James Paxton Lands Softly in Seattle
A few days after signing Ken Giles to bolster their bullpen of tomorrow, the Mariners signed a free agent who should help the team this year, and it’s a big one for Seattle fans. On Saturday, the M’s agreed to a one-year, $8.5 million deal with James Paxton, with incentives that could bring the total outlay to $10 million. With spring training just a few days away, it’s a reunion that makes a lot of sense for both parties.
Paxton was originally drafted by the Mariners in 2010 and worked his way through the organization to make his major league debut in 2013. A litany of injuries prevented him from making an impact during the first three years of his major league career, but he broke out in 2016 when he suddenly started throwing 97 mph. He was traded to the Yankees prior to the 2019 season and was a solid presence in their rotation that year, but the injury bug struck again in 2020, limiting him to just five starts. Now, he returns to the Mariners and will share the rotation with the headlining prospect — Justus Sheffield — that came to Seattle from New York in that trade two years ago.
Paxton’s ability to stay on the mound has always been a lingering concern. The last time he made it through an entire season without at least one trip to the injured list was 2013, when he made a full slate of starts for the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers and then made his major league debut in September. Last year, it was a strained flexor in his left forearm that sidelined him (that after offseason back surgery). The year before that it was a knee injury. He’s also dealt with arm contusions, back inflammation, and muscle strains in his fingers, arm, and torso. If you were to map out the parts of his body that have been hurt, the entire left side of his body would glow red.
With such a long list of injuries in his past, including a fairly serious one last year, it shouldn’t be surprising to see him accept a deal that would have been a serious underpay just a year ago. Craig Edwards ranked Paxton 13th overall and the fourth best starter in this year’s crop of top free agents and estimated he’d be able to pull down a one-year deal worth $15 million; the median crowd estimate landed on that figure too. A long injury history didn’t stop Atlanta from signing Drew Smyly to a one-year, $11 million contract, but he threw more innings in 2020 and ended the year healthy. Paxton’s injury risk was high enough to give teams pause.
Based on Jeff Zimmerman’s research into injury trends, which has found that previous injuries, particularly to a pitcher’s throwing arm, are the leading indicator for predicting future injuries, Paxton is pretty likely to find himself on the injured list again. The 32-year-old lefty obviously has a lot of MRIs and flexible braces in his past, but his most recent forearm strain was the first injury to his throwing arm since 2017, if you discount a contusion he suffered in ’18 after getting hit by a batted ball. All the other injuries, while serious, have been to other parts of his body. But even if the lack of recurring arm injuries is a good sign, the fact that he simply can’t keep his entire body working is a significant concern.
Paxton’s fastball velocity, meanwhile, was a huge issue in 2020. After his velocity spiked in 2016 at 97 mph, he settled in around 95.5 mph over the next three years. Last year, though, his fastball was the slowest it’s ever been in his career, averaging just 92.1 mph; in fact, his entire repertoire took a dip velocity-wise. The forearm injury that cost him most of the season was probably primarily responsible for that.
Despite that, Paxton was still able to hold his strikeout rate right around where it’s been since 2017. All of his pitches continued to generate obscene amounts of whiffs, but the problem was when opposing batters made contact — a recurring problem in his career. When he elevates his fastball up in the zone, it’s been an extremely effective pitch for him. But if his location is off by a hair, those fastballs often get left out over the plate. Last year, he threw more pitches above the middle of the strike zone but below the lower edge of the shadow zone than ever before. And on pitches thrown inside the upper shadow zone, opposing batters were nearly as effective against them as they were against pitches thrown over the heart of the plate.
| Pitch Vertical Location | Pitch% | wOBA | xwOBA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.5 ft – 3.16 ft (Heart) | 26.1% | 0.488 | 0.304 |
| 3.16 ft – 3.83 ft (Shadow) | 10.7% | 0.350 | 0.292 |
Without the extra margin for error afforded by his elite fastball velocity, all those elevated pitches became much more crushable when they came in three miles per hour slower.
In a December showcase, Paxton’s fastball reportedly reached 94 mph, which is an encouraging sign for the Mariners. Seattle is also planning on using a six-man rotation this season, with the hope that the extra day of rest for the rotation should alleviate some of the injury concerns. Paxton will be stepping into an environment that’s already set up to protect the health of its starters, and because he’s already familiar with Seattle — and has a strong connection to the fanbase there — signing a one-year deal to reestablish his value was a no-brainer.
For the Mariners, Paxton gives them a high-ceiling starter that they’ve sorely lacked since he left two years ago. It’s also an indication that the front office doesn’t view 2021 as a completely lost season. Seattle won’t be mistaken for a true contender just yet, but if enough things break right, and if the right youngsters continue to develop, and if Jarred Kelenic makes an impact immediately, the wide open AL West could be a target this summer. That’s a lot of ifs that would need to come true, but giving Paxton a one-year pillow contract doesn’t upset the rebuild timeline all that much, and gives the rotation a significant boost … if he can stay on the mound.
Jake Mailhot is a contributor to FanGraphs. A long-suffering Mariners fan, he also writes about them for Lookout Landing. Follow him on BlueSky @jakemailhot.
Injury concerns or not, it’s interesting Smyly, who has never been as good as Paxton when healthy, is making more money. Paxton is a legitimate ace type arm when he’s out there, even if he’s never even topped 160 innings. Smyly…is not.
I’d guess the calculus is that the reward of elite Paxton for 160 innings is not great enough to offset the downside that he might have a UCL reconstruction before spring training is over. I think teams value 2 WAR over 2.5 WAR and -0.5 WAR even if they’re the same.
Paxton slots more as a #2
If he’s your 2 it’s cause you have a phenomenal 1.
I feel like there are enough definitions of #1, #2, #3 starters that if you don’t define your terms it’s not going to make a lot of sense to others. Me, I always thought of him as a #2 (4 win-type pitcher over a full season).
Would have been a worthy risk for the Mets but maybe he just preferred going to the Mariners though Heyman said the Mets were outbid, which shouldn’t happen.
With the Matz trade, it seemed like they were all set to add an arm with more upside. Then, when they missed on Bauer, Paxton seemed like the obvious fit. But they couldn’t or wouldn’t beat this offer?
Puma just tweeted the Mets offered Paxton six mil just ridiculous.
Given the Mets’ existing nucleus, having $85m to spend before reaching the soft cap, and the multitude of holes on their roster, Alderson has had a dismal offseason. It seems incredible that it’s hardly clear the Mets are better than the Braves.
Has Alderson even improved the team’s abysmal defense? Lindor at 27 is not clearly better in the field than Giminez, and using OAA it’s likely that the apparent plan to use Davis as the primary 3Bman, Smith as the primary LFer, Alonso remaining at 1B, and Nimmo as the primary CFer means that the only real improvement on defense is McCann replacing Ramos behind the plate. They may have actually gotten worse at 2-4 positions.
That’s an abysmal offseason wrt defense, particularly with Pillar ranking 41st there among 49 qualifying CFers in 2019 and 31st among 39 CFers in 2020.
Alderson also missed out on all 4 premium FAs, and once again has a very thin rotation. Is he really aiming to give half the team’s starts to Peterson, Lucchesi, McWilliams, Gsellman, Yamamoto, and an iffy Syndergaard? It’s impossible to imagine a top 10 GM at the head of the Mets having an offseason like this.
Between robinhood, the shuttered twitter account, and the Mets ongoing blunders in their FO Cohen’s starting to look a lot like the Wilpons, only with more cash.
Or, if they are out of contention (likely) and Paxton is healthy (less likely), he could be flipped for a very good piece or two at the trade deadline.
Exactly. “It’s also an indication that the front office doesn’t view 2021 as a completely lost season.” This is silly.
High ceiling pitchers with a lot of question marks like Paxton are exactly the kind of players that appeal to non-contenders because they can afford to have a longer leash for Paxton to figure it out.
I am a little surprised that the teams that were in on Kluber but lost didn’t top this. The Twins would have been an especially good fit. But for any team, especially the Mariners with their past connections to him, this is an absolute no-brainer at this price.
Especially since the price was only $500k more than Happ. Ugh.
Happ is probably going to be okay eating innings at the back end of a rotation, but he doesn’t offer any help once you get to the playoffs. While the Twins aren’t by any means a lock to get to the playoffs, I would have preferred Paxton’s upside.
I agree, if it had to be one or the other. For a contending team, both seems like the best answer.
Is there something that we don’t know about Paxton? Teams gave Smyly $11m, Kluber $12m, and Garrett Richards $10m. That last one seems insane to me. Paxton looks practically indestructible compared to Richards
The only thing I can think of as to why Richards got more money than Paxton is that the Red Sox think Richards isn’t as much of a health risk as his injury history would suggest since he finally had Tommy John and was healthy last year.
I’ll take the guy who hasn’t had TJ surgery yet and only had a Grade 1 UCL tear, over the guy who has torn his UCL twice (Grade II opted for stem cells, Grade III got TJ), missed a year with nerve irritation near his bicep, and also missed a year after requiring knee surgery on a torn patellar tendon. Paxton’s back injury is concerning but he seems as recovered from that as Richards is from TJ, and I feel like arm injuries are a bit more damaging for a pitcher.
Oh there’s also the matter of Paxton being a higher ceiling pitcher. Seriously, who in their right mind would pick Richards over Paxton? Richards has barely pitched in over 5 seasons!!! Gaaah…I’m a Red Sox fan. I can only imagine how Twins fans feel. Happ!!!!!!????
The Mariners are quietly getting close to being a contender. With Paxton they have a pretty decent pitching staff. All they lack to seriously contend is the hard part which is a few stars to carry the lineup.
Bit of a *cough* recency bias here *cough*. For the record, Paxton consistently threw in the high 90s throughout his minor league career. I sat in the stands for several of his early major league games where he sat at 98 mph on the stadium gun. There was nothing ‘sudden’ about his velocity in 2016; he always threw at max velocity, and reliably sustained that up to 100 pitches a game. That said, he has edged down in velocity in the last several years, with the back and arm issues surely contributing.
Then the ‘he’s always injured’ is true but false. Until the back surgery, he has NEVER had a major injury. The things that happened were real, and cost time, but they tended to be fluke things. He lost the middle part of a season to a torn fingernail that wouldn’t get right. He tweaked his knee tripping during a drill, and lost something like six weeks. And so on. The arm injury is concerning, sure. And he’s at an age where costly injury is more likely. But he does not have the kind of injury history up until 2019 that should be seriously concerning.
I’ve never liked his conversion to a high fastball pitcher. His later pitching coaches in Seattle pushed him in that way, and yes, his K numbers rose a good deal with that. His HR/9 has come close to tripling with that, and his GB numbers, which once were incredibly good, have collapsed. He’s a fly ball pitcher now, but not ‘better’ than before.
Paxton has never really solidified, or even approached, the ceiling that his pitches and ability to throw hard and long seemed to imply. I would expect that to continue, unfortunately. That said, he’s an upper rotation starter, and a LHP too. He’s as likely to have an All Star season as he is to go down with a major injury, but probably won’t do either. He’s the only reason why I might actually buy a ticket to see the DiPoto Poo Piles, though.
Kyle Lewis, Kelenic (by mid season) and Sheffield don’t intrigue you? Personally, I hope Ljay Newsome can make the Tewksbury extreme-command-without-great-stuff thing work.
Do we know if he has a no-trade clause? Seems like a guy the M’s would look to flip if they’re out of it come July (and he’s healthy).