. Last season, he owned a second pitch 1-1 count/0-2 ratio of 1.69:1. This season, it is 1.14:1.

Although the first-pitch strikes don’t come as often, Gonzales does a better job of refusing to issue a free pass when he’s behind in the count. This season, of the 73 batters faced in a 1-0 count, only three have earned a walk (4.1%). Last season, in the same situation, his walk rate was 13%.

This season, Gonzales is better at staying in overall front of hitters in the count, which every baseball armchair analyst knows is the most efficient way to get those outs. Here is a quick rundown of his BABIP on specific counts vs. last season.

The difference on the 0-2 counts between his 2019 and 2020 seasons is stark, largely because he has punched up the number of strikeouts from an 0-2 count by a large margin.

So what the heck is going on with Marco Gonzales? How has a borderline generic pitcher gone from a perfectly fine middle-of-the-rotation guy to someone who deserves the No. 1 spot on many teams and the No. 2 spot in the best rotations?

At its heart, it probably comes down to the fact that Gonzales is just pitching smarter and better. He’s always thrown strikes, but now he’s throwing good strikes. According to Baseball Savant, he is above the league average for pitches in the zone and is placing those pitches better. Nearly 50% of his pitches land at the edge of the zone (league average is 39%). It used to be that Jamie Moyer was the flawed comp for every soft-tossing success story. The modern version, and maybe an attainable goal, is Kyle Hendricks. (Gonzales leads qualified pitchers in BB/9; Hendricks is one tick behind him.)

It’s a bit of a boring conclusion, but Gonzales is a bit of a boring pitcher. In his  unassuming, Hisashi Iwakuma-like way, Gonzales has emerged as a legitimate front-end starter. Next season he begins the first year of a four-year, $30-million deal that is team-friendly at the beginning. The Mariners have a nice piece of the rotation in Gonzales, or if the rebuild fails, a solid trade piece to dangle in future seasons.