The Yankees Now Have a Second Ace
The free-agent market includes names like Patrick Corbin and Dallas Keuchel. There’s been chatter the Mets might be willing to trade Noah Syndergaard. There’s been chatter the Indians might be willing to trade Carlos Carrasco or Corey Kluber. But when the Mariners signaled their intent to take a step back this offseason, James Paxton became an obvious trade candidate, and quite possibly the best pitcher available. At least, the best pitcher available under realistic circumstances, since I don’t even know what it would take to pry Kluber away. Paxton rumors circulated for a couple of weeks, and now we’ve arrived at a conclusion, since Jerry Dipoto is hardly opposed to making moves in November. Paxton will be on his way to New York, where he’ll share a rotation with Luis Severino.
Yankees get:
- James Paxton
Mariners get:
Before too long, Paxton’s presence will be taken for granted, and attention will turn to the Yankees’ pursuit of still another starter in free agency. We’re seemingly always focused on what’s just in front of us, and what might be in front of Yankees fans soon is Corbin, or Keuchel, or somebody else. They seem likely to make another impact move to bolster the starting rotation. But for this moment, getting Paxton is a move to be celebrated. For a variety of reasons, Paxton has flown somewhat under the radar, but he’s a No. 1 starter, added to a team with a No. 1 starter.
One of the convenient things about obvious trade candidates is that it’s possible to write about them ahead of time, for cover. James Paxton has only just been traded today, but I said what I wanted to say about him a week ago. All of the same information applies. Paxton is 30 years old, and left-handed, and tall. He has two years of team control remaining, and he’s projected to earn about $9 million next season through arbitration. There are a lot of similarities between Paxton now and Gerrit Cole a year ago. The Yankees were interested in trading for Cole. They’ve wound up getting Paxton instead. In between, they won 100 games and lost to the Red Sox in the playoffs. It was a good season and a disappointing season at the same time.
For anyone unfamiliar with Paxton’s background, he was talented, and he was wild. In 2016, he had a mediocre spring and was demoted to Triple-A, but there, he was advised to make a mechanical change, lowering his arm slot from over-the-top to three-quarters. Better results came almost instantly. I’ll never forget the day Paxton returned to the majors. He started in San Diego and got obliterated, allowing eight runs in 3.2 innings. But he also threw hard, with plenty of strikes, and he struck out seven of 24 batters. I called the game “horrible and promising.” Paxton only got better and better.
Since there’s no reason not to, I’ll just re-post the data I put up last week. Here are a bunch of Paxton’s percentile rankings since 2016, among starting pitchers:
The lowest bar there corresponds to ERA-, which is also maybe the noisiest stat in the group. Paxton has been incredible when he’s been able to pitch. His performance has looked a lot like Carlos Carrasco’s. Here are some of Paxton’s projected percentile ranks, among starters, for 2019:
James Paxton throws hard, and he throws strikes, and he misses bats. He doesn’t allow that much loud contact. One reason he’s somewhat unknown, or underappreciated, is the fact he’s pitched for Seattle. The other reason is that he’s had injuries. The injuries are the lone blemish, as Paxton has never proven himself a workhorse.
The good news is that Paxton has never blown out his elbow. He’s also never blown out his shoulder. This past season, he made 28 starts. In 2016, he made 31 starts. But, there’s been a bad lat strain. There’s been a bad finger tendon strain. There’s been a bruised elbow. There’s been a bruised forearm. There’s been a strained forearm. There’s been a strained pec. There’s been lower back inflammation. String enough injuries together and a player ends up with a reputation. It’s a reputation that’s challenging to shake. Injuries like this aren’t always predictive, but Mariners fans weren’t shocked when Paxton had to miss a start.
That’s how this could conceivably backfire for the Yankees. If Paxton can’t keep himself on the mound, he’ll be a certain letdown. The same, however, would be true of anyone, and the Yankees might tell you many of Paxton’s injuries seem fluky. Again, he’s so far avoided the major red flags, and nothing went seriously wrong in 2018. Nothing went seriously wrong in 2016. Paxton should begin with a mostly clean bill of health, and the healthy version of James Paxton is an extraordinary starter.
In order to get Paxton, the Yankees did have to give away some youth. This is where we should look at things from the Mariners’ perspective. Paxton is 30 years old, with two years of control left. Sheffield, a lefty starter, is currently 22, with three big-league appearances. Swanson, a righty starter, is currently 25. Thompson-Williams, a lefty outfielder, is currently 23. The centerpiece here is Sheffield, who’s been ranked by Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen as baseball’s No. 54 prospect. There had been speculation the Mariners and Yankees might agree to a package including Sheffield and Clint Frazier, but Frazier’s concussion problems complicate things, to put it mildly.
The Mariners didn’t trade Paxton for a group of players down in the low minors. Sheffield is just about major-league ready. Swanson is also just about major-league ready. Thompson-Williams is a distant flier, but the two pitchers could make an impact within a few months of opening day. The Mariners are certainly worse than they were yesterday, but the hope is that the team can get younger without too deep of a reset. I don’t think the Mariners are looking for a five-year project. I think they’re looking for more of a three-year project. They’re hoping the return here can begin to pay off in short order.
Talking to Eric Longenhagen, he likes Sheffield’s raw stuff, and describes the secondary pitches as plus. The issue with Sheffield is control. It’s interesting to hear that Swanson is viewed as a back-end starter, or a multi-inning reliever. Sheffield and Swanson can both throw their heaters in the mid-90s. Sheffield has a little more zip, but it’s not as if Swanson is lacking. And here’s a comparison of their 2018 minor-league seasons, against advanced competition:
| Player | Levels | IP | ERA | FIP | K% | BB% | K-BB% | Strike% | Whiff% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pitcher A | AA – AAA | 116.0 | 2.48 | 2.98 | 25.9% | 10.5% | 15.4% | 60.8% | 12.4% |
| Pitcher B | AA – AAA | 121.2 | 2.66 | 2.91 | 29.2% | 6.1% | 23.1% | 67.6% | 12.4% |
One of those pitchers is a top prospect. One of those pitchers is a fringe prospect. Pitcher A is Sheffield — you can tell because the strike rate is low. Pitcher B is Swanson. The strike rate is much, much higher. Yes, Swanson is older by two and a half years, so you’d think he’d perform more comfortably in the upper minors, but you can look at this in two ways. Perhaps Sheffield is overrated. Or, perhaps Swanson is underrated. If Swanson can be that good in the high minors, what more would he have to do in the bigs?
Because of Sheffield’s prospect pedigree, he’ll be the one under the microscope. He’s been the guy in the top-100. He’s the guy who was drafted 31st overall. Sheffield is believed to have high upside, and the Mariners must think they can coax more strikes out of his arm. Other teams aren’t so convinced — there’s a large group of evaluators that thinks Sheffield’s future will be in the bullpen. And, as a general rule, I wouldn’t want to get too hyped on a young pitcher the Yankees couldn’t quite get straightened out. The Sheffield of right now is an inefficient pitcher. The Mariners need to help him get better. Ideally, he’d pick something up as simply as Paxton did. Except, I guess, sooner.
The quality of the trade return, then, might be determined by whether Sheffield’s strike rate ends up closer to 60% or 65%. But I’m intrigued by Swanson as a secondary value, even if most people don’t think he’s a real starter. There’s no ignoring his performance, and now that he’s in Seattle, he’s hardly blocked. Maybe he’s only cut out for two trips through the order. Maybe he’s only cut out for one trip through the order. This kind of pitcher can be valuable in the current era. The Mariners will just need to give him the innings, should he keep forcing the issue in Triple-A.
As Thompson-Williams goes, he’s 23, and he hasn’t advanced past High-A. In High-A, he struck out 25% of the time. But on the plus side, in 2016, he hit three homers. In 2017, he hit another three homers. In 2018, he hit 22 homers. He’s a long shot, but he showed some major signs of progress. In the Mariners’ farm system, he looks a lot better than he did with the Yankees.
All things considered, I’m not sure the Mariners got as much for James Paxton as the Pirates got for Gerrit Cole. Sheffield is a polarizing prospect, and perhaps the market viewed Paxton’s health with something of a skeptical eye. But maybe the Mariners got more potential upside than the Pirates did. You can go either way, and one thing we can say is that Paxton’s availability was no secret. The Mariners had a number of offers to choose from. This is the one that they chose. It remains to be seen whether the Mariners have an appetite for tearing down even further than they already have.
What they’ve traded is a couple of two-year players, in Paxton and Mike Zunino. In the Zunino move, the Mariners’ loss was the Rays’ gain. And here, in the Paxton move, the Mariners’ loss is the Yankees’ gain, with the rotation adding one of the most effective starting pitchers in either league. I don’t know how much the Yankees can do to separate themselves — no matter what, the Red Sox, Indians, and Astros are going to be very good. But it’s the Yankees who just made a major splash. James Paxton won’t be flying under the radar anymore.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
Seems a little light on the M’s side. Is it the innings ceiling? Would have thought they’d get a back end too 100 guy as well.
I feel the initial reaction to every trade these days is that the team getting the prospects is getting the short end of the deal. I wonder if that’s actually the case. Looking back on the the trades these past years, it feels like only the top end talents like Sale or Chapman gets you a top prospect. Paxton is good but he’s a #2ish starter with injury baggage. A top 50ish prospect seems about right.
You might be selling Paxton a bit short there. Steamer likes him as the 9th best pitcher in all of baseball next year.
14th in total pitcher WAR over the last three years despite the limited innings.
I don’t really want to get into the argument between FIP-based metrics which love him and actual results or even rWAR-type stats that like him a lot less. But I’m fairly certain that baseball GMs as a collective probably takes somewhat of a middle ground, if not even moreso towards actual results in terms of who they’d trade to grab said player. Chris Archer was probably the best example of this where no one paid Ace price despite Archer having incredible fWAR yet continued to underperform his FIP.
As Jeff noted in his piece, Paxton’s best comp was Cole from last year, whom the Yankees offered a prospect in the 40s range iirc, certainly none of their top prospects whom they since graduated. So either teams don’t believe that he’s the 9th best pitcher in the game, or the 9th best pitcher isn’t worth as much as people think, as evident by Cole last year.
all of the disparity lies in the contact quality he’s allowed in 2018, which is very bad. in 2017 his contact quality allowed was extremely good.
the difference between 2017 and 2018 contact quality then in turn lies almost entirely in the 20 more barrelled balls, while the non-barrel batted ball quality is the same.
seems like a case of batters having luck sitting on his fastballs more, which is potentially solvable by changing pitch mix to something more cutter and/or curve heavy.
There has been a consistent disparity year to year, including 2017, between Paxton’s runs allowed and his FIP. It’s less in 2017, but more prevalent in both 2016 and 2018. Plus as noted he’s pitched less innings per game in addition overall fewer innings to help improve his raw stats.
Also, while I do agree that the Yankees probably can get more out of him than the Mariners, we are discussing trade value here. What the Yankees may or may not do with Paxton and what the market for him are two different ideas.
2017 spread was just luck since his quality of contact was elite. this is not some guy who gets by with soft stuff.
To add…Jeff compared Paxton to Cole and Carrasco. But both of those guys averaged 6.2 innings pitched per start the past two seasons. Paxton averaged 5.7. So Paxton’s limited innings aren’t just the result of injuries. They’re also the result of him not going very deep in his starts.
In some ways the Yankees seem to be the perfect team for Paxton, given their bullpen. On the other hand, they seemed to have some issues in middle relief last year…
In 2018 Paxton had one start where he recorded two outs and one start where he recorded one out. In both cases he was pulled due to injury. Take those two starts out of the equation and his average start was 6.1 innings. It really is the injuries that limit him. When he’s healthy he’s pitching deep into games.
You can’t just make adjustments to one pitcher and not others. Carrasco, for example. also left a game after 1.1 innings due to injury. And he was pulled after only 5 innings in his last start of the season to avoid an injury before the playoffs. Adjust for those, and he’s up to 6.44 innings per start. And in 2017, it doesn’t look like Paxton left any starts super early due to injury. So his average for the past two years is about 5.9 innings per “non-left-early-due-to-injury” start.
True enough. My point is simply that if Paxton is pitching around 6 innings per start when he’s healthy, that’s above average. Carrasco pitched deeper into games, but there are other things to consider, like quality of opponents. Per ESPN RPI, the Indians had the easiest schedule in baseball, while the Mariners had the 3rd hardest. Comparing Paxton to Carrasco doesn’t feel like a stretch to me.
Carrasco drew a top 10 offense in 4 of his 30 starts.
Paxton drew a top 10 offense in 12 of his 28 starts.
It’s saying the same thing, but it’s interesting how much different it sounds when you say “GMs are valuing prospects a lot more than they used to”.
One wonders what the year over year outcomes are on Steamer.
And Steamer has Chris Archer a couple spots behind. Paxton is good, but being 30 with a career high of 160 IP would make me value him well lower than the 9th best SP. Projections don’t pick up on everything.
If James Paxton is a # 2, then there are no # 1s. Come on, Paxton is an Ace. Through and through.
That’s… nonsense. As a Yankees’ fan, I’ll put it this way: Paxton is not as good as Luis Severino, and Severino isn’t quite an ace. Like, a cut-rate ace.
As far as ace pitchers go, you’ve got Kluber and Verlander and Sale and Kershaw and Scherzer and that’s basically it. I could see an argument for deGrom but I’m just not quite able to put him there yet.
On the 2018 WAR list, Paxton finished just behind Mike Foltenywicz and just ahead of Jameson Taillon. That’s “very good #3 or serviceable #2” range, not “ace” range.
24 people don’t know the scouting definition of ace, haha!
Over the last 3 years, Paxton’s been 14th in FIP-WAR and 42nd in RA9-WAR. If you want to crudely split the difference, that comes to 28th overall – firmly a #2 guy.
Especially since innings matter, when it comes to acedom.
An “ace” and a #1 SP aren’t necessarily the same thing. An “ace” is someone you can rely on every five days to limit the opposing offense the very little production. Paxton has the performance, but he can’t be relied upon. He has averaged ~140 IP per season over the last three years. I can’t call someone with that light of a workload an “ace.”
“On the 2018 WAR list, Paxton finished just behind Mike Foltenywicz and just ahead of Jameson Taillon. That’s “very good #3 or serviceable #2” range, not “ace” range.”
But he finished ahead of Kershaw, who you listed as an ace. Last year Kershaw and Paxton put up identical WAR. So Paxton has been more valuable than Kershaw for the past two years. How is Kershaw an ace but not Paxton?
Start with the fact that we know, not think, that Kershaw has a greater impact on batted ball outcomes than FIP attributes to him.
How do we know that?
Only a year or two ago, there would have been no debate that Kershaw is a top-tier ace. But I think the current version of Kershaw is a lot different than what we’re used to. He lost 2MPH on his fastball. From 2009 – 2017 opposing batters hit between .207 and .268 against his fastball. This year it was .290.
Kershaw is still elite. All of this is to say that if your list of aces includes Kershaw, it should probably include Paxton as well.
…and thus his BABIP rose all the way to .267, as he outperformed his FIP by 0.46 runs (his career gap is 0.25) while throwing more innings than Paxton has ever managed in his MLB career.
There’s a stronger argument to be made for saying Kershaw’s no longer a true ace (top 7-12 pitcher in the MLB) than that Paxton is one, even as Kershaw is still meaningfully better than Paxton.
“If James Paxton is a # 2, then there are no # 1s. Come on, Paxton is an Ace. Through and through.”
Really dislike comments like this one. It shuts down any sort of discussion. At least lay out your definition of what makes someone an ace and then show us how Paxton meets that definition. Otherwise, your statement is basically like the classic definition of porn….
My gut says the Yankees try to get in on the Kikuchi sweepstakes and depending on the outcome take it from there.
Also agree, seems a little lighter than expected. Another sign teams aren’t as willing to give up lots of potential talent for a couple of years.
Maybe it’s just me, but it just feels like Jerry has zero interest in obtaining players with significantly high ceilings. This seems to support the high-floor approach that has gotten them nowhere since he arrived.
I really want to believe that Seattle will be a great team at some point, but when they trade one of the few elite chips they have and get back a mediocre return, how can anyone reasonably expect anything but more mediocrity moving forward?
I take discussions of ceilings with a huge grain of salt… Plenty of talented all stars were at some point branded as low ceiling. Nola, altuve, Ramirez come to mind.
Variance. Low-ceiling doesn’t mean “cannot become great”; it’s about likeliest outcomes. The exceptions prove the rule.
Low ceiling doesn’t refer to likelihood of outcomes. That would be a median projection. Low ceiling establishes an upper bound on how high a player can reach.
Minor niggle, but there are no “exceptions that prove the rule.” Exceptions to a rule disprove it, rather.
I don’t think it’s zero interest in upside as much as pursuing a Pirates-type philosophy, with the thinking that it’s a lot easier to acquire guys with 3-win upside who are close to the majors than it is to pay for guys with upside above rookie and short-season ball. I’m not wild about this approach but I can at least understand the team’s mindset, DiPoto wants to find more players like Haniger and Marco Gonzalez – players who were underrated because they’re a bit too old for any sort of prospect shine but who might be able to give the team good production in their cost-controlled years.
The problem with this mentality is that 3-WAR upside comes with 1 or 0 (or even -1) WAR downside, especially when it comes to back-end starters, while 5+WAR upside carries the possibility of producing solid, 2-3 win players even if they don’t hit their upside.
For this approach to work the Ms have to hit on at least half of the players they acquire in trade to have any sort of shot at building a good team over the next few years. They didn’t even come close to that in the rounds of loot-the-farm trading of the past few years, so I’m not very confident they’ll do any better in the sell-off-impending-FAs round.
TL:DR – there’s a method here, but I worry the most likely result is a team never good enough to contend but never bad enough to convince ownership to go the tear-down route.
This mimics his time with the Angels too. God forbid you keep someone like Clevinger in your system when the Indians come knocking with Vinnie Pestano. Jerry couldn’t resist that deal.
Yeah. I’m a little disappointed in the return for the Mariners. It’s early in the off-season. I know they tried for Whitley and the Astros weren’t having it, but part of me wonders what kind of return they could have worked out if they held out longer.
Sheff isn’t nothing, and it will be interesting to see what the Mariners can turn him into. It just feels light from the Mariners side.
Yankees fan here. I conceived of a similar deal, but it was for Carrasco, and the Yankees had to take on EE’s whole contract. This seems like an unreasonably good deal for my team.
Pretty fair return for just 2 years of an injury-prone pitcher, even one as good as Paxton. We don’t know the other offers, but clearly they preferred this one. It seems reasonable to surmise that the Yankees, as the article suggests, were willing to include Swanson before losing him in the rule 5 draft. Think both sides did okay.
He’s a number one starter if he ever qualifies as a starter. Good luck with that.
I’m with everyone else. This is looks like a steal for the Yankees. Paxton’s got health questions but he’s the exact type of guy you want in a playoff rotation, and for $9 million this year. Sheffield’s a fine prospect, but his stuff is just “good”, he’s short, and he hasn’t been super-impressive at the upper levels of the minors. The other two guys aren’t all that much.
As of last year’s THE BOARD, there are 53 prospects ahead of Sheffield. I know it’s not a perfect science or anything, but by Craig’s methodology the Yankees are projected to get about $60-$70 million in surplus value and are giving back about $30M. Dipoto pulled the trigger way too fast on this one, and you have to imagine that if this is what the market for starters is like, then (a) Cleveland isn’t going to improve their team by dealing a pitcher and (b) the D-Backs are going to have trouble giving away Greinke unless they eat half the deal (to say nothing of an actual return).
Well said. I don’t understand why the Mariners would take this deal before Thanksgiving. If this was the best offer on the table, why not wait a month or two?
Given that Stroman, Gray, Greinke, Kluber, Carrasco, and others are also available on the trade market, I could see the Ms being afraid that potential Paxton suitors would find their pitching trades elsewhere; this indeed might have been the best time for the Mariners to strike a deal.
I suppose, but I can’t imagine the market for a high end starter ever really drying up.
Obviously I don’t know, but it seems unlikely to me that the Ms could have fully explored the market for Paxton before the winter meetings even start, and I don’t think this is the kind of return you jump on immediately.
I’d normally agree with you on exploring the market, but this is DiPoto we’re talking about: considering his penchant for trades, no doubt he’s already fully explored every market for every MLB player and prospect in the Seattle organization. He’s like the baseball version of the generals who sit around in the Pentagon, war-gaming every scenario from an Icelandic first strike in World War III to a Chinese tank invasion of South Africa.
Ha! Perhaps, like those generals, the desire to actually use one of those plans can sometimes overcome good sense?
Edit: now I am compelled to spend the rest of the evening watching Dr. Strangelove. Could be worse.
it’s not just one guy impulsively making decisions by himself – some of you act like DiPoto just called the Yankees, got this offer, then made the deal just like that
maybe it worked like that in the 70s or even 80s, but teams aren’t that dumb anymore and this is solid info on the value teams place on Paxton for one reason or another
I think that you’re both right–Dipoto almost certainly struck because he was afraid of the market drying up, AND that’s a truly silly thing to worry about. Every playoff contender (except Cleveland) needs a guy for the playoff rotation, and those guys don’t grow on trees. I am pretty confident that a deal like this–an FV50, an FV40, and an FV35–would be on the table in a month, or two months, etc.
Or they have Sheffield as a 55 (like MLB.com does) and Swanson as a 45+ (…like MLB.com does).
Yeah, but MLB.com has grade inflation compared to BA / Fangraphs, which is where the list was standardized. Using MLB.com rankings, you’d have to use different values for an FV55.
And even if you don’t do that, it still comes out badly for the Mariners! Then it’s $40M going back to the the M’s, compared to $60M-$70M going to the Yankees.
I think there is legitimate critiques of Craig’s system, but even then, it’s not enough to overcome that big of a gap.
Are you accounting for the $20m in salary Paxton will be getting?
Or that his career SIERA and xFIP are considerably closer to his ERA than to his FIP?
If they love Sheffield, value Paxton’s true talent as closer to a good #2 starter than his FIP would indicate and think they’ll never be able to count on Paxton for even 180 innings a season, the deal makes a lot more sense.
And I’m a Yankees fan, haha.
This. Swanson and DTW seem to be underrated by most everyone commenting here. The Yankess have one of the deepest farm systems in baseball and Seattle just got their #1, #11, and ~#20 prospect (per the rankings in the upcoming BA Prospect Handbook) and the #20 guy (DTW) is a player type that DiPoto and the Mariners seem to have had success with (see Haniger, Mitch) — the athletic, toolsy OFer that underperforms then makes a few swing tweaks which lead to significantly improved performance. The Mariners love these underappreciated prospects. They got a similar guy from TB in the Zunino deal in Jake Fraley.
Carrasco and Kluber are both a) better and b) under control for longer, so I imagine either one gets more.
I’d say Kluber might be better in his current form, but not by much going forward, and Carrasco is worse.
Kluber’s velocity has also steadily trended downward.
I would imagine that Kluber, at least, would fetch more. But in either case, it’s hard to see how (at this rate) Cleveland can improve their team by dealing them.
Sheffield’s stats have been excellent in the upper minors and his “stuff” is graded as “explosive” almost across the board, but okay. Fangraph’s rates him worse than any other service and even they have him as the #54 prospect. BA have him in the high 20s while BP had him high 20s/low 30s.
I find it interesting that the Yankees are a team with both high-spin pitchers – Severino, Chapman, Betances, Robertson, and Green – and low-spin pitchers too – Tanaka, Sabathia, and now Paxton. Is the front office onto something again?
More like the Yankees saw an opportunity to fleece a team for a proven #1 starter.
Don’t read too much into spin rate. This was Cashman abusing ol’ Jerry.
Serious question because of the up votes – I assume there is some meaning or idea here that I’m missing. And I love market deficiencies and shrewd planning . It’s my jam. But isn’t this something every single major league team can say? How does having both high spin and low spin mean they’re on to something? Not to douse us in hyperbole, but isn’t that akin to saying “The Yankees are a team with RHP.. BUT.. Also with LHP. Those tricksters.
Wonder what they know”.
Some pitchers have high spin. Some have low spin. Some throw over-the-top. Some throw from a 3/4. Some are LHP. Some are RHP. Some are black. Some are white.
I don’t see the correlation. What could the Yankees be on to with this?
Seems to me they’re just targeting good pitchers. I don’t claim to be an expert on spin rate but my limited understanding is that high-spin and low-spin are good for different reasons and middle-of-the-pack is bad.
They also seem to then have their pitchers pitch to their strengths, ie the high-spin guys are throwing a lot of fastballs (Green and Chapman are among the highest in the league), whereas the other guys are throwing relatively few (Tanaka and Sabbathia are, sometimes beyond, McCullersing). As you mention, certain pitches benefit from low-spin, good splitters, like Tanaka throws, seem to be in that group. If they change Paxton at all, I’d bet on them having him throw fewer 4-seamers.
The pitcher they seemed to struggle with finding a more optimal pitch repertoire with was Sonny.
And Tommy Kahnle
Kahnle’s struggles have more to do with his being a pure stuff guy who lost 2-3 mph on all his pitches
He may not have any serious red flags, but a forearm strain is at least a serious yellow flag. Even with the yellow flag seems like a great trade for the Yankees.
Tanaka has somehow avoided TJ despite his own forearm injury. I wonder if the Yankees’ medical staff thinks they can similarly keep Paxton healthy.
I don’t understand the urgency to trade Paxton now, especially for this return. If the market isn’t where you would like it to be, just wait until the deadline. If you don’t want to assume the injury risk, you can still wait out the winter.
Waiting until the deadline is a bit of a risk given his injury history. It seems like they didn’t want to take that risk, or didn’t want to pay his salary this year just to not compete. With a large FA class, and not a lot of contenders, they likely feared potential suitors could dwindle fast this offseason. They went for the less risk/less leverage route.
Waiting for the winter meetings is a risk for a guy like Paxton. He’ll strain a lat shoveling his driveway.
Also, shout out to Calliesdad who ate about 47 downvotes last week for saying Andujar, Frazier, and Adams wouldn’t be in this package.
Baffling article. Paxson is not close to an ace. Wish him luck, but this is an even trade. Paxson Will give yanks 10 good starts, if they are lucky, 12 or 13.
The only thing baffling is your comment, is almost as if you haven’t a clue about the stats and peripherals Paxton has put up over the past few years (which was clearly evidenced in the article in easy to comprehend graph form for you) such as having TWO sub 3 FIP seasons in the past few years. The author also explicitly said when he’s been healthy he clearly has pitched like a #1, and if he CONTINUES to stay largely healthy ( he’s made 24 and 28 starts the past two years, and even still 20 in 2016) then there is absolutely no reason to believe he will make a mere 10-12 starts for the Yankees, in fact everything has been trending upwards for him since 2016. Honestly it sounds like you’re a salty Ms fan.
To be fair Fungo4444 said Paxton would give the Yankees 10-13 “good starts”. He/she didn’t say anything about the overall number of starts Paxton would make.
Has his FIP trended downward though? xFIP, yeah. What about his GB%? Or his HR issue last year? Is SEA more cavernous than NY?
Seattle’s home park (the park formerly known as SafeCo) is extremely friendly to LHP in terms of limiting HRs. Over the past 5+ years, it has been one of the toughest parks for right-handed hitters to homer in, particularly early in the season before the weather warms up.
And, of course, most parks are a lot more cavernous than YSIII, haha!
Haha! My point. His HR issue this past year is something to watch next year.
Innings matter.
He’s an elite talent, definitely, but no player who’s never thrown 170 innings as a professional can be described as “an ace.”
I guess the Mariners really love Sheffield.
And/or went “OMG 0.42 ERA in AA” when they looked at Swanson.
To be fair, most every scout in the league loves Sheffield. He’s a Top 20-30 prospect.
Someone else flagged this, but is this just Dipoto’s fondness for the bird in the hand (two guys who pitched in AAA) and not prioritizing ceiling? Ie, the 3rd guy isn’t even a high potential lottery ticket / tool-shed in A ball that sometimes turns into something more (see Neftali Feliz in the Tex-ATL deal) .
Dipoto’s explanation for this phenomenon has always been that he inherited a farm with a severe shortage of upper level talent so he’s had to prioritize those kind of guys over lower level fliers, while strip mining Seattle’s own lower levels just to tread water at MLB and AAA. And I think that’s basically been the correct strategy. That said, he did say at the end of last offseason that they finally had restocked the upper levels enough to where they could start focusing on higher upside younger guys. So it’s hard to know what to make of this deal. Maybe the water he was treading turned out to be deeper than he thought. Or maybe he just liked this deal the best out of what was on the table. Add it all up and there’s a clear pattern of essentially farming out player development to other orgs, which is obviously not at all sustainable but it’s the choice he made with the core and the system he inherited and I think it’s defensible.
I think that’s a completely fair take to date on Dipoto’s actions, but if you’re making the decision to tear-down on the fly, at some point, you have to prioritize higher-ceiling talent acquisition, no (and its possible Sheffield is that person – Keith Law for example, loves him ) ?
Overall, trading Paxton is de-facto giving up on 2019, and acknowledging a lower probability in that year (the Mariners aren’t gonna conjure up acknowledgine 5 win pitcher) in order for increased probability in 2021-2023. Ie, the Paxton + Zunino deal both suggest a bridge to the future; the team will win ~75-80 games next year without them, so at least one of those deals should have at least one high value chit; instead, the “ticket” in the Smith deal was a 23 year old 2B in A ball (who might be a solid utility player), and the ticket here was a 23 year old OF in… A ball. Just seems strange from a risk probability standpoint as well, unless Dipoto is looking to compete again in the 2020/2021 timeframe (which he might well be!)
I think Dipoto knows he isn’t going to be around if it takes 5 years to rebuild. So he’s trying to do a quick rebuild, which almost certainly isn’t going to work.
The ownership seems 100% behind DiPoto (though we’ll have to see how this new scandal plays out). The owners have vetoed an Astros-esque full tear down. Even if they wanted to go that route, that have 7 more years of Cano on the books plus Seager/Gordon. Those contracts probably aren’t going anywhere and are eating up too much money for anyone outside of the NYY/BOS/LAD tier to just eat and move on.
The Mariners don’t need to “conjure up” a 5 WAR pitcher. Paxton has averaged ~3.9 WAR per year over the past three years. Marco Gonzalez just “conjured up” similar value (3.6 WAR) from seemingly out of nowhere last season. If you told me that Sheffield and Swanson could average Paxton’s 3.9 WAR value between the two of them by 2020 or 2021 (when, by DiPoto’s own admission they plan on being competitive again), I wouldn’t think you were all that crazy.
This makes sense if you are trying to compete for the next couple of years. But this idea of getting guys with 4+ years of control while not planning to compete in the next 2 years only works if you have a group of guys coming up in the farm system to supplement the trades. With the entire system barren, the Dipoto is virtually ensuring .500 seasons (for good and bad) for a long time, and no clear way to improve beyond that. This whole strategy is ill-conceived.
I completely agree with this, but I think DiPoto’s response would be that we’re underrating the very top of the farm system and he sees Lewis and White as impact guys by 2020.
It’s not a good response – GMs tend to believe in their process and thus overrate the players they picked via that process – but I think that has to be at least part of his thinking.
I don’t think the “entire system” is barren. The Mariners have some solid prospects, they just aren’t MLB-ready. Evan White and Logan Gilbert are probably 2020 guys. Julio Rodriguez, who seems to have Top 100 upside, is probably 2021. Same with Sam Carlson who will lose all of 2019 to injury. Kyle Lewis is a late-2019 or 2020 guy if he can stay healthy. Sheffield and Swanson are their only good prospects with definite 2019 ETAs (Braden Bishop might be in that group as well depending on what you think of his prospect status). I think it’s interesting that every one dumps on Seattle’s farm system. Swanson was NYY’s #11 prospect and will probably be SEA’s #9 prospect this year. With Sheffield moving over, Seattle probably has more high-end prospects than NYY as well, now. The Seattle farm isn’t exciting, but it’s not empty.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/post-2018-farm-system-rankings/
It’s bad. It’s really bad. Before this trade, they had four actual prospects (the first four guys you mentioned), a bunch of filler, and Kyle Lewis (who looks totally broken). None of the four actual prospects can be characterized as elite; they’re just the only ones with obvious futures. With the failure rate of prospects of all stripes, it’s safe to say that no help is coming.
Mariners traded immediate value for long-term control and, given, that they they decided to punt next season, it seems as though Cashman realized that, from the Mariners’ perspective, they were really only giving up one season of Paxton
that’s just wrong
That thinking only works if there’s only 1 buyer. The Yankees aren’t just paying the cost to the Mariners of losing Paxton, in isolation (accepting your premise that the Ms put less value on his 2019 performance). They were paying for two years of Paxton, bidding against other teams who also wanted two years of Paxton.
I think Faberge eggs look dumb and wouldn’t buy one for myself at any price. If one fell into my lap and was mine to sell, I’d sell it for whatever the market will bear. I’m not giving anyone a discount because I think it’s silly that they want to spend their money on an old jeweled egg.
Damn Yankees!
Excellent analysis Jeff. As a huge Yankee fan I’m elated. I feel Sheffield is a bit overrated. The numbers don’t match the hype. But Swanson is a bit underrated, so he should be a regular starter for the M’s. As far as Paxton goes, he is absolutely elite. There is a bit of injury concern but he made 28 starts last year. And he is a cheap salary for a terrific pitcher. I was hoping they would get Paxton as opposed to Kluber, who is older and has seen his best days. Great trade Yankees. Great analysis Jeff.
Sheffield just posted a sub-3.00 FIP to go with a sub-2.50 ERA across AA/AAA despite being 2-4 years younger than his competition. How much more do you want from him in terms of “the numbers?” Paxton’s number of starts is deceiving as he often doesn’t pitch deep into games. He also left two starts in the first inning, I believe. He has averaged just under 140 IP per year over the last three years. I can’t imagine the Yankees or their fans being all that happy if they get something like 280 innings from Paxton over the next two years despite that being the most likely scenario.
“He doesn’t allow that much loud contact” Paxton was bottom 2% in barrel% and hard hit rate and bottom 4% in exit velocity, seems like a lot of loud contact when contact is made
But the “when contact is made” part is the key – bottom 2% in barrel% and hard hit rate = self-evidently doesn’t allow much loud contact. Sure it’s good contact *when* made, but just *wasn’t made* that much. (At least based on the figures you cited, presumed last season.)
I think he means “Bottom 2%” as in, “The top have the lowest barrel% and hard hit rate.”
as a yankee fan i love this trade. got a top SP in all of baseball for one top 100 guy. you do that every single time. i’d love to see them keep the foot on the gas pedal and go after carrasco still, but i think corbin is the next target, and ultimately the one they end up with.
there was a report last night from a somewhat credible source that the indians wanted both sheffield and florial in a trade for carrasco, and the yankees were unwilling to put florial in the deal so they instead get paxton. my preference was carrasco, but you cannot go wrong with either one.
It wasn’t just a “Top 100” guy. It was the #1 guy in your farm system (and a Top 25-30 guy overall) plus the #11 and #20 guy in your farm system. Giving up three of your top 20 organizational prospects is tough, even if you have a deep system.
Geniunely curious – is anyone concerned for Paxton’s hard hit rate? Was looking into his Statcast data and noticed he’s very high on lists for barrels, hard hit rate, etc for the past two seasons. Don’t see too many people discussing it – so I’m wondering how much weight that carries/may carry heading into hitter friendly, Yankee Stadium
Yup. How were his GB% and HR/FB% last year? Not good, Bob.
There’s also a ton of variance in those numbers though. Year-over-year contact quality is almost always pretty random with a few exceptions.
Variance, of course, but was this not the lowest or second lowest GB% of his professional career? But some are willing to overpay for a great postseason of less than 20 IP for Eovaldi.
To me this deal really hinges on how good Swanson ends up being.
And health! Paxton’s health.
Making 15ish starts a year = meh, that’s a lot to cover for.
Making 30ish starts a year = probably a great get for NY.
Good trade for both sides, assuming Paxton can stay close to healthy. As usual, Cashman gets exactly the player for the Yankees that he wanted, and he didn’t overpay for them.
Cashman is the best GM in baseball.
I hate to say this, but I’m right there with you. He gets underrated because he’s had the luxury of playing with monopoly money his whole career, but man what a track record of sustained success. That he’s kept this up in the new era where virtually no young stars reach free agency – and players are breaking down in their early 30s far more frequently – pretty much cements him as an all-time great.
As a Yanks fan…the crown still goes to Theo, haha.
Paxtons finish last year is a big red flag. Yanks might have got Pineda’ed again
Yanks won that deal, big time.
How many HRs does he give up at Yankee stadium? 23 in a 160 innings at Safeco,Yikes!
Seems to me that Seattle has traded an “inefficient” pitcher on Jeff’s terms, prior to 2016, and aged 30, for an “inefficient” pitcher who is considerably younger. And, of course, one who is still “inefficient.” And they got what looks like a very useful BP piece, and a future 4th OF in return. Which, considering that the Mariners can probably write off 2019 and 2020, what with the other teams in the division, is not absurd.
What _is_ absurd is doing this deal now, in mid-November. It’s hard to see how this isn’t at the bottom end of possible Paxton trade deals. And it’s hard to see, given club control, how the downside of waiting until July to trade him would not recoup roughly the same results.
What if Paxton’s annual month on the DL comes next July?
Gerrit Cole was younger, cheaper (not a Super Two), healthier and had a longer track record (gap of 5 career WAR heading into this season).
He fetched a similar return in January…and I actually like Sheffield and Swanson quite a bit more than Musgrove and Moran.
Sale and Quintana were unicorns in terms of trade value, thanks to their contracts.
Miller and Chapman were similarly unique cases, due to the Indians’ and Cubs’ WS droughts.
None of those deals should be used as a realistic expectation for future trades.