Paxton to New York, Rebuild to “On”

marc w · November 21, 2018 at 12:30 pm · Filed Under Mariners 

As you’ve no doubt seen by now, James Paxton’s been dealt to the Yankees for a package of three prospects, headed by SP Justus Sheffield. We can quibble with the deal – boy can we ever! – but ultimately, moving Paxton had to be done if the club didn’t see a way to meaningfully compete in 2019.

Interestingly, at least to me, is that the M’s don’t see that pathway now, even though they look, for the most part, like they did a year ago. They thought they could compete in 2018 despite a lot of people telling them they couldn’t. They went out and won 89 games, which is remarkable, but I think unsustainable. They apparently agree, meaning they learned something about contention and their hopes for it in 2019…in the midst of actually competing for a playoff spot in 2018. I’ve given this FO a lot of grief, and they’ve earned even more of it recently, but I think that’s a fairly clear-eyed realization, even if it’s a painful one.

Fundamentally, the problem is just that the Superteams in the AL got too good too quickly. The M’s can’t exactly wait for the Astros to decline through attrition and age; they’re much younger than the M’s, and so are the cores in Boston and New York. If they can’t really compete with them over the course of the next two years (Paxton had two years of control remaining), then moving Paxton for players who’ll be around longer is the necessary move, even if it makes the team worse in 2019.

So, was this the right package of players? The industry consensus seems to be “no,” as nearly everyone has argued that the return feels light for someone of Paxton’s ability. As the game gets more analytical, the trade value (or FA value) of players whose peripherals outpace their actual runs allowed grows – the best example may be the feeding frenzy going on right now for Nate Eovaldi, a player whose ERA doesn’t scream ace, but whose stuff might. Paxton’s ERA has lagged his FIP, DRA and whatever other advanced metric you want to look at since 2016, his first year of being JAMES PAXTON, ace-type starter. There are a number of reasons why that might be, from poor defense to issues with sequencing (luck), but the thought was that nearly every team could overlook a superficially high ERA this year. If so, I wonder if this really was the best package the M’s could’ve commanded.

The headliner is Justus Sheffield, a power pitcher despite a small frame, and who features a four pitch mix. While his four-seam fastball sits in the mid-90s, it’s got extremely low spin, meaning it functions more like a sinker. His spin rate ranked 8th lowest out of nearly 650 pitchers last year, sitting right around the rate of Willians Astudillo and Chris Gimenez. Gimenez is a catcher, and Willians Astudillo is a magical gnome, but neither are front-line, fastball-first starting pitchers. The closest thing to that near him is ex-Mariner Mike Montgomery, and then, further away, Sean Manaea. Manaea is actually not a bad comp: both are lefties who were big-name prospects, and both have been traded on their way up – Manaea was originally drafted by the Royals, while Sheffield was part of the Andrew Miller deal, going from Cleveland to New York a few years back. Both feature a good slider as the best pitch/outpitch, and both pitches have similar movement and are thrown from a similar release point. And, crucially, both have struggled at times with command – Manaea’s first year in the KC system, he put up a walk rate over 10%, which wasn’t great for a college-trained pitcher. Sheffield’s struggles with walks have been more consistent, and while Manaea’s control failed him a bit in 2017, he’s largely overcome the problem. Sheffield hasn’t quite figured that out yet, as his overall walk rate last year was still 10%. This (along with his 5’10” height) is why the industry isn’t as convinced Sheffield can stick as a dependable mid-rotation starter.

The M’s are thus betting that they can help Sheffield iron out the kinks in his mechanics and figure out a way to get his stuff to play up a bit. I like the movement on his change, and 94 MPH velo with sink sounds great from a lefty starter, but he’s less of a finished product than you’d want from a top prospect who’s already made his MLB debut. To balance that risk, the second piece of the deal, Erik Swanson, is a bit more of a classic high-floor guy. Swanson’s got very good control, he’s essentially solved AAA, and has nowhere to play on the Yankees loaded club. His projections for 2019 are actually better than Sheffield’s, thanks to that lower walk rate. Swanson’s a fly-baller with great stats but without a big-time arsenal. At 25, he was going to need to be added to the Yanks 40-man roster, and it wasn’t clear that the team was going to do that for a prospect who’d rank in the mid-20s in that system. But he feels a critical, critical need for Seattle, who have essentially no upper-minors starting pitching that they’d actually want to use. He was immediately added to the M’s roster, and would easily be a top-10 prospect in the M’s system. All of that said, Swanson reminds me of some players the M’s have moved, in large part because they couldn’t figure out how to make their pedestrian stuff but great command arsenal work. I think Andrew Moore’s the sine qua non of this type, but I think Ryan Yarbrough fits the template as well. The M’s have to believe that something in their development system has changed, and that they can help Swanson succeed where Moore failed.

The final piece is OF Dom Thompson-Williams, a former 5-th rounder who’d struggled a bit in the low-minors despite being a college draft pick. He didn’t strike out much, but absolutely couldn’t hit for power in games. After a season and a half of pro ball, he’d amassed 6 HRs, which wouldn’t cut it for a tweener CF/corner OF guy. Then, last year, he knocked 22, slashing .290/.356/.517, and getting his career back on track. For the Yankees, he was an afterthought – a great pop-up guy, but who didn’t have a real place to play on the big club, and who languishes behind other OFs in a loaded system. The M’s get another crack at the old Mitch Haniger template, a CF/corner guy who’d struggled and then made big changes and refashioned himself. Yes, his K% soared along with his ISO, but the M’s simply don’t have any OFs in the system who’ve put up a line like that. That says more about the M’s system than it does about Thompson-Williams value, perhaps. I can see why the M’s wanted him included, and I can see why the Yankees shrugged their shoulders and agreed.

Next year, I’d imagine Sheffield starts in Tacoma both for service time manipulation and to hone his control. Swanson’s probably ticketed there, though he could potentially crack the starting rotation, particularly if Mike Leake is traded. Thompson-Williams would probably flank Kyle Lewis in Arkansas, but could see Tacoma by the end of the year.

The M’s are now much worse, on paper, for 2019. James Paxton must shave and then shove for New York, who now has a rotation that can go toe to toe with Boston’s and even Houston’s. My biggest worry here is not that the M’s got too little for Paxton. It’s that they weren’t really able to get as much value out of Paxton’s unreal talent. BABIP woes, injury problems, then dinger issues this year – Paxton was awesome here, but anyone who watched his 16-K game against Oakland or his duel with Gerrit Cole last July knows he was a hell of a lot better than the 3.77 RA/9 he had with the M’s, a mark that’s better than average by far, but less than he probably deserved. My fear is that New York *will* figure something out, the way Houston did with Cole, Boston did with Chris Sale, and the way the Yankees eventually did with Luis Severino. The Yankees play in a bandbox and have lower-than-average HR rates. If Paxton can limit HRs AND BABIP (and let’s be clear, that SHOULD happen given his stuff), he can be even better in pinstripes. I hate saying that, but it feels almost inevitable.

Comments

16 Responses to “Paxton to New York, Rebuild to “On””

  1. Westside guy on November 21st, 2018 1:28 pm

    I wonder if Paxton’s injury history might’ve loomed large in what other teams were willing to offer for him (not that we’ll ever really know)? I also wonder if there was a “don’t want to be left holding the bag” element to the trade, given that it sounds like there are a number of high-caliber pitchers considered available this off-season.

    But I’m glad that Jerry – or maybe the owners, who really are the ones who make these decisions – have at least demonstrated the awareness that it wasn’t going to work to just tweak the current roster and keep riding it to the end.

    Of course the open question is… does Dipoto have the chops to pull this rebuild off? I’m hoping the answer is “yes”, but only time will tell.

  2. eponymous coward on November 21st, 2018 3:11 pm

    Fundamentally, the problem is just that the Superteams in the AL got too good too quickly. The M’s can’t exactly wait for the Astros to decline through attrition and age; they’re much younger than the M’s, and so are the cores in Boston and New York. If they can’t really compete with them over the course of the next two years (Paxton had two years of control remaining), then moving Paxton for players who’ll be around longer is the necessary move, even if it makes the team worse in 2019.

    Mitch Haniger is going to be 30 heading into 2021, and if we’re talking a Cubs/Astros style controlled implosion, two years is ridiculously optimistic; four is more of a best case scenario, with a worst case being something like, well, the last 15 years of the Mariners, and the Cubs and Astros didn’t have half the league trying to do the exact same thing at the exact same time.

    Also, how is it that the Yankees, Red Sox and Dodgers don’t have to do this? Who’s to say the Cubs and Astros won’t join them for a while as continued good organizations at developing talent?

    I get what they’re trying to do but I have to be pretty sanguine about current management’s odds of pulling it off. If it’s September 2022 and the M’s are languishing somewhere around .400, it’s going to be pretty hard to keep these guys around.

  3. LongDistance on November 21st, 2018 10:37 pm

    For the next few years they should swap out their compass rose logo for a submarine.

  4. Westside guy on November 23rd, 2018 3:37 pm

    I would guess that trading Paxton also means that Diaz will be gone. I realize he’s been spectacular and mostly healthy, but the number of closers who dominate for 5+ years is pretty small – so moving him at peak value would make sense, given 2019 is a “step back” year.

  5. Grayfox3d on November 23rd, 2018 7:34 pm

    Well we’ve already gone this long with no playoffs, what’s a few more seasons gonna do..

    Go Mariners.

  6. Stevemotivateir on November 24th, 2018 5:39 pm

    The Braves apparently made a better offer, but with players further out.

    Would he demand players in the upper minors for Diaz as well? Would he get a better deal than he did for Paxton?

    It would be good to see at least one lopsided deal in favor of Seattle.

  7. qwerty on November 26th, 2018 12:18 pm

    they need to move Diaz for top level prospects for their strategy to make sense. (St. Louis for C Carson or Knizner?) Gerber could be future closer?. Use a committee next year.

  8. auldguy on November 26th, 2018 7:09 pm

    “It would be good to see at least one lopsided deal in favor of Seattle.”

    Can’t disagree, but when minor leaguers, even high minors, are involved, it takes about 4 years or so make that determination.

  9. Stevemotivateir on November 27th, 2018 11:41 am

    they need to move Diaz for top level prospects for their strategy to make sense. (St. Louis for C Carson or Knizner?) Gerber could be future closer?. Use a committee next year.

    Diaz would net much better players than Carson or Knizner, though one could serve as an additional piece.

    But Carson or Knizner for Colome straight across would seem fair.

  10. qwerty on November 27th, 2018 4:03 pm

    “Diaz would net much better players than Carson or Knizner, though one could serve as an additional piece.

    But Carson or Knizner for Colome straight across would seem fair.”

    right. I meant as priority pieces.

  11. mksh21 on November 28th, 2018 6:03 am

    There are still a number of teams that would be more than happy to over pay for Diaz. And he is the easiest thing in the world to replace. Team control be damned, it’s about fixing this wretched farm system with quality plus volume.

    With how this roster will be next year, I wouldn’t want a lights out closer nailing down games so we can win 74 games and draft 10 overall. Id love to be in top 3.

    I look at the Cubs and Red Sox and they aren’t scoring these amazing players/prospects/draft picks taking one shot and hence failure ruins the entire plan as has been with the Mariners. The Cubs were about 12 deep in projected major league capable middle infielders. The more they had, the greater chance of scoring big with a Baez etc. and they could easily deal a Castro without it affecting anything. It takes the hurt out of the ones who flame out.

    Seems like the Mariners need every decent prospect to nail it at the big league level or we are screwed.

    Segura, Haniger, Cano packaged without taking money back doesn’t bother me either. Eating half of Cano’s contract without getting a Jay Bruce back would be a huge win ever if it means dealing Haniger. None of them are going to be in their prime next time we are good and once again the team control on Haniger etc. matters little if you can get someone 7 years younger and increase the odds of getting a winning lottery ticket prospect through sheer volume.

  12. eponymous coward on November 28th, 2018 1:01 pm

    But that’s not a 2020 rebuild if you go the Cubs/Astros route. We’re talking four years. Is Jerry Dipoto going to have a job if it’s 2022 and the M’s have won 250 games the last four years?

    There’s also the problem that if 10-15 teams in MLB are all trying to tank for the next four years, you only get five 1-5 draft picks. And when 2022 comes around, there’s only 10 playoff spots (2 of which are the wild card loser). Who’s to say the M’s are going to succeed instead of just flub the rebuild yet again?

  13. eponymous coward on November 28th, 2018 1:55 pm

    So, I guess count me in the skeptics. So far, Jerry Dipoto has held the fort down OK-ish in keeping the M’s not horrible, which has value because watching 50 win baseball for years at a time is pretty terrible (though MLB is a profit machine so there’s really no penalty for that, but that’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish- we’re basically turning MLB into pro wrestling or rigged boxing with “tomato cans”).

    There’s really no evidence YET that he’s capable of being Theo Epstein or Jeff Luhno (ending up being superior at developing talent during a teardown), and he’s basically waving the flag on being Brian Cashman (being able to recharge the minors WITHOUT deliberately tanking the team on a rebuild).

    Right now banking on Dipoto being able to make the team contend in 2020-2021 when the hot play if you’re not the Yankees/Astros/Red Sox/Dodgers/Cubs is to tank is basically making a bet that Dipoto is better than about 10-15 GMs who are also tanking at identifying and developing talent. Are 10-15 GMs going to really turn into Theo? And is Jerry the one who will if all of them won’t?

  14. MKT on November 29th, 2018 6:29 pm

    Those are valid points — the route of tanking to rebuild is long and uncertain and may cost DiPoto his job. The trouble is that I don’t see a superior alternative. Maybe DiPoto is part of the problem but getting rid of him is not going to magically improve the Mariner’s future outlook.

    With out without DiPoto, with or without tanking, things look just plain bleak for the Ms.

    In some ways it’s like the way the Ms were in the 1970s and 1980s but even worse. Because in those days we could point at ownership and say that they were following a policy of do everything at the bargain basement level, keep costs at a minimum and if wins were at a minimum they were fine with that. It was easy to see that the Ms would be better if they stopped trying to be the bottom of the league. Well nowadays that Ms are bigger spenders; they do win more games than they did in the bad old days but not enough to matter.

    The Ms had one of the longer losing season streaks in MLB history from 1977-1990: 14 straight losing seasons. They’ve been better than that since then, but as we’re acutely aware are working on a streak of years missing the playoffs (though they still have a lot of years to catch up with some of the epic non-playoff streaks such as the ongoing Expos-Nats streak).

    But unlike the bad old days we can’t simply point a finger at them and tell them to spend more money. They have been. But to little effect.

  15. mksh21 on November 30th, 2018 10:43 am

    I hate this proposed trade of Cano-Diaz that involves taking back Bruce. If the Mariners come out ahead money wise GREAT! But I have no desire to see him get an at-bat during a rebuild. I’m guessing eating his contract and flipping him to someone else for some marginal prospects is the plan?

  16. LongDistance on November 30th, 2018 11:35 am

    The only way to leverage out from what would or will handcuff any serious rebuild. They are going to take it in the shorts. Nobody’s going to be thrilled. But sometimes you’ve got to fold no matter how many times you’ve raised, when you’re staring at getting wiped right off the table.

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