Big Maple Heads to the Big Apple

We finally got our first huge move of the offseason (sorry, Mike Zunino!) as the Mariners traded James Paxton to the Yankees for Justus Sheffield, Erik Swanson, and Dom Thompson-Williams. I’ll save the analysis on Swanson and Thompson-Williams for Kiley McDaniel because I can honestly say I was unaware of both prior to the deal. Here is Kiley’s piece and Jeff Sullivan’s piece, which includes analysis of both (and Jeff’s has full analysis on the deal). I’m going to focus on the fantasy impact for Paxton and Sheffield.

Paxton emerged in 2016 and has been one of the best pitchers in the league on a per-inning basis, but accumulating innings has been an issue. He has just 417.3 innings (66th-most) in those three seasons, but his 3.52 ERA and 1.16 WHIP are 25th and 17th, respectively, among the 120 pitchers with at least 300 IP. His 28% K rate is 11th and 22% K-BB is 9th. Only four pitchers best his 2.90 FIP: Noah Syndergaard (2.42), Chris Sale (2.71), Clayton Kershaw (2.72), and Jacob deGrom (2.87). In short, he’s a stud.

He’s increased his strikeout rate in each of the three seasons, peaking with this year’s 32% mark, but his ERA jumped 78 points due in large part a doubling of his home run rate from 0.6 to 1.3. His HR/FB rate nearly doubled as well, jumping from 8% to 14%. He was definitely hit a lot harder so I don’t think it can be written off to bad luck.

His barrels per plate appearance jumped to 6%, 114th out 139 pitchers with 300 batted ball events. Last year, he led baseball at just 2%. His average exit velo of 89.4 mph was 134th, up from 86.9 mph last year (76th). There are a lot of ties in those rankings, but they show that he was markedly worse. Pair that jump in how much harder he was hit with an 8-point jump in flyball rate and voila, you have a massive boost in HR rate.

He didn’t really face enough lefties to say that they were the problem. They did hit 3 HR after being shutout last year, but it was really the jump from 9 to 20 against righties that did him in. Despite that, his OPS against right-handers actually went down from .630 to .617, which just speaks to how great he is and suggests that this might not be the start of a prolonged issue. The biggest question following this trade is how much Yankee Stadium will impact him and if that HR issue will be exacerbated there.

Lefties hit .240/.289/.351 against lefty starts in Safeco with a 2% HR rate (which is just HR per PA) compared to a .223/.313/.333 and 1.6% HR rate in Yankee Stadium. Righties against southpaws in Safeco were at .256/.309/.437 with a 4% HR rate and .281/.351/.506 and 5% in Yankee Stadium. Obviously, that’s all pitchers and Paxton is much better than your average Maple, but if he remains as this 2018 iteration, he could see a similar or higher ERA.

Unsurprisingly, the fastball was the primary culprit behind the HR trouble. He allowed 6 HR in 338 PA on it last year and it was up to 20 in 509 this year with righties smacking 18 of them. The righty HR park factor for Yankee Stadium is better than Safeco, but lefties get the far bigger advantage and I’m still confident in his ability to stifle them and limit the Yankee Stadium impact.

I fully acknowledge that Paxton was definitely worse in 2018. He wasn’t unlucky to allow most of those home runs so he earned plenty of that 3.76 ERA. That said, I don’t think that just because it’s the most recent season that it’s automatically who Paxton is now. I was thinking a combination of 2017-18 with something like a 3.40 ERA/1.10 WHIP even if he stayed in Seattle and Steamer seems to agree with a 3.47 ERA/1.15 WHIP combo. He’s joining a better team, too, so he’ll be in position to top his career-high of 12 wins, set in 2017 (he had 11 this year). The bullpen and run support should be substantially better even if he’s closer to repeating the 3.76 ERA.

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Sheffield just missed my Top 100 from a few weeks back and this will likely push him closer to making it in the backend as he should have an easier path to the majors, possibly even starting the season in their rotation. I couldn’t care less about his three MLB appearances in late-September. I’m more interested in his 118 MiLB innings across Double- and Triple-A during which he posted a 2.48 ERA and 1.14 WHIP with a 26% K rate and 11% BB rate.

The control, or lack thereof is his primary issue and will keep him from being a reliable premium asset until he reigns it in… assuming he ever does that. Jeff highlighted this in his piece, showing how Sheffield managed just a 61% strike rate. It does help when you can miss bats like Sheffield and keep batters to just a .195 AVG, but major leaguers will exploit that control and command issues.

For 2019, he’s an upgraded lottery ticket for deeper leagues, but keep your expectations in check. I don’t think he needs to be drafted in 10-teamers and there should be a pretty healthy bench to take a shot in 12-teamers (say, 7-10 guys). Those in 15-teamers and of course AL-Only leagues should view him as a viable late rounder, who jumps a level of advancement and winds up offering 125 solid innings with 115-130 strikeouts on the high end.

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What’d you think of the deal? Are you boosting Paxton up your board or perhaps even pushing him down? How do you feel about Sheffield’s prospects, especially beyond 2019? Did Seattle get enough?